David Templeton guest-hosted the Thursday, June 13 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon. His guests were actress Alicia Albright and resident artist and assistant to the Artistic Director Meggie Cansler Ness from the Transcendence Theatre Company production of A Chorus Line. Click below to listen: **********
Is there a darker or more depressing Broadway musical than Cabaret? Kander and Ebb’s 1966 musical (with book by Joe Masteroff) won eight Tonys for its original run and four more for its 1998 revival. It’s become a staple of regional and community theatres, as evidenced by the umpteen productions throughout the Bay area in…
“Jukebox” musicals tend to use really flimsy connecting material to string together the musical hits of an artist or genre in the creation of a show. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, running now through June 9 at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco, has the advantage of having the really interesting true-to-life tale…
My guests on the Thursday, May 9 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were Brittany Law and Zachary Hasbany from the Spreckels Theatre Company production of Cinderella. Click below to listen: **********
Most folk’s exposure to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came through reading the book or watching the somewhat renamed 1971 Gene Wilder film. “Charlie” purists rejected Tim Burton’s 2005 cinematic take on the tale as too dark and weird. Well folks, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. San Francisco’s SHN Golden Gate Theatre is…
Santa Rosa Junior College’s Theatre Arts Department closes out their second season ‘on the road’ with a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1971 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. With the Burbank Auditorium still undergoing renovations, the Maria Carrillo High School theatre hosts this production through May 5. Director Leslie McCauley has gathered…
My guests on the Thursday, April 18 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were Leslie McCauley and Ariana LaMark from the Santa Rosa Junior College Theatre Arts production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Click below to listen: **********
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…
Totally fucked. That, dear readers, sums up the teen angst expressed via song in Spring Awakening, Marin Musical Theatre Company’s latest offering. It runs at the NTC Playhouse in Novato through March 16. Based on German playwright Frank Wedekind’s controversial 1891 play that dealt frankly with teenage sexuality, playwright Steven Sater and musician Duncan Sheik…
On December 4, 1956, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley held a once-in-a-lifetime jam session at rock and roll pioneer Sam Phillips’ legendary Sun Records studio. They were labeled the “Million Dollar Quartet” by a local journalist and that moniker was affixed to the recordings of the session released decades later.…
North Bay Stage and Screen 