When I see a show late in its run, or the run itself is short, I’ll take some time and provide a short take on the production… Bootycandy – Left Edge Theatre, Santa Rosa Pluses: script, performances Minuses: a bit disjointed, a bit long Playwright Robert O’Hara claims that every character in Bootycandy crossed his…
My guests on the 11/20/25 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were director Jenny Hollingworth and actor Matt Farrell from the Spreckels Theatre Company production of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. This show runs in the Condiotti Theatre at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park through December…
by Cari Lynn Pace Ride the Cyclone: The Musical is a dazzling theatrical event directed by Sarah Wintermeyer. The Santa Rosa Junior College Theatre Arts program impresses with this professional quality show. Enter the lobby and be surrounded with clowns, sequined dancers, tarot readers, costumed dancers, and hanging streamers. Take a cushy seat in the…
by Cari Lynn Pace Playwright Robert O’Hara’s Bootcandy is a series of semi-autobiographical vignettes that take place on a bare stage (or a minimalist set), each delivering a biting and often hilarious look at supposedly real encounters throughout his life as a black gay person from childhood to present day. It’s definitely outrageous, often quite…
by Cari Lynn Pace In a departure from their typical productions, Ross Valley Players delivers the complex and tense thriller Wait Until Dark. Based on the 1966 Broadway cliffhanger which led to the famous Audrey Hepburn movie, this script has been adapted by Jerry Hatcher from Frederick Knott’s original play. Knott wrote spine-tingling plots, including…
Bertolt Brecht’s 1941 parable play/farce about the dangers of complacency and appeasement is, as is said much too frequently today, as timely as ever. It’s a shame eight U.S. Senators haven’t had a chance to see it. It’s the second show in the first full season for Petaluma’s Mercury Theater, the newest theatrical kid on…
My guests on the 11/13/25 “Theatre Thursday” segment on The Drive on 95.5 FM were Laura Downing-Lee, Waylon Hessler, and Nora Summers from the 6th Street Playhouse production of A Christmas Story: The Musical. This show runs in 6th Street’s GK Hardt Theatre from November 21 through December 21. Click below to listen: ********** Click…
by Cari Lynn Pace Sweeney Todd is the malevolent plot likely inspired by the campfire song “Dunderbeck’s Machine” which my Dad sang to us as youngsters. We boisterously sang along as mean old Dunderbeck turned critters into sausages, ultimately getting his just reward. Stephen Sondheim created an amped-up plot of human gruesomeness in this entertaining…
by Harry Duke Much has been said and written about the (then) Marin Theatre Company’s 2017 production of Thomas Bradshaw’s Thomas and Sally. Bradshaw’s historical fiction used a conversation between college students as the framing device to explore the possible relationship between Founding Father Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings. To say the Jasson…
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…
North Bay Stage and Screen 