There is no more quintessential piece of American theatre than Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Written in 1938 and set decades earlier, Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning look at the inhabitants of small-town America has become a staple of school drama programs and community theatres. The Novato Theater Company has a production running through February 16. The play’s…
There are three kinds of people. The people who love Thornton Wilder’s classic play “Our Town,” the people who hate it, and the people who’ve yet to decide because they’ve never actually seen a production of it. For the record, I’m one of the first ones. I love “Our Town.” I can even quote whole…
The specter of World War I rears its ugly head once again on a North Bay stage with the Sonoma Arts Live presentation of Enchanted April. Matthew Barber’s adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s 1922 novel runs through February 9. Lotty Wilton (Katie Kelley) dreams of escaping a grey and dreary post-war England and a loveless…
While reward often requires sacrifice, best not to forget that hard work and persistence are required as well. That’s one of the takeaways from Bay Area-based playwright Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky. The historical drama is being presented by the Ross Valley Players in Ross through Feb. 9. Gunderson’s look at America’s first female astronomers predates…
My guest on the Thursday, January 22 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon was Larry Williams, director of the Sonoma Arts Live production of Enchanted April. Click below to listen: **********
Plays and films set during World War I are few and far between, at least compared to those that use the Second World War or Vietnam as a framing device. It’s been a little over a century since the Armistice, and while there have been a few books and films on the subject – like…
It’s Christmas Eve and a family readies their home for guests. Gifts are placed under a tree. Food is prepared. Mass will be attended. Millions of Americans will do the same. This is the first Christmas this family will spend as American citizens. Eight years after fleeing Iraq, Noura (Denmo Ibrahim), Tareq (Mattico David) and…
My guests on the Thursday, January 15 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were Argo Thompson and John Craven from the Left Edge Theatre production of Heisenberg. Click below to listen: **********
Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theatre kicks off the New Year with Simon Stephens’s Heisenberg. The two-character dramedy about a May – December romance runs through Feb. 2. The title does not refer to either character, but to German physicist Werner Heisenberg. The Nobel Prize winner is best known for his 1927 uncertainty principle that, in…
Compared to neighboring counties, Marin has relatively few regularly-producing theatre companies. Ah, but quantity does not equal quality as my ‘Top Torn Tickets for 2019’ list proves. Here, in alphabetical order, are the best and/or most interesting works done in the past year by that handful of Marin-based companies: A Bright New Boise (College of…
North Bay Stage and Screen 