Theaters throughout the North Bay have finally started to receive disbursements from the Federal Government’s Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program. The program, administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration, was signed into law in December 2020. It offers substantial grants to producing organizations and entertainment venues to replace lost revenue as a result of COVID-19…
Marin-based AlterTheater has announced the inaugural members of its new playwright residency program. Designed for recent students, their AlterLab First Acts program is designed to provide a supported environment for BIPOC playwrights early in their careers. The inaugural “class” includes Texas natives lily gonzales and Alicia Margarita Olivo, New Yorker Devin Porter, Chicago-based Jasmine Sharma,…
A vacant downtown San Rafael storefront is being haunted by the Ghosts of Bogotá. They are characters in playwright Diana Burbano’s darkly comic autobiographical look at a group of siblings dealing with some disturbing family history. It’s AlterTheater Ensemble’s latest “pop-up theatre” and runs through Feb. 23. Siblings Lola (Livia Gomes Demarchi), Sandy (Carla Pauli),…
Argus-Courier’s film-loving “Millennials” on stage for live screening: Three of the four local film reviewers responsible for the Argus- Courier’s weekly “Millennials Talk Cinema” columns will take to the stage on Feb. 13, at 7 p.m., for a (no doubt) lively post-film conversation following a screening of the science-fiction film “Her,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy…
Writers have been dressing up the “boy meets girl, boy loses girl” trope for centuries now from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to every Hallmark Channel movie. Playwright Jeffrey Sweet took his shot at it twenty years ago with Bluff, running now at The Belrose in San Rafael through November 16. Sweet, long connected with Chicago…
San Rafael-based AlterTheater has named its first-ever Producing Artistic Director, to help position and lead the company in its next 15 years of success and community involvement. Following a national search, San Francisco State graduate and experienced Bay Area theater professional Alicia Coombes has been chosen to fill the position. “I’m so excited to be…
In a recent conversation about on-stage diversity (and the lack thereof in the North Bay), a local theatre company’s Artistic Director posed this question: “When will you know when we’ve achieved it?” My response: “When I look at a cast photo and no one stands out.” A cast photo from the Marin Shakespeare Company production…
Silliness takes the stage at Dominican University’s Forest Meadows Amphitheatre as the Marin Shakespeare Company presents Monty Python’s Spamalot. It’s the company’s first full musical production in thirty years. “Lovingly ripped off” from the Python’s 1975 cult classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it’s the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the…
The Marin Shakespeare Company opens its 30th season with Measure for Measure. The Bard’s take on justice and mercy would seem to be a perfect fit for a company that brings their Shakespeare for Social Justice program to eight California State Prisons. Officially labeled as a comedy, it’s considered by some to be one…
“Satire,” said American playwright and humorist George S. Kaufman, “is what closes Saturday night.” That quote came to mind as a I sat in the audience at the Super Bowl Sunday matinée of Impeaching America at the Belrose in San Rafael. Actually, I was the audience at that particular performance. The allegorical political satire by…
