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Theater Review: FOSTERED (Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice)
PILLOW FIGHTS, PLOT TWISTS AND PARENTAL PANIC If you like your family comedies with a hearty dose of mayhem, secrets, slapstick humor, and the occasional gymnastic leap off a sofa, Fostered at Pacific Resident Theatre delivers the goods. Written by Chaya Doswell and directed by Andrew D. Weyman, Fostered is a lively world premiere that plays…
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Theater Review: THE SPITFIRE GRILL (Umbrella Stage Company in Concord, MA)
SOMETHING TASTY AT UMBRELLA STAGE Leo Tolstoy said there were only two stories in the world—either someone goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. The Umbrella Stage Company’s musical Spitfire Grill, a celebration of community, redemption, and Americana by James Valcq and Fred Alley, is very much the latter. It’s a production…
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Theater Review: FURLOUGH’S PARADISE (Geffen Playhouse)
When There’s A Second Knock On The Door: Love and Lockup in Furlough’s Paradise In Furlough’s Paradise, a. k. payne has crafted something that moves like a whisper but hits like a reckoning. Now in its West Coast premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, this 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winning one-act plants two women in a…
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Theater Review: THE EMPLOYEES (A Performance-Installation by Łukasz Twarkowski at NYU Skirball)
HUMANS, BEST BE ON YOUR AVANT-GARDE The Employees, originally produced at Studio Teatrgaleria in Warsaw, is a visionary performance and installation work by Polish-born artist, writer and director Łukasz Twarkowski, who masterfully blends theater, visual art, and cinema. Tonight’s North American premiere, playing through Saturday at NYU Skirball—unfolds across the vast expanse of the stage,…
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Theater Review: OTHER DESERT CITIES (CV Rep)
A Stunning Dissection of Family, Politics, and the Conservative Mythos CV Rep’s Other Desert Cities is nothing short of revelatory. John Robin Baitz’s lacerating family drama, set in a chic Palm Springs home but echoing across decades of American political history, finds fresh fire in this masterful production directed by Philip Wm McKinley. Gorgeously acted…
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Theater Review: SUGAR (Fresh Ink at Boston Center for the Arts)
A BITTER TRUTH WRAPPED IN A SWEET TITLE Fresh Ink’s absorbing production of Sugar, by playwright Tara Moses, is anything but saccharine. Under the sure direction of Audrey Seraphin, Sugar is deeply satisfying. At the center is Brooke (a forceful Tiffany Santiago), a woman juggling three jobs and still unable to pay her bills or…
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Theater Review: TWO TRAINS RUNNING (The Acting Company at American Conservatory Theater)
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…
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Theater Review: I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE (Sonoma Arts Live)
LOVE AND CHANGE, SONOMA STYLE Dating and mating get fully examined and fully skewered in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change at Sonoma Arts Live in downtown Sonoma, through May 4. Ably helmed by North Bay veteran Carl Jordan in Andrews Hall at the Sonoma Community Center, the production is a series of musical…
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Theater Review: THE BOOK OF GRACE (Steppenwolf Theatre)
JUDGING THE BOOK OF GRACE BY ITS (VERY IMPRESSIVE) COVER The Chicago Premiere of The Book of Grace at Steppenwolf Theatre is an expertly executed production of an underwhelming family drama. I’m a long-time fan of Steppenwolf, and every aspect of this production demonstrated the artistic excellence that I’ve come to expect, but the play…
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Theater Review: ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (Palm Canyon Theatre)
THE INMATES ARE EASY TO LIKE IN PALM CANYON’S CUCKOO’S NEST Upon entering Palm Canyon Theatre, one first sees the onstage set for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Designer J. W. Layne has created a very naturalistic dayroom of a mental hospital. Especially effective are ceiling beams which extend almost to the front row…
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Theater Review: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (Nocturne Theatre)
HORRORS IN THE ROUND Little Shop of Horrors, based on the 1960 science-fiction film by Roger Corman, opened off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre in Manhattan’s East Village on July 27, 1982. The production, directed by lyricist Howard Ashman, was so popular that David Geffen and team swooped in to buy the rights. The music, composed by…
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Theater Review: PERIL IN THE ALPS (Agatha Christie World Premiere by Steven Dietz at North Coast Rep)
SWEETLY PLAYFUL TREATMENT OF A COMPLICATED PLOT The prolific author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was the creator of 66 novels, 14 volumes of short stories and 20 plays, ten of which have been published. Half of her novels involved a quirky, fussy little Belgian private detective named Hercule Poirot solving mysteries of murder. Ironically, Christie hated…
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Theater Review: IT’S TRUE, IT’S TRUE, IT’S TRUE (Marin Theatre in Mill Valley)
FALSE WITNESS HAS NOT CHANGED An ear-splitting blast from a punk-rock band opens this thought-provoking glimpse into an ancient event. Playwrights Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett pieced together actual court manuscripts from a 1612 Roman trial of rape, adding contemporary dialogue and raucous music to intensify the content. Maggie Mason, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro, Alicia M….
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Theater Review: BEYOND THERAPY (Desert Ensemble Theater)
AN ABSURDIST ROMP INTO MODERN LOVE AND MADNESS Desert Ensemble Theater presents Christopher Durang’s hilarious comedy, Beyond Therapy, through April 27. The play is an exploration of neurosis, relationships, and the absurdity of modern psychobabble, and in this staging, directed by Jerome Elliott Moskowitz, the production delivers a chaotic cocktail of comedy and existential dread that…
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Theater Review: FALSETTOS (Dezart Performs in Palm Springs)
NOT A FALSE NOTE IN DEZART PERFORMS’ WONDERFUL PRODUCTION William Finn and James Lapine‘s two-act musical Falsettos follows Marvin (Tim Ewing), an appealing, brainy, anxious, obsessive, wealthy Jewish gay man who struggles to create a tight-knit family out of his eclectic array of core relationships: an ex-wife Trina (Stephanie Lynne Mason), new lover Whizzer (Patrick…
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Theater Review: HOW TO FAIL (Actors’ Gang Theater)
ONE MAN. 60 MINUTES OF DISASTER. EVERYTHING FAILS MAGNIFICENTLY! Ron Campbell is a clown all right. This is apparent from his first pratfall, which occurs about eleven seconds into his show, How to Fail. In this day and age of radical, assaultive clowns who prey on their audiences’ psychological foibles and are more comfortable staring…
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Theater Review: CYRANO (Los Altos Stage Company)
CYRANO GETS A CONFUSING NOSE JOB Why anyone involved in Los Altos Stage Company’s current production of Cyrano thought it would be a good idea to make Cyrano a woman—and without the trademark large proboscis at that—is a bit of a mystery. Cyrano de Bergerac remains a beloved staple of the stage, loosely based on…
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Theater Review: JERSEY BOYS (Palo Alto Players)
Palo Alto Players’ Jersey Boys Finds the Beat, Even When the Staging Stumbles Opening night at Palo Alto Players’ Jersey Boys had the Lucie Stern audience itching to jump out of their seats and dance. And who could blame them? The hits keep coming in this crowd-pleasing jukebox musical about Frankie Valli and the Four…
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Theater Review: YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE END OF THE WORLD! (South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa)
END-OF-WORLD TRAGICOMEDY CRACKS, BLEEDS AND THRIVES The end arrives not with a sob, but with a drag queen in a glittering black pantsuit, standing in a celestial spotlight, grinning like they’re about to host the universe’s weirdest game show. Keiko Green’s You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! doesn’t so much begin…
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Theater Review: WRITING FRAGMENTS HOME (Hillbarn Theatre in Foster City)
COUCH SURFING AND CULTURAL BAGGAGE It makes sense that Jeffrey Lo—a Filipino artist who writes, directs, and knows the Peninsula theater scene inside and out—could write a play like Writing Fragments Home. It’s personal without being sentimental, funny without trying too hard, and it lands exactly where it needs to. I was at the near-sold-out…
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