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…
When is a free outdoor performance a thing of public service and culture and art, and when is it just noise? That’s the debate currently being battled in Mill Valley, where residents near Old Mill Park have petitioned the city to reduce the auditory impact of an annual Shakespeare festival that comes to the park’s…
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…
For theater fans, theater writers and theater artists of all stripes, there are few times of year as exciting as that stretch of weeks in the late winter/early fall when theater companies take turns announcing the titles of the plays they will be producing in the following theatrical season. It’s a time for actors to…
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…
In 2016, the Marin Theatre Company participated in the “rolling” world premiere of Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. The ‘continuation’ of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was born, according to Gunderson, of the playwrights’ desire “to write something fun, grand, female-driven, and hopeful but with that wonderful wit and complication…
If you’re trying to avoid attending the umpteenth production of The Nutcracker in your lifetime, Marin theatre companies are providing several other entertainment options for this holiday season. Last year, the Marin Theatre Company (marintheatre.org) was one of the participants in the rolling world premiere of Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s Miss Bennet: Christmas at…
