Review: ‘Anne Boleyn’

The Bible, as anyone knows who’s ever opened it, is fairly bursting with sex. From Old Testament stories of kings and concubines, to New Testament tales of reformed prostitutes and virgin mothers, sex is pretty much everywhere. But who knew how big a role sex played in the creation of the longest lasting and best-loved…

Happy Deathday, Shakespeare!

“A man can die but once,” wrote William Shakespeare in “King Henry IV, Part II.” That’s true enough, but few among us can hope to have our one-and-only death remembered – or our lives and accomplishments celebrated – a full 400 years after the fact. One can’t say the same about Shakespeare. This weekend, to…

Review: ‘The Andrews Brothers’ (with a bit of musing on the perplexing popularity of the ‘jukebox’ musical)

QUESTION: When is a play not a play? ANSWER: When it’s a concert. Plays, generally speaking, have plots. And concerts, generally speaking, um . . . don’t. That’s the argument some have made against the rise (and strange popularity) of so-called “jukebox musicals,” the cutely coined nickname for stage shows consisting primarily of a catalog of songs…

Interview: Jesca Hoop on growing up in Santa Rosa, being a “misfit loner,” and appearing this weekend at Main Stage West

“The Loner Stoop.” That, laughs singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop, now of Manchester, England, was her name for the space just outside the theater department at Santa Rosa High School. It was in the early 1990s, when Hoop, who describes herself as a less-than-overachieving student, found an unexpected place of acceptance at SRHS. “That spot outside of…

Bard Party: Local stages celebrate 400 years of William Shakespeare

On April 23, William Shakespeare will have been dead for exactly four full centuries. “This is so exciting,” says Leslie McCauley, director of Santa Rosa Junior College’s upcoming presentation of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night.’ McCauley’s enthusiasm has less to do with 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death than the fact that her new Shakespearean production will be…

Reviews: ‘Silent Sky’ and ‘All My Sons’

(This review originally appeared in the North Bay Bohemian) Two commanding dramas—one a classic, one destined to be—are now playing in the North Bay. Each is worth discovering. In 1948, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons became his first critical hit. Not an easy show to pull off, Miller’s ingeniously unfolding post-WWII drama gets a solid, emotionally truthful…

Review: ’10 Cloverfield Lane’

Three people are trapped in a bunker underground after what may, or may not, be a massive nuclear or chemical attack on America. Unless, of course, it’s an alien invasion. Or an attack by giant monster like the one in ‘Cloverfield,’ the genetically related predecessor to ’10 Cloverfield Lane,’ which was filmed in relative secret…