Local theatres seem to be in a New York state of mind with two very different shows set in the Big Apple running on North Bay stages. 6th Street Playhouse brings the somewhat ironically titled Wait Until Dark to their Monroe Stage while Left Edge Theatre puts their audiences somewhere Between Riverside and Crazy. Wait…
It’s been more than two decades since 21-year-old college student Matthew Shephard was kidnapped, beaten, tortured, tied to a fence and left to die in a remote area near Laramie, Wyoming. The savageness and “How could it happen here?” nature of the crime grabbed the world’s attention and Shephard’s funeral and subsequent trials of the…
Healdsburg’s Raven Players have announced the cancellation of the Thursday, October 24 evening performance of The Laramie Project. Artistic Director Steven David Martin released the following statement: “Due to the unpredictability of the Kincade fire, the poor air quality in Healdsburg, and with an abundance of caution, we are cancelling this evening’s performance of The…
The term “MacGuffin” was popularized by film director Alfred Hitchcock to describe objects or events that took place in his films that were necessary to begin the plot and motivate the characters but were essentially irrelevant. It may be harsh to refer to a baby as a MacGuffin, but the title character in Luna Gale,…
There aren’t a lot of plays that explore Native American history or the modern-day social and political issues that continue to challenge that community. Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Sovereignty, running at the Marin Theatre Company through Oct. 20, attempts to do both in about two hours. Sarah Ridge Polson (Elizabeth Frances) returns to the Cherokee Nation…
Halloween comes early to North Bay stages with two productions more commonly seen around that particular holiday. Monte Rio’s Curtain Call Theatre recreates The Haunting of Hill House through Sep. 28 while Healdsburg’s Raven Players present the serial-killing comedy Arsenic and Old Lace through Sep. 29. Shirley Jackson’s 1958 novel The Haunting of Hill House…
When something becomes popular enough to be successfully parodied, what made the original source material so popular tends to be forgotten. Case in point – the British murder mystery as exemplified by the works of Agatha Christie. Christie wrote 66 detective novels (many featuring the characters of Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot), 14 short story…
Jonathan Spector, the award-winning, Oakland-based playwright of ‘Eureka Day,’ playing through September 22 at Rohnert Park’s Spreckels Performing Arts Center, will be attending this Saturday evening’s performance of his award-winning comedy-drama. Spector has recently returned from New York City, where ‘Eureka Day’ – which premiered last year at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre – had its East…
While technically not set in a courtroom, Tom Topor’s Nuts, running now at Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theatre through Sept. 29, has all the elements of a classic courtroom drama – a defendant, a judge, a prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney, and witnesses. However, the question of Innocence or guilt of a crime is not…
My guest on the Thursday, September 5 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon was Lois Pearlman from the Pegasus Theater Company’s ‘Tapas’ New Short Play Festival. Click below to listen: **********
North Bay Stage and Screen 