Review: “Moon Over Buffalo” in Santa Rosa

Theatre companies love to produce theatre about theatre. 6th Street Playhouse gets in the act with Ken Ludwig’s 1995 door-slamming farce Moon Over Buffalo, running through February 3. Buffalo’s Erlanger Theater is hosting the repertory company of George and Charlotte Hay (Dodds Delzell & Madeleine Ashe), grade-B actors and grade-A hams who never made it…

2018’s Top Torn Tickets – The Musicals!

It’s said that musicals are the bread and butter of community theatre, so here’s a list of the North Bay productions I toasted this past year. Here are my top torn tickets of 2018:  Part Two, the Musicals (in alphabetical order): Always, Patsy Cline… – (Sonoma Arts Live) – Danielle DeBow’s Patsy was as heartbreaking…

2018’s Top Torn Tickets – The Plays!

‘Tis the time for “Best of …” lists, so in the spirit of my illustrious predecessor and with a nod to the substantial differences in mounting a musical versus a play, here are my top torn tickets of 2018 – Part One, the Plays (in alphabetical order): Blackbird – (Main Stage West) – As dark subject…

Review: “Love, Linda” in Petaluma

For years, Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater has closed out the year with a musical cabaret show. Past years’ productions have celebrated the work of musical artists from Edith Piaf to Mahalia Jackson to Frank Sinatra. This year, the work of classic American tunesmith Cole Porter takes center stage via Love Linda, a look at Porter through…

Review: “the 12 Dates of Christmas” in Santa Rosa

One-person shows with a holiday theme tend to skew toward the male variety, whether it’s a show about a disgruntled department store Christmas elf (David Sedaris’s Santaland Diaries) or a single dad desperate to maintain the fiction of Santa Claus with his children (David Templeton’s Polar Bears). Even Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol has been…