Areas We Cover
Categories
Theater
-
Theater Review: THE BOOK OF WILL (Ross Valley Players)
WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A BOOK Where do playwrights get their inspiration? Brava to Lauren Gunderson, who took hers from actual historical events and created a believable backstory with characters to support it. Malcolm Rodgers (John Hemminges) and Fred Pitts (Henry Condell) Three years after William Shakespeare’s passing in 1616, the Globe Theatre had…
-
Theater Review: A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE (A Noise Within)
Wilde at Heart: The Quiet Theatrics of A Man of No Importance Some musicals don’t announce themselves. They drift in quietly, settle beside you, and before you know it, you’re sitting there, wrecked, wondering when the tears began. That’s the spell cast by A Man of No Importance, now playing at A Noise Within. Based…
-
Theater Review: HAMILTON (National Tour in San Diego)
NOT YOUR GRANDMA’S 1776 Until Hamilton, if you’d asked me if I liked rap music, you’d have gotten a pretty quick, “No.” And I still do cringe at the memories of cars driving up my street with offensive lyrics played at sonic boom levels, because that had been my primary exposure to rap. So why…
-
Theater Review: FOREVER PLAID (Palm Canyon Theatre)
A HILARIOUS DRIVE DOWN MEMORY LANE Of course I love a big musical with choruses singing and dancing, but on reflection, several of my favorite shows have intimate casts such as Nunsense, The Fantasticks and the original You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Firmly holding a place on that list is the four-hander Forever Plaid,…
-
Theater Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME (San Francisco Playhouse)
ANOTHER WORTHY WAY TO WONDER AT THE WORLD On rare occasions even the most seasoned reviewers are confounded by the inadequacy of language to describe a production so beautiful and transcendent that words fail to do it justice. Such a production is multiple award-winning The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time which opened May…
-
Theater Review: FOUNDING F%!#ERS (Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham, MA)
SOME DARE CALL IT TREASON Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold can hardly be called founders of the United States. In fact, while both acted as military leaders in the American War for Independence, they also played an antagonistic role in the Revolution. Benedict Arnold’s name has become synonymous with being a traitor; Allen is romanticized…
-
Theater Review: BEST DAD. NEVER. (Hudson Theatre Backstage, Hollywood Fringe Festival)
Coming to Hollywood Fringe: A Fatherhood Story You Didn’t Know You Needed Fatherhood isn’t always what you expect — and Best. Dad. NEVER. proves that’s exactly where the magic happens. Haig “Hike” Chahinian didn’t set out to write a feel-good story about fatherhood. Good thing, because this one-man outing is something better: honest, funny, and…
-
Theater Review: THE STAIRCASE (South Coast Rep)
MEMORY LOOPS AND ECHOES IN GARDNER’S THE STAIRCASE Rain doesn’t fall in The Staircase. It lingers, heavy and waiting. Like a secret no one asked to hear. Like a mother halfway between a lullaby and a memory she can’t put down. In the hands of Noa Gardner, this first-time playwright turns weather into something far…
-
Theater Review: HYMN (Chicago Shakespeare on Navy Pier)
TO KNOW HYMN IS TO LOVE HYMN It’s not unusual to hear creatives, especially Black creatives, quote Toni Morrison when talking about what inspires them to write, paint or compose. “If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” That notion seems to have…
-
Theater Review: THE GLASS MENAGERIE (Antaeus Theatre)
A STRIKINGLY RESPECTFUL TAKE WORTHY FOR A MUSEUM The Antaeus Theatre Company first began offering audiences superbly mounted productions over a quarter of a century ago, and for their continued success in doing so, they are recognized as one of the true jewels in the crown of the Los Angeles theatre community. An actor-driven company,…
-
Theater Review: CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY (Aurora Theatre in Berkeley)
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…
-
Theater Review: GARY: A SEQUEL TO TITUS ANDRONICUS (Redtwist Theatre)
UNCONVENTIONAL SPIN, DARING THEATER, CAUTIOUSLY RECOMMENDED There are sequels and there are sequels. Few can be considered as aspirational or as pioneering as Taylor Mac’s Gary, a continuation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus now playing at Redtwist Theatre. Easily the Bard’s most sensational blood fest, Redtwist brought Titus’s “vicious circle of revenge and counter-revenge” to their…
-
Theater Review: HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD (National Tour at Hollywood Pantages Theatre)
WE’RE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARDS (AGAIN) The line between fan fiction and canon can be a blurry one. In a world where Twilight fan fiction inspired the best-selling book of the last decade and a Wizard of Oz flip became one of last year’s most prolific movies, it’s clear that capitalizing on existing IP…
-
Theater Review: THE PROM (San Diego Musical Theatre
MUSICAL ROM-COM PROM IS DA BOMB! Oh, the high school prom! Has any event, short of one’s wedding perhaps, ever been given more stress-inducing over-attention? Who to bring, what to wear, how to get there, corsages, after-parties, and more—it’s amazing it ever goes well. So, what a great setting for a play where the main…
-
Theater Review: JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING (SpeakEasy Stage Company at Calderwood Pavilion in Boston)
BRAIDED LIVES Director Summer L. Williams brings a uplifting and inspiring production of up-and-coming playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s Tony-nominated Jaja’s African Hair Braiding to the SpeakEasy Stage. An ensemble cast of ten portrays seventeen roles, with the five women who work in the hair braiding salon at the center of the action. Dru Sky Berrian, MarHadoo…
-
Theater Review: TASTY LITTLE RABBIT (Moving Arts)
THE TRUTH IS RARELY PURE, AND NEVER SAFE, IN TASTY LITTLE RABBIT There is a tender brutality in the way Robert Mammana shatters a glass plate negative under his heel in Moving Arts’ aching new production of Tom Jacobson’s Tasty Little Rabbit. It happens early. The crack is too small to be mythic, too large to ignore….
-
Theater Review: THE SHARK IS BROKEN (North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA)
THREE MEN IN A BOAT Playwrights Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon provide a gratifying change from the too-frequent, obviously profit-driven movie-to-musical adaptations that litter so many stages today with this clever portrayal of the behind-the-scenes experiences of the three principals in Jaws, one of the biggest commercial successes in film-making history and a source of…
-
Theater Review: CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY (Aurora Theatre in Berkeley)
The pleasure lies not in the cookies, but in the pattern the crumbs make when the cookies crumble. ~ Michael Korda Playwright Lynn Nottage is a national treasure—a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for drama, and among the very best storytellers in mining nuance from ordinary circumstances and historical facts. Her heart-rending Intimate Apparel and Sweat…
-
Theater Review: SHAMELESS HUSSY (Marsh San Francisco)
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…
-
Theater Review: SIMPLE MEXICAN PLEASURES (New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco)
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…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
