Playwright Ayad Akhtar burst on the theatrical scene in 2013 with Disgraced, a searing drama about identity politics and Islamophobia which earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2016, Marin Theatre Company presented Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand, a play that took on capitalism and Islamic fanaticism. Gender issues in the Islamic community are the…
In a recent Letter to the Editor of the Bohemian, a theatre patron decried one North Bay company for its tendency to program shows with dark themes that portray men and women at their worst. The patron then went on to suggest attending a then-running show at Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theatre. That patron may…
Sometimes the most interesting dramas are the simplest – a single set, a few characters, a conflict. “Naturalistic” plays, as they are sometimes referred, were the result of a movement in late 19th century European theatre to enhance the realism of plays with an understanding of how heredity and environment influence an individual. The most…
My guests on the Thursday, February 14 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were Elizabeth Craven and llana Niernberger from the Main Stage West production of After Miss Julie. Click below to listen: **********
“Satire,” said American playwright and humorist George S. Kaufman, “is what closes Saturday night.” That quote came to mind as a I sat in the audience at the Super Bowl Sunday matinée of Impeaching America at the Belrose in San Rafael. Actually, I was the audience at that particular performance. The allegorical political satire by…
“Who are you?” That’s the opening line from Laura Eason’s Sex with Strangers, running now through February 17 at Left Edge Theatre. It’s a question that lingers throughout the Diane Bailey-directed production. In the good ol’ days, getting to know someone meant hanging out, dating, talking on the phone for hours, etc. With the advent…
My guests on the Thursday, February 6 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were Elly Lichenstein and John Shillington from the Cinnabar Theater production of Underneath the Lintel. Click below to listen: **********
To see or not to see? That is the question. Anyone with even the slightest interest in theatre has probably seen a production or two of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in their lifetime. Considered by many to be Shakespeare’s – if not the world’s – greatest play, it’s one-third ghost story, one-third dysfunctional family drama, and…
My guests on a special Wednesday, January 23 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were Keith Baker and Eric Thompson from the Spreckels Theatre Company production of Hamlet. Click below to listen: **********
When playwright August Wilson passed away in 2005, he left behind a body of work that has become a staple of the American theatre. As much a documentarian as a poet and author, the ten plays (Jitney, Fences, et al.) of Wilson’s Century (or Pittsburgh) Cycle chronicle the twentieth century African-American experience mostly through the…
North Bay Stage and Screen 