A Chorus Line really isn’t done much by community theatres these days. The 1976 multi-award-winning musical requires about two dozen experienced dancer/singers to fill out the cast; a requirement that’s tough to fulfill. If you’re gonna do it, best to start with a director with over four decades of experience in dance and choreography and…
In his ‘Director’s Notes’ for the Lucky Penny Production of Into the Woods, James D. Sasser discusses why directors often try to bring different approaches to popular works beginning with the old axiom that ‘familiarity breeds contempt.’ For someone who, in the role of theater critic, sees upwards of sixty shows a year, it’s a…
Theatregoers with a hankering for a classic or the desire to see something new have two productions running that fit the bill. Cinnabar Theater presents the 50-year-old classic Cabaret. The Kander and Ebb musical, which has gone through significant changes via numerous revivals since its 1966 debut, is the tale of two couples whose lives…
Like an Elizabethan game of whack-a-mole, as soon as North Bay theatre companies knock out one outdoor summer Shakespeare production, another one seems to pop up. Marin Shakespeare brought us Pericles at Dominican University’s Forest Meadows amphitheater, the Raven did A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Healdsburg’s Seghesio Winery, and Shakespeare in the Cannery did Shakespeare…
Relationships are front and center in two very different shows now running on North Bay stages through August 19. The Cloverdale Performing Arts Center is presenting Heroes, playwright Tom Stoppard’s translation and adaptation of a 2003 French play about three World War I vets in a retirement home. Gustave (Robert Bauer), Henri (Peter Immordino), and…
Relationships are front and center in two very different shows now running on North Bay stages through August 19. Healdsburg’s Raven Players have converted the cavernous Raven Theatre into an intimate black box performance space and are presenting an updated version of 1996’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. The Joe DiPietro and Jimmy…
Transcendence Theatre Company’s seventh season of “Broadway Under the Stars” continues with a dance-centric production entitled, appropriately enough, Shall We Dance. The show runs through August 19 at Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen. Transcendence imports Broadway and national touring professionals to populate their productions so the caliber of performance is always quite…
‘Tis the season for Shakespeare al fresco so pack a picnic, grab a blanket and check out these North Bay productions: Marin Shakespeare closes out its season under the stars with Pericles, a play whose authorship by Shakespeare has fostered many a debate. Plot points include incest, assassination, famine, a shipwreck, marriage, maternal death, familial…
Jukebox musicals have become the bread and butter for a lot of community theatres. Minimal casts, simple sets and the built-in audience that comes with a show about a popular singer or musical group are tough for an artistic director to resist. In 1988, playwright Ted Swindley took 27 songs recorded by Patsy Cline and…
The Hunchback of Notre Dame was originally scheduled last season at the Spreckels Theatre Company. The musical, whose development started in Germany and ended in New Jersey (having never made it to Broadway), is an atypical Disney production. More Les Misérables than Little Mermaid, it’s an interesting amalgam of Victor Hugo’s gothic novel and music from…
North Bay Stage and Screen 