by Harry Duke What’s Christmas without a production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) on a local stage? Sonoma Arts Live fills the bill with their production of Scrooge! The Musical. The SAL production runs at the Sonoma Community Center through Dec. 21. The stage version, which Leslie Bricusse adapted…
by Cari Lynn Pace Scrooge! The Musical is Charles Dickens’ timeless story A Christmas Carol shined up by Leslie Bricusse with a book, music, and lyrics. It’s Sonoma Arts Live’s holiday show, now running on the Rotary Stage at the Sonoma Community Center through Dec. 21 The show gives several children and teens their shot…
If there’s one word to describe North Bay theatre companies’ choices for their 2025 holiday productions, it’s “familiar”. One company is repeating their selections from last year while two others bring back chestnuts whose memories still linger from their successful mounting on other local stages. Rohnert Park’s Spreckels Theatre Company is the company with two…
by Harry Duke Jukebox musicals, with few exceptions, are not known for their intricate plots or dramatic surprises. They exist to provide their audiences with musical comfort food. Case in point, the Sonoma Arts Live production of A Night with Janis Joplin. The show is heading into its closing weekend on the Rotary Stage in…
by Cari Lynn Pace The sleepy little wine tasting hamlet of Sonoma has a real rockin’ blues concert with Sonoma Arts Live’s latest production. A Night with Janis Joplin, originally produced on Broadway in 2013, is a stage full of classic blues re-enacted by powerhouse singers. They’re backed up with a 7-piece band raising the…
by Cari Lynn Pace Every star has a story to tell as she worked her way to the Broadway stage. Transcendence Theatre Company, the Sonoma home for stage and screen luminaries, realized these stories are fascinating for their fun and failures. They built a show around seven women who spanned seven decades of singing and…
My guests on the first of two “Theatre Thursday” segments on 09/04/25 on The Drive on 95.5 were Jaime Love and Libby Oberlin for a discussion about the Sonoma Arts Live production of An Night with Janis Joplin. The show runs on the Rotary Stage at the Sonoma Community Center in Sonoma through September 21.…
by Harry Duke It’s been fourteen years since the Transcendence Theatre Company landed and took root in the Sonoma Valley with their Broadway-caliber musical revues. They added the occasional fully-produced Broadway show to their repertoire in 2018 with A Chorus Line and in 2023 they showed The Full Monty in Glen Ellen. After a few…
By Cari Lynn Pace When I was 20, I listened to Carole King’s album Tapestry so often it’s a wonder the phonograph needle didn’t cut through to the other side. I sang along with the gusto of youth and the emotion of young love. I was nurtured by all the heartfelt lyrics to “It’s Too…
Fans of the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will be pleased to hear that the Broadway musical adaptation sticks pretty close to the Steve Martin/Michael Caine comedy. Sonoma Arts Live has a production directed by Carl Jordan running on the Rotary Stage at the Sonoma Community Center through July 27. Suave and debonair con man Lawrence…
North Bay Stage and Screen 