Chuck Louden

SURVIVAL, STRUGGLE AND SMALL JOYS Young girls coming of age always makes for a good story usually filled with life-changing moments and lessons to be learned. In Lynn Nottage’s Crumbs from the Table of Joy, now playing at Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, our protagonist and narrator is Ernestine Crump (Anna Marie Sharpe), a 17-year-old senior…

SHAMELESS AND SUBLIME: ANAÏS NIN COMES ALIVE AT THE MARSH Anaïs Nin (1903–1977), the French-Cuban-American diarist, is best known as one of the original female writers of erotica. Starting at age 11, when she and her mother immigrated to the United States from Cuba, Nin began chronicling her life in her new country. Her diaries…

New Conservatory Theatre is premiering Eric Reyes Loo’s family dramedy about life, breakups and soul searching: Simple Mexican Pleasures. The show opens with Eric (Alex Rodriguez) reeling from a break up with his boyfriend that he didn’t see coming. Eric is of Latino heritage and lives in Los Angeles. He decides the time is right…

August Wilson’s Two Trains Running takes place in 1969 in the working-class Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Now on at American Conservatory Theater, it’s part of Wilson’s famous “Pittsburgh Cycle,” his series of ten plays that depict African-American life across different decades. His best-known work, Fences, portrayed the 1950s and premiered on stage in 1985…

A rare and exhilarating theatrical event is unfolding at American Conservatory Theater’s Strand Theater: Suzy Eddie Izzard’s one-person performance of Hamlet. This is no ordinary production. It’s a singular encounter with Shakespeare’s masterpiece, filtered through the mind, wit, and boundless energy of a celebrated British comedian, actor, and self-described “action transvestite” who now goes by…

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE…AND FUNNY Now playing at San Francisco Playhouse, Fat Ham is James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony-nominated riff on Hamlet—but this is no brooding royal revenge tale. Instead, it’s a vibrant, funny, and deeply human family drama set in a Southern backyard, where barbecue smoke and family secrets hang thick…

ASHES TO ASHES, PIXIE DUST TO PIXIE DUST Academy Award-nominated actor, playwright, and former Bay Area resident Colman Domingo‘s semi-autobiographical dramedy, Wild With Happy, is having its San Francisco debut this month at the New Conservatory Theatre Center. The title itself is a contradiction, perfectly capturing the show’s blend of humor and heartfelt emotion. The…

AUDACIOUS AND FUN MUSICAL TAKES ON REALITY TV Last Wednesday, A.C.T. opened an extremely likeable, engaging and entertaining musical telling one of the tried-and-true stories of the 21st century. It’s boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy goes on girl’s favorite reality dating show to win girl back! In an era where technology dominates communication…

CABS, COKE AND COMING OUT: PEARL ONG’S JOYRIDE THROUGH SF At The Marsh Theater, Pearl Ong—who describes herself as a “former Hong Kong Princess, pot-smoking and coke-snorting lesbian—is performing her one-woman show, Night Driver—and it’s a perfect fit for San Francisco. After moving here from Hong Kong with her mother in the 1970s, as many…

PUSH/PULL PACKS A PUNCH Berkeley’s Central Works is known for offering local Bay Area writers workshops and the opportunity for new playwrights to debut their works on stage with an audience. The offering at hand is Harry Davis‘s triumphant Push/Pull, performed in the small and intimate setting of The Berkeley City Club. For the world premiere,…

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR RISES AGAIN. ROCK ON. Rock operas don’t come much more iconic than Jesus Christ Superstar, and Berkeley Playhouse’s electric new production makes it feel as urgent and incendiary as ever. With a timeless score by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, this show has been rattling the rafters of theaters since its…

A SUSPENSEFUL ONE-MAN MURDER MYSTERY The Gay community in San Francisco was shocked and terrified by a series of murders between 1974-75 committed by a serial killer known as “The Doodler.” Believed to have killed between six and sixteen men, most of whom were gay, he was known for meeting his victims in bars, and…

Currently playing at The New Conservatory Theater, Francis Grey and the Case of His Dead Boyfriend is a whirlwind one-man mystery that fuses elements of classic whodunits, camp, film noir, and drag—all packed into a breakneck, one-hour experience. This world premiere, written, directed, and performed by the multi-talented Nathan Tylutki, is a theatrical high-wire act…

THE THING ABOUT GREAT THEATER Directed by Tyne Rafaeli, Berkeley Rep’s world premiere production of The Thing About Jellyfish delivers an emotionally resonant adaptation of Ali Benjamin’s beloved coming-of-age novel, weaving together grief, wonder, and the mysteries of growing up with an ethereal, dreamlike quality, as a young girl on the cusp of adolescence searches…