by Barry Willis * San Francisco Playhouse has launched another incisive play from the talented Aaron Loeb, whose dark comedy Ideation went from a much-praised local phenomenon to a weeks-long run off-Broadway. That production was a disturbing look into the world of business consultants tasked with creating a foolproof way to dispose of millions of…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Ray of Light Theatre’s Urinetown: The Musical opened on July 31 in San Francisco and has been filling The Barbary Stage with wildly enthusiastic audiences ever since. This show, with music and lyrics by Mark Hollmann and book and lyrics by Greg Kotis, has everything going for it: dazzling staging,…
by Harry Duke * Sandy Rustin’s The Cottage, now running at the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center through August 16, has all the hallmarks of a classic Noël Coward comedy: an early 20th-century setting, an English countryside abode, philandering spouses, lots of drinking and smoking, and witty banter delivered in British accents. That it was written…
by Barry Willis * San Francisco’s Ray of Light Theatre is giving Urinetown, the Musical a lot of love. Both a spoof of its own musical genre and an exploration of persistent social and environmental problems, the Tony winner by Mark Holmann and Greg Kotis is a tremendously engaging sharp-edged but blunt-force production running through…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Sonoma Arts Live’s season-closing Once Upon a Mattress holds plenty of delights. This Tony-award nominated 1959 musical with a book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller & Marshall Barer and lyrics by Barer and music by Mary Rogers runs through August 2. Based on the ageless fairy tale The Princess and…
by Cari Lynn Pace * Hairspray is the Tony Award-winning, Broadway-busting musical based on the same-titled 1988 movie by John Waters now running at San Francisco Playhouse. With a book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, Hairspray soars with music by Marc Shaiman and clever lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Whittman. Masterfully directed by Bill…
My guests on the 06/25/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were cast members Tyler Anthony and Phoebe Pruitt from the Raven Players production of Little Shop of Horrors. The musical comedy runs at the Raven Performing Arts Center in Healdsburg through July 12. Click HERE for more info.
My guests on the 06/18/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were stage director Elly Lichenstein and dramatic coloratura soprano Michelle Allie Drever from the Mercury Theater/Pocket Opera co-production of Giacomo Puccini’s La rondine. The opera runs in the little red schoolhouse on the hill in Petaluma through June 28, then travels…
My guests on the first of two “Theatre Thursday” segments on The Drive on 95.5 FM on 06/11/26 were director Michael Tabib and cast member Lisa Posternak from the Curtain Call Theatre production of William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. The comedy runs through June 20 at the Russian River Hall in Monte Rio.…
by Barry Willis * Fantasy and reality collide headlong for a married woman in Laura Wade’s Home, I’m Darling at Sonoma Arts Live through June 21. Ashley Kennedy stars as Judy, half of a contemporary British couple who have transformed their home into a pastiche of 1950s kitsch—aqua-colored refrigerator and TV, starburst clock, martini glasses,…
North Bay Stage and Screen 