Review: “As You Like It” in Napa

Napa Valley College has an excellent track record with youth-centric, large-scale Broadway musical productions. They’ve done a great job with past productions of such shows as Matilda the Musical and Spring Awakening. It was inevitable that Jennifer King, Theatre Arts and Film Studies Coordinator at NVC and founder of Shakespeare Napa Valley, would find a…

Preview: Sonoma/Napa Winter Theatre

North Bay theatre companies have their collective fingers crossed that audiences will continue to come out and support them in 2025. Holiday-themed shows now give way to the usual mixture of comedies, dramas, and musicals from classics to contemporary works to a short play festival. Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse gets things going in early…

Preview: Marin Winter Theatre

Marin theatre companies have their collective fingers crossed that audiences will continue to come out and support them in 2025. The New Year in theatre begins with a classic comedy, a musical adaptation of a Sundance Film Festival favorite, and a political drama that was banned for decades in its native England. The Novato Theatre…

2024’s Top Torn Theatre Tix

It’s time for this critic to take an end-of-year look back at local theatre. To start, I’m happy to report that no theatres closed in this area. As a matter of fact, there’s a new company in town with the formation of Petaluma’s Mercury Theater. So, continuing on that positive note, here, in chronological order,…

Review: “Oliver!” in Napa

Napa’s Lucky Penny Community Arts Center opened just about ten years ago with a production of Lionel Barts’ classic musical Oliver! The musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist has long been an audience favorite since its debut at a Southwest London theater in 1960. It’s a big show, in many ways, and not the…

Review: “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas” in Santa Rosa

Old-fashioned holiday musicals don’t get much more old-fashioned than Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. The David Ives and Paul Blake adaptation of the 1954 film that starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen runs at Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse through Dec. 22.  Fans of the film won’t be disappointed as it’s a faithful…

Interview – “Cinderella” at Raven Players

My guests on the 11/14/24 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 were Nicholas Augusta, Lily Gibson, and Declan Hackett from the Raven Players production of Cinderella – A Family Holiday Panto. The show runs at the Raven Performing Arts Theater in Healdsburg through December 1. Click below to listen: ********** Click HERE for…