Review: “The Cripple of Inishmaan” in Santa Rosa

The renovation and remodeling of Santa Rosa Junior College’s 80-year old Burbank Auditorium is now complete. The venerable 600-seat theatre has been reconfigured into two performance venues; a 400-seat proscenium arch space and a 200-seat 3/4 thrust studio theatre. The JC’s Theatre Arts Department, which has had to take their shows “on the road” for…

Review: “The Glass Menagerie” in Ross

In the pantheon of great American plays, Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie is surely in the upper tier. Perhaps the most personal of Williams’ works, its name recognition, small cast, simple setting, and straight-forward storytelling have made it a staple of community theatres. Its ease of staging, however, belies its complexity and the quality of…

OSF’s ‘Bring Down the House,’ parts 1 and 2

  Bring Down the House By Rosa Joshi and Kate Wisniewski Adapted from William Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy   The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is drawing close to wrapping up its ten-year-long commitment to staging all of Shakespeare’s plays within a single decade. That’s 36 shows in ten seasons, with crowd-pleasers like “A Midsummer…

Season Announcement Parties in the North Bay

It used to be that when a theater company announced its next season of shows, they did so in a mailer. Sent through the actual, you know, mail. But that was long ago. Eventually, thanks to technological innovations, such announcements went on to be made via the internet, through website updates, email campaigns, and then,…

North Bay Theatres React to Public Health Concerns

Numerous North Bay Theatre companies have reached out to their subscribers and potential theatre-goers to address their concerns about attending productions in the wake of the Coronavirus. Theater companies, many of whom operate with very thin margins, are assuring their audiences that they are taking all the recommended steps to ensure the health and safety…

Review: “The Last Ship” in San Francisco

The plight of British laborers dealing with the changing economic world in the 1980’s has been a major plot element in a number of successful musicals. From the redundant steel workers of The Full Monty to the striking coal miners of Billy Elliot, the issue of (mostly) men dealing with job elimination often took a…