It’s been a long time since I’ve sat in a theatre and heard an audience laugh as loud and as long as I did at a recent performance of The Play That Goes Wrong, which has a ridiculously short run at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco through August 18. The premise is…
My guests on the Thursday, August 15 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were director Jessica Headington and actor Eyan Dean from the 6th Street Playhouse production of The Book Club Play. Click below to listen: **********
Adhering to Mark Twain’s advice to “write what you know”, Napa Valley’s Barry Martin has written and directed a play based on his experiences in the wine hospitality trade. The Tasting Room, running now at the Lucky Penny Community Arts Center through August 18, is his comedic take on the individuals found on both sides…
Silliness takes the stage at Dominican University’s Forest Meadows Amphitheatre as the Marin Shakespeare Company presents Monty Python’s Spamalot. It’s the company’s first full musical production in thirty years. “Lovingly ripped off” from the Python’s 1975 cult classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it’s the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the…
Summer used to be the season for Shakespeare ‘al fresco’ but with the shuttering of the Shakespeare in the Cannery Program last year it seems be in shorter supply these days. Still, interested patrons can find a couple of shows at opposite ends of the North Bay to satiate their seasonal appetite for the Bard.…
The Ross Valley Players conclude their 89th season with a production of Crimes of the Heart, running in Ross through August 11. Beth Henley’s tragicomedy won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was followed by a film adaptation starring Sissy Spacek that nabbed three Oscar nominations. The Magrath sisters have gathered at their grandfather’s…
In comedy, timing is everything and two North Bay theatre companies have timed productions of the same comedy to run concurrently. The Cloverdale Performing Arts Center and SRJC’s Summer Repertory Theatre program are presenting Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of The 39 Steps. Based on the 1915 adventure novel by John Buchan and the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock…
The chances of Legally Blonde showing up on anyone’s list of ‘great American musicals’ are as likely as the chances of a UCLA sorority President with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion Merchandising really being admitted to Harvard Law School. Based on the 2001 novel by Amanda Brown and film starring Reese Witherspoon, it’s the…
The Marin Shakespeare Company opens its 30th season with Measure for Measure. The Bard’s take on justice and mercy would seem to be a perfect fit for a company that brings their Shakespeare for Social Justice program to eight California State Prisons. Officially labeled as a comedy, it’s considered by some to be one…
After filmmaker Mel Brooks took Broadway by storm with his musical adaptation of The Producers, he hoped lightning would strike twice with the same approach to Young Frankenstein. It didn’t. Young Frankenstein ran for about 2,000 performances less than its predecessor and while The Producers rang up a total of fifteen Tony nominations (winning a…
North Bay Stage and Screen 