It’s time for this critic to take an end-of-year look back at local theatre. To start, I’m happy to report that no theatres closed in this area. As a matter of fact, there’s a new company in town with the formation of Petaluma’s Mercury Theater. So, continuing on that positive note, here, in chronological order,…
Dear Santa, I know it’s been a few years since I last wrote you a letter, but there’s a sense of fear and anxiety permeating the world right now about what the New Year will bring and the possibility that by the end of 2025 you’ll be in jail for not giving Donald the landslide…
From the very first word uttered on stage in POTUS or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive’, it’s clear you are in for a very atypical Sonoma County theatre presentation. The word is number four on George Carlin’s list of seven dirty words, and you will hear it, along…
Napa’s Lucky Penny Community Arts Center opened just about ten years ago with a production of Lionel Barts’ classic musical Oliver! The musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist has long been an audience favorite since its debut at a Southwest London theater in 1960. It’s a big show, in many ways, and not the…
Old-fashioned holiday musicals don’t get much more old-fashioned than Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. The David Ives and Paul Blake adaptation of the 1954 film that starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen runs at Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse through Dec. 22. Fans of the film won’t be disappointed as it’s a faithful…
Theatergoers in search of a big dollop of holiday nostalgia would do well to seek out the Spreckels Theatre Company production of It’s a Wonderful Life – A Live Radio Play. The Condiotti Experimental Theatre at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park hosts the Jenny Hollingworth-directed show through Dec. 15. Based on Frank…
Audiences headed for a performance of the Raven Players’ production of Cinderella who are expecting anything along the lines of a Disney musical are in for a bit of a surprise. This particular production, running at the Raven Performing Arts Theater in Healdsburg through Dec. 1, is done in the style of a British pantomime,…
Several hundred costume-clad theatre goers filled the Santa Rosa Junior College’s Burbank Auditorium on Halloween night for the opening of their production of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show. This was quite a change from my initial Rocky Horror experience in 1978 when my brother and three of our friends were joined by just one…
Reviewing a mystery/thriller is always a challenge. One wants to leave a play’s twists and turns for the audience to discover on their own, but in evaluating the play one can’t but help give a bit away. This is my way of saying this entire review should be prefaced with a ‘spoiler alert’. You have…
As a graduate of a University Theatre Arts program, I well remember how important it was to have an audience fill the seats at our performances. Having an audience, a real audience (not just one composed of friends and family and students looking for some easy extra credit for their English class) made all the…
North Bay Stage and Screen 