by Barry Willis * Playwright Lynn Nottage is a national treasure. Her plays such as Sweat, Clyde’s, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, and The Secret Life of Bees are always popular, always entertaining, and always thought-provoking. They tend to run in unexpected directions, which only partly explains their enormous appeal. Petaluma’s Mercury Theater is…
by Harry Duke * We live in a time when the need to attract an ever-dwindling audience to live theatre often leads to a company programming the latest Hollywood-style spectacle or musical adaptation of a well-known movie or television series. It’s either that or the old tried-and-true and very familiar. Shakespeare, anyone? It’s good to…
by Harry Duke * Opera is the theatre art with which I have the least familiarity. Interestingly enough, the very first live performance of any kind that I remember attending as a child (excluding Disney on Ice) was a production of Bizet’s Carmen but since that 5th or 6th grade adventure, the number of opportunities…
My guests on the 06/18/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were stage director Elly Lichenstein and dramatic coloratura soprano Michelle Allie Drever from the Mercury Theater/Pocket Opera co-production of Giacomo Puccini’s La rondine. The opera runs in the little red schoolhouse on the hill in Petaluma through June 28, then travels…
My guests on the second of two 04/23/26 “Theatre Thursday” segments on The Drive on 95.5 FM were Reilly Milton and Beulah Vega from the Mercury Theater production of Enfrascada. The dark comedy runs through May 10 in the former Cinnabar Schoolhouse in Petaluma. Click below to listen: ********** Click HERE for more information on…
by Harry Duke * After a couple of rabble-rousing, politically-bent productions, Petaluma’s Mercury Theater shifts to British comedy with their production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives. The Michael Fontaine-directed production runs through Mar. 21. The play, written in 1930, has served as a vehicle for some of the top performers of the past century, including…
My guests on the 02/26/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 were Michael Fontaine and Zane Walters from the Mercury Theater production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives. The show runs in “the little red schoolhouse on the hill” in Petaluma from March 6 through March 21. Click below to listen: ********** Click HERE…
My guests on the 01/08/26 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 were Stage Director Elizabeth Craven and Music Director Tom Martin from the Mercury Theater production of Woody Guthrie’s American Song. The show runs January 9 through January 25 in the former Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. Click below to listen: ********** Click HERE…
by Harry Duke * Bertolt Brecht’s 1941 parable play/farce about the dangers of complacency and appeasement is, as is said much too frequently today, as timely as ever. It’s a shame eight U.S. Senators haven’t had a chance to see it. It’s the second show in the first full season for Petaluma’s Mercury Theater, the…
My guests on the 10/30/25 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 were Keith Baker and Kevin Bordi from the Mercury Theater production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui. The parable play about the rise of an American gangster runs at the old Cinnabar Theater building in Petaluma from October 31…
North Bay Stage and Screen 