“The specific vibe and character of Film Fest Petaluma has always been inextricably linked to the character of the downtown Petaluma area,” explained Michael Traina, Santa Rosa Junior College film and media instructor, and director of the annual short-film showcase Film Fest Petaluma. “Spending a day in a place like this, that’s certainly…
‘Sometimes,” muses actor Mark Bradbury, “you play a character you just don’t like very much.” Over the last 12 years, he says, after appearing in more than 30 shows, Bradbury has portrayed his share of unlikable people. “With those guys,” he notes, “you have to work extra hard to find something you connect with. Then…
Colorful costumed fish appear to swim across the stage (with the help of clever roller-skate shoes). Seagulls fly and mermaids swim (thanks to ‘Peter Pan’ style rigging). Huge waves splash and crash, octopus women grow to six times their normal size (using massive screened projections) and six-foot strands of seaweed bob and wiggle in time to the music (dancers dressed…
For several years, the lack of strong roles for women has been the talk of the theater world, lighting up blogs and theater-related websites. The issue has inspired debate, discussion and outcries of gender inequity. It has even provoked a spate of incendiary protest art like Courtney Meaker’s ‘That’swhatshesaid,’ in which the author compiled into one outrageous solo piece all of the…
It is pointless to argue whether or not Disney’s “Live Action” version of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book‘ is a good movie or not. It is. It engages its audience from the first images of young Mowgli swinging through the jungle, pursued by some unseen danger. The combination of nostalgic connection to the beloved 1969…
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…
“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…
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…
For one full year, director Bennett Lasseter has been touring the world, visiting film festivals from Hollywood to Cannes in support of his award-winning short family drama “Stealth” – as it has racked up a pile of rave reviews and audience accolades. To Lasseter, a Burbank resident, it has been quite a ride. But through…
“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…
