Review: “Hand to God” in Santa Rosa

After twenty-two seasons (and counting) of TV’s South Park and fifteen years of Broadway’s Avenue Q, audiences may be somewhat desensitized to youngsters dropping F-bombs or puppets vigorously engaged in coitus. Prepare to be re-sensitized.    Robert Askins’s Hand to God, running at Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theatre through November 11, adds blasphemy to the…

Review: “God of Carnage” in Novato

In the past month, North Bay stages have been occupied by vampires, ghosts, a Thing, and Transylvanian transvestites. The Novato Community Playhouse now finds itself overrun with the most ghastly, heinous, and horrifying creatures ever to set foot on a theatrical stage. I am referring, of course, to white upper middle-class parents, the featured monsters…

Review: “Blithe Spirit” in Napa

If you’re wary of attending the latest splatter fest at your local multiplex and seeking a kinder, gentler Halloween season entertainment, Napa’s Lucky Penny Productions brings you Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit, running through November 4. It’s an old-fashioned ghost story laden with Coward’s acerbic wit and charm. Author Charles Condomine (Tim Kniffin) is researching the…

MTJA Announces Award Winners at Third Annual Celebration of Sonoma County Theater

San Francisco North Bay theater artists gathered Monday night at the Juncture Taproom and Lounge in Santa Rosa for the Third Annual Marquee Theater Journalists Association Awards. Seventeen awards were given to local theatre artists and productions whose nominations were culled from the sixty-six Sonoma County productions attended by members from September 1, 2017 through…

Review: “Twelfth Night” in Ross

Around in one form or another since 1930, the Ross Valley Players have long been entertaining local audiences with a mixture of world-renown classics, Broadway hits, and contemporary plays. Notably missing from their decades-long season’s lists has been anything written by William Shakespeare. The opening production of their 89th season rectifies that. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night…