Silliness takes the stage at Dominican University’s Forest Meadows Amphitheatre as the Marin Shakespeare Company presents Monty Python’s Spamalot. It’s the company’s first full musical production in thirty years. “Lovingly ripped off” from the Python’s 1975 cult classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it’s the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the…
The Ross Valley Players conclude their 89th season with a production of Crimes of the Heart, running in Ross through August 11. Beth Henley’s tragicomedy won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was followed by a film adaptation starring Sissy Spacek that nabbed three Oscar nominations. The Magrath sisters have gathered at their grandfather’s…
The chances of Legally Blonde showing up on anyone’s list of ‘great American musicals’ are as likely as the chances of a UCLA sorority President with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion Merchandising really being admitted to Harvard Law School. Based on the 2001 novel by Amanda Brown and film starring Reese Witherspoon, it’s the…
The Marin Shakespeare Company opens its 30th season with Measure for Measure. The Bard’s take on justice and mercy would seem to be a perfect fit for a company that brings their Shakespeare for Social Justice program to eight California State Prisons. Officially labeled as a comedy, it’s considered by some to be one…
“Where is my cat?” So begins the saga of Wink, playwright Jen Silverman’s long gestating play whose title character is said cat. Written in 2013, it’s had several staged readings across the country (including one in 2014 at San Francisco’s Cutting Ball Theater) and is now in its fully-produced world premiere run at the Marin…
The members of a James Dean fan club reunite twenty years after his death in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, the latest Novato Theater Company production running through June 9. It’s set in the Kressmont Five and Dime in West Texas, just a stone’s throw from where James Dean…
Who knew that an employee break room could be such a fertile setting for compelling theatrical drama? First, David Harrower set his harrowing Blackbird in a nameless one, then Samuel Hunter (The Whale) set his fascinating A Bright New Boise in the break room of an Idaho Hobby Lobby. The College of Marin brings Boise…
The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘jazz’ as a type of music of black American origin characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm. The same definition could be applied to Nambi E. Kelley’s Jazz, her theatrical adaptation of Toni Morrison’s 1992 novel of the same name. Awoye Timpo directs the Marin Theatre Company…
The venerable Ross Valley Players have a long history of presenting new works to their audiences. In 1984, they initiated the Ross Alternative Works (RAW) program, dedicated to staged readings and full productions of original works by Bay Area playwrights. This season brings Scott & Zelda: The Beautiful Fools, running now through April 28. Written…
In the pantheon of great American musicals, one would be hard-pressed to find Clark Gesner’s You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown on the list. What began as a concept album in 1966 soon transmogrified into a very successful off-Broadway show that never really cut it on Broadway. Its first run in 1971 lasted less than…
North Bay Stage and Screen 