KSRO Interview: Directors of “The Super Trio”

My guests on the Thursday, July 26 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were playwright/composer/co-director/actor Brett Mollard and co-director/actor Ezra Hernandez from the Redwood Theatre Company’s original production of The Super Trio. Click below to hear that interview. *** For more information, go to redwoodtheatrecompany.com

Review: “Always… Patsy Cline” in Sonoma

Jukebox musicals have become the bread and butter for a lot of community theatres. Minimal casts, simple sets and the built-in audience that comes with a show about a popular singer or musical group are tough for an artistic director to resist. In 1988, playwright Ted Swindley took 27 songs recorded by Patsy Cline and…

‘Levity,’ a touring circus-themed show, comes to Petaluma

High-flying aerial acts. Breathtaking acrobatics. Gorgeous, ethereal music. Mesmerizing dance. A woman walking on glass bottles. And a whole lot of outrageous stuff with chairs. That’s “Levity,” a weirdly wondrous, tough-to-explain live touring show from LadyBeast Productions, of New Orleans. The company was formed five years ago, with the intention of putting a contemporary, highly…

Review: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” in San Francisco

The Hunchback of Notre Dame was originally scheduled last season at the Spreckels Theatre Company. The musical, whose development started in Germany and ended in New Jersey (having never made it to Broadway), is an atypical Disney production. More Les Misérables than Little Mermaid, it’s an interesting amalgam of Victor Hugo’s gothic novel and music from…

Review: “School of Rock” in San Francisco

One might think that the talents behind Downton Abbey and Phantom of the Opera would be odd choices to make a Broadway musical out of a 2003 movie starring Jack Black. One would be correct. School of Rock, now on the San Francisco stop of its national tour, is Julian Fellowes’ and Sir Andrew Lloyd…

Review – “Illyria” in Santa Rosa

In a world of musicals based on movies and TV shows, why not Shakespeare? Such is Illyria, a melodious adaptation of Twelfth Night first produced Off-Broadway in 2002 and now running at 6th Street Playhouse. Don’t let the words ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘musical’ alarm you. Peter Mills has written a book and score that takes the…

Interview: Craig Miller on leaving 6th Street Playhouse

After seven years in Santa Rosa—making him the longest-serving artistic director in the company’s 13-year history—Miller has accepted a job at the University of Idaho, where he’ll become an assistant professor of acting and directing, beginning this fall. Miller will officially depart 6th Street on July 13. “Because of my in-the-trenches, real-world work as a…