Review: “Stones in His Pockets” in Rohnert Park

What happens when Hollywood comes to town is a well-worn plot device best exemplified by the classic ‘Mayberry Goes Hollywood’ episode of The Andy Griffith Show. Mayberry’s reactions to the arrival of a film company in their quaint Southern town was played for gentle humor as the residents go about changing everything about the town…

Review: “Tuck Everlasting” in Rohnert Park

Large-scale, family-friendly musical theatre returns to the North Bay with the Spreckels Theatre Company’s production of Tuck Everlasting. The stage adaptation of Natalie Babbitt’s 1975 children’s novel about immortality had a very brief life on Broadway in 2016. If the Spreckels production – running in Rohnert Park through May 21 – is any indication, the…

Review: “A Little Night Music” in Rohnert Park

Some Stephen Sondheim musicals are more recognizable and identifiable than others. Sweeney Todd? Murderous barber. Into the Woods? Fractured fairy tales. Assassins? Assassins. A Little Night Music? Ummm… clowns? Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, now running at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park through Feb. 26, received a dozen Tony nominations in 1973…

Three North Bay Shows Shuttered by Illness

North Bay theatre companies continue to take illness-related hits with announced cancellations at three different companies. Sebastopol’s Main Stage West lost this weekend’s performances of Ham for the Holidays to an undisclosed illness. The company hopes to reopen the show on Thursday, December 22 and close with a final performance on Friday, December 30. Rohnert…

Review: “The Music Man” in Rohnert Park

American musical theatre doesn’t get any more old-fashioned than it does with The Music Man. Broadway is currently hosting a revival of Meredith Willson’s melodic tale of con man Harold Hill and Marian the Librarian but North Bay audiences looking to travel back to turn-of-the-century River City, Iowa need only head to Rohnert Park. The…

KSRO Interview – “Atlas, the Lonely Gibbon”

My guests on the first of two “Theatre Thursday” segments on the August 11 broadcast of The Drive with Steve Jaxon on KSRO were Sheri Lee Miller, director, and Deborah Yarchun, playwright, for a discussion about the Spreckels Theatre Company’s season-opening world premiere production of Atlas, the Lonely Gibbon. Click below to listen: ********** Click…

Review: “Matilda the Musical” in Rohnert Park

After a two-year pandemic-induced delay, Matilda the Musical finally hits the expansive Codding Stage at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park. The musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s tale of a gifted little girl navigating a treacherous world runs through May 22. Matilda Wormwood (played by Gigi Bruce Low, alternating with Anja Kao Nielsen)…