Marin County’s venerable Curtain Theatre returns to the Old Mill Park Amphitheatre in Mill Valley for their more-or-less annual offering of Shakespeare al fresco. This year it’s Two Gentlemen of Verona, what many consider the Bard’s first (but still lesser-known) play. If you find Shakespeare difficult to follow, fear not! The plot is fairly simple…
Fall is usually marked by the local theatre community with a series of ambitious announcements heralding the shows each company plans to produce for their new season. COVID continues to be a factor as companies optimistically make plans while struggling to fill casts and schedule rehearsals. Some companies have reacted to the continued uncertainty surrounding…
Audiences who don’t mind leaving a theatre a bit unsettled would do well to check out the West Coast premiere of Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside at Mill Valley’s Marin Theatre Company.The Jasson Minadakis-directed show runs through June 19. The lights come up on a solitary female figure. “A middle-aged professor of undergraduate Creative Writing…
The Mountain Play returns to the Cushing Memorial Amphitheater atop Mount Tamalpais with a boisterous production of the Jerry Herman classic Hello, Dolly! Directed by Jay Manley, the quintessential American musical runs Sundays (and one Saturday) though June 19. Matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi (Dyan McBride) has been hired by well-known Yonkers, New York half-a-millionaire and…
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House premiered in 1879 to great controversy. His look at the limitations and restrictions placed on women in a patriarchal society was considered quite scandalous at the time. Many consider it to be the beginning of modern feminist literature, though Ibsen himself denied that. Suffice it to say that…
Mill Valley’s Throckmorton Theatre is alive with The Sound of Music. Their production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic runs through May 29. The show stars Katrina Lauren McGraw – a recent recipient of a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Principal Performance in a Musical – in the role of Maria Rainer, a…
The good ol’ USA has never had a lock on corrupt, windbag politicians as evidenced by Russian dramatist Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector. Originally published in 1836, Gogol’s takedown of the dishonesty, greed, and stupidity that runs rampant in government is considered by many to be one of the world’s greatest comedies. Director Lisa Morse…
Mill Valley’s Marin Theatre Company has been presenting top-notch productions of often provocative plays for years, so color me a bit surprised by their latest offering. They are currently hosting the world premiere co-production (with Seattle’s ACT) of Yussef El Guindi’s Hotter Than Egypt. Selected by MTC’s new Associate Artistic Director Nakissa Etemad, the John Langs-directed…
The San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle has announced the nominees for their 45th Excellence in Theatre Awards. North Bay Companies and artists have received a total of 75 nominations spread out over 19 categories. Productions that opened in the first quarter of 2020 and the last half of 2021 were eligible for consideration.…
Every thirty years or so, musical theatre manages to produce something to which the younger members of a generation latch onto. From Hair in the 1960’s through Hamilton today, composers and lyricists’ use of the music of their time has been an effective way to entice younger audiences into theaters. The 1990’s brought Jonathan Larson’s…
North Bay Stage and Screen 