Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been the source material for umpteen movies and plays. The tale of star-crossed lovers had its most successful theatrical iteration with the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story. It’s running now through July 7 at Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse. Groundbreaking at its time for innovations in dance and music…
David Templeton guest-hosted the Thursday, June 13 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon. His guests were actress Alicia Albright and resident artist and assistant to the Artistic Director Meggie Cansler Ness from the Transcendence Theatre Company production of A Chorus Line. Click below to listen: **********
Is there a darker or more depressing Broadway musical than Cabaret? Kander and Ebb’s 1966 musical (with book by Joe Masteroff) won eight Tonys for its original run and four more for its 1998 revival. It’s become a staple of regional and community theatres, as evidenced by the umpteen productions throughout the Bay area in…
“Jukebox” musicals tend to use really flimsy connecting material to string together the musical hits of an artist or genre in the creation of a show. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, running now through June 9 at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco, has the advantage of having the really interesting true-to-life tale…
My guests on the Thursday, May 16 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were David Lear, Sharia Pierce, and Jared Wright from the Main Stage West production of Lungs. Click below to listen: **********
Serendipity. Fate. Chance. Destiny. Karma. Fortune. Kismet. Call it what ever you like, but playwright Steven Dietz (Becky’s New Car) doesn’t believe in it so much so that his play This Random World, running through May 26 at Left Edge Theatre, is even sub-titled The Myth of Serendipity. The connections that people have, make, or…
The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘jazz’ as a type of music of black American origin characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm. The same definition could be applied to Nambi E. Kelley’s Jazz, her theatrical adaptation of Toni Morrison’s 1992 novel of the same name. Awoye Timpo directs the Marin Theatre Company…
Most folk’s exposure to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came through reading the book or watching the somewhat renamed 1971 Gene Wilder film. “Charlie” purists rejected Tim Burton’s 2005 cinematic take on the tale as too dark and weird. Well folks, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. San Francisco’s SHN Golden Gate Theatre is…
My guests on the Thursday, May 2 theatre segment on KSRO’s The Drive with Steve Jaxon were Phoebe Moyer and Paige Picard from the Left Edge Theatre production of This Random World. Click below to listen: **********
Siblings and significant others do battle in two comedies running now on North Bay stages. Healdsburg’s Raven Players take you to rural Pennsylvania where Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike gather at the family homestead. Vanya (Steven David Martin) and Sonia (Diane Bailey) have held down the family fort and taken care of their…
North Bay Stage and Screen 