Bard Bud – Raven Players’ Steven David Martin on Shakespeare, outdoor theatre, and the twist he’s brought to “Twelfth Night”

After bringing live theatre to Healdsburg’s Downtown Plaza recently with a successful run of Woody Guthrie’s American Song, the Raven Players return to the West Plaza Park with some ol’, reliable Shakespeare al fresco. They’ve been producing Shakespeare (or Shakespeare-ish) plays there for a few years now and have a production of Twelfth Night running…

Preview: “Woody Guthrie’s American Song” in Healdsburg

The Raven Players bring live outdoor entertainment to Healdsburg’s Downtown Plaza with their production of Woody Guthrie’s American Song: A Truly American Musical. Peter Glazer’s adaptation of the writings and songs of “America’s premiere folk poet” runs weekends July 1 through July 10. The show, which premiered in 1988, has Northern California roots as playwright…

Review: “The Book of Will” in Healdsburg

William Shakespeare, who wrote a couple of plays, never had one actually published in his lifetime. They existed, often in pieces, in hand-scrawled scripts and in the memories of the actors who performed them. If not for Shakespeare’s friends and colleagues’ efforts to preserve his work for posterity, high school drama students would have a…

KSRO Interview – The Raven’s “ScripTease”

My “Theatre Thursday” guests on the January 27 broadcast of The Drive with Steve Jaxon on KSRO were Steven David Martin, Artistic Director for Healdsburg’s Raven Players, and Gabriel Fraire, playwright, for a discussion about the Raven Players Scriptease program and the January 31, 2022 staged reading of John and Gabriel Fraire’s Cesar Died Today.…

Review: “Fully Committed” in Healdsburg

“Fully Committed” is the term a pricey New York restaurant demands its reservations clerks use to inform potential guests that there’s no room for them at the table. It also describes what an actor has to be to take on 40 characters in a solo show that centers on the harried life of one of…

Reviews: “Twelfth Night” in Mill Valley & “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” in Healdsburg

For theatre lovers who prefer their Shakespeare ‘al fresco’ – or for those who are still hesitant about venturing inside – two North Bay companies are presenting free outdoor productions of Bard-centric plays. They are adhering to all city, county, and state COVID protocols and the casts and crews have been fully vaccinated. Mill Valley’s…