Chuck Louden

SHINE: THIS CONCERT’S SO BRIGHT, I GOTTA WEAR SHADES ‘Tis the season for a plethora of performing arts doing their best to pierce your inner Scrooge and inject you with holiday spirit. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus did just that at their annual holiday concert, held for the first time at the War Memorial…

THANK YOU FOR BEING A DRAG QUEEN Now at the Victoria Theatre, Trannyshack’s drag version of classic holiday-themed The Golden Girls episodes seems to grow in popularity every year. Since its inception in 2005 when it was performed for a select crowd of friends, it has outgrown the living room and two subsequent South of…

I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS San Francisco’s Magic Theatre prides itself on cultivating new plays and giving up-and-coming playwrights the opportunity to produce new and thought provoking theater.   The estimable company lives up to this manifesto by presenting the world premiere of Arlington, an innovative show which takes the audience on an entertaining…

GET THE HOOK The story of Peter Pan, about that mischievous little flying boy who doesn’t want to grow up, has been told in numerous forms since J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play and subsequent 1911 novel Peter and Wendy. The adventures of the Lost Boys and the Darling children was musicalized for Broadway in 1954, with…

A BEAUTIFUL ADAPTATION The British indie My Beautiful Laundrette was praised when it came out for its multi-layered portrait of the immigrant experience, and is now best remembered for Daniel Day Lewis’s screen debut, not to mention putting Channel Four Films and director Stephen Frears on the map. Adapted for the stage by Andy Graham…

ON A WING AND A PRAYER The original 1938 Broadway production of Rodgers and Hart’s I Married an Angel (choreographed by George Balanchine and directed by newcomer Joshua Logan no less) ran a respectable 338 performances, the national tour of which concluded right here at the Curran Theater in San Francisco (the 1942 film version…