Barry Willis

WELL-SEASONED THEATER IS LOADED WITH FLAVOR Welcome to 1999, a time of hysteria over the impending Y2K crisis, widespread fear of monosodium glutamate (MSG), crude video games and crude popular culture. In the midst of all this wanders a Japanese-American high school girl named Ami (Ana Ming Bostwick-Singer), wrestling with her cultural identity, arguing with…

SIX DEGREES SPOOFS UPPER-CLASS PRETENTIONS Sonoma Arts Live (SAL) has launched an ambitious production of Six Degrees of Separation, John Guare’s now-classic tale of belief and deception among New York City socialites. Purportedly based on a real story, Six Degrees played on Broadway before becoming a 1993 film starring Donald Sutherland and, from the Lincoln…

THERE’S A LESSON HERE: EVEN WITHOUT THE BIG PARTY, THE MESSAGE RINGS CLEAR Charles Dickens’ beloved A Christmas Carol is among the holiday season’s most welcome recurring theater productions. Center REP’s sumptuous show has returned to the capacious Hofmann Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek through December 22. With A.C.T.’s…

IF THE HEAT IN AMERICA’S KITCHEN IS GETTING YOU DOWN, HEAD TO WAITRESS AT SF PLAYHOUSE San Francisco Playhouse has delivered an incredible gift for the winter holiday season: Waitress, Jessie Nelson’s stage adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s popular 2007 film of the same name, with a compelling rock score by singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles. The show…

MASQUERS KNOWS THE STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL, MAGICAL COMEDY Alfred Hitchcock gets a good-natured but thorough pummeling in The 39 Steps at Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond, through December 8. Sam Barksdale, Amy Stringer, Damion Clark A small theater in a quaint town at the eastern end of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, Masquers is known…

DRAGON LADY ROARS AT CENTER REP Sara Porkalob’s solo tribute to her grandmother is both an astounding theatrical event and a master class in storytelling. Part biography, part autobiography, part cabaret musical, and part comedy, the show is a tour-de-force, on a sumptuous set by Randy Wong-Westbrooke. Dragon Lady runs at the beautiful Lesher Theatre in Walnut…

COWARD’S ANGELS ARE A LAUGH RIOT Almost one hundred years after its somewhat scandalous debut, Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels is enjoying a revival at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre, where it runs through November 17. Michael Barrett Austin & Kina Kantor The British playwright is enjoying a revival of his own in the Bay Area, with a…

A BEAUTIFUL MUSICAL GEM IN SONOMA COUNTY Carole King is unquestionably one of the most influential American songwriters of the late 20th century. Through October 13, Spreckels Theater Company presents a lovely production of Douglas McGrath’s Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, in Sonoma County’s biggest and best venue, the Codding Theatre at the Spreckels…

A COMPELLING ECO-DYSTOPIAN STORY The destruction of tropical ecosystems has been a worldwide concern since the 1960s. Through June 23, San Francisco’s Magic Theatre examines the crisis in a personal manner with Naomi Iizuka’s Garuda’s Wing, Directed by prolific actor/director (and university professor) Margo Hall, it’s an eco-dystopian tale spanning approximately five decades in the…