There’s no doubt about it. Whenever Sonoma County residents talk about Alfred Hitchcock, and the extraordinary films he made here, the conversation almost always alights on “The Birds,” the classic shocker Hitchcock filmed in Bodega in 1963. That cinematic flight of horrific fancy is not the only movie Hitch helmed in the area, however. In…
It’s a strange conundrum. Theater audiences, when polled, frequently say they’ve grown weary of seeing the same shows trotted out every few years. What they want, they say firmly with convincing resolve, is something new. And yet time and time again, when companies do bring something fresh and original to the stage, audiences stay home. Just…
“This is so sad! I feel like I should take a picture—my very last time standing inside the Cinema theater!” So remarks Ben Burtt, standing near the massive screen at Corte Madera’s legendary Century Cinema theater (the “Cinema”), just moments before a Mill Valley Film Festival screening of Star Wars: A New Hope. As he looks…
Most stories that appear to be about death and dying prove to be all about life and living. They just use the inevitability of death to cast comparative light and shadow on the many joys and pitfalls of being alive. In Jane Anderson’s deliciously rich drama The Quality of Life, playing at Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater, four…
As Cinnabar Theater prepares to launch its new show on Oct. 14, all involved are aware that “The Quality of Life,” from award-winning playwright and screenwriter Jane Anderson, is not an easy play to describe in a single word or sentence. The play tells the story of a conservative Christian couple from the Midwest who…
“I like language,” says Amy Adams, addressing the audience at Corte Madera’s Century Cinema on opening night of the 39th annual Mill Valley Film Festival. A second after saying it, the award-winning actress smiles, then laughs lightly, as if suddenly aware that praising language while in the very act of using it, is, if nothing else, a symmetry worth…
“Imagine a cross between Waiting for Guffman and Night of the Living Dead,” says director Nick Sholley. “Well, that’s Zombietown.” Opening this weekend at Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theater, Tim Bauer’s 2009 comedy is a clever blend of horror movie spoof and social-theatrical satire. If that sounds like a strange mix, it is, and that’s the point. While the…
This weekend was supposed to mark the Sonoma Music Festival’s 30th year and second at its new location at the Field of Dreams. But after slow ticket sales forced cancellation of the three-day event last month, the future of the local festival favorite is very much in doubt, according to its founder and producer Bruce…
Three years ago, when a report was published claiming that more than 800 Santa Rosa Junior College students were essentially homeless, theater instructors Laura Downing-Lee and Leslie McCauley began envisioning a future theater project formed around exploring the issue. This weekend, Leaving Home, opens a two weekend run in the Newman Auditorium. A “devised theatre…
“Growing up, I was always interested in ghosts and UFOs, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, all of that stuff,” says filmmaker Tom Wyrsch, of Petaluma, writer-director of the soon-to-materialize “Haunted Sonoma County.” “But out of all of those things, ghosts always seemed the most possible. I think there’s something about the idea of ghosts,…
