Top Ten Torn Tickets

Another year of theater has passed, and I’ve got a cigar box filled with torn ticket stubs. It’s time to reflect on the shows that moved me most to laugh, cry and change my view of the world. I present, once again, my 10 favorite theatrical experiences of the last 12 months. ‘Bondage’ (AlterTheater) Gorgeously written by…

Review: “The Santaland Diaries” in Santa Rosa

Some plays, not surprisingly, get a little old after a decade of repetition. Others, miraculously, get better. The key, as evidenced by David Yen’s 10th annual performance of David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries, at Left Edge Theater, is changing things up from time to time. Adding a fully stocked bar to the set one year, and using…

Review: “Daddy Long Legs” in Sebastopol

If you like A.R. Gurney’s popular two-person play “Love Letters”, you’re going to love “Daddy Long Legs”, a musical adaptation of the 1912 novel by Jean Webster. Set at the turn of the 20th century, it’s the story of the relationship between an orphan and her mysterious benefactor as told – well, actually, sung –…

Review: “Bakersfield Mist” in Santa Rosa

In 1992, a retired truck driver named Teri Horton paid five dollars for a painting from a southern California thrift store to give as a gag gift to a friend.  An incomprehensible series of dots, blotches and streaks, her friend refused her gift and Horton ending up trying to unload the gangly canvas at a…

Review: “Mary Shelley’s Body” in Sebastopol

“Am I supposed to be retelling my creature’s story or confessing my own?” asks Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein and the protagonist in Petaluma playwright David Templeton’s latest theatrical piece “Mary Shelley’s Body,” now in its premiere engagement at Sebastopol’s Main Stage West. Templeton, the Argus-Courier features editor, whose previous plays are autobiographical, ventures…