Constellations Nick Payne The Pear Theatre He is a beekeeper. She is a Cambridge physicist. She can wax on forever starry eyed about subjects like quantum mechanics, string theory, and cosmology. He likes to explain how female bees are the workers and male drones exist only to have sex with the queen, after which their penises are ripped off and they die. She … [Read more...] about Constellations
Archives for June 2025
A Grand Night for Singing — An American Songfest
A Grand Night for Singing -- An American Songfest Ronny Michael Greenberg, Curator Merola Opera Program From 1300 initial applicants and 650 in-person auditions, twenty-eight singers, pianists, and directors have been selected in 2025 for the nation's preeminent opera training program whose annual participants arrive from all over the world. In addition to their … [Read more...] about A Grand Night for Singing — An American Songfest
Annunciation
Annunciation Lauren Groff Word for Word and Z Space "It is only now when I know myself to be good and bad in equal measures." That announcement of sorts -- or "annunciation" -- comes after our unnamed narrator has recalled a year much earlier in her life post college graduation when she headed across the country to land initially in San Francisco, California with … [Read more...] about Annunciation
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean: A New Musical
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean: A New Musical Ashley Robinson (Book); Dan Gillespie Sells (Music); Shakina (Lyrics) Based on the Play by Ed Graczyk It's hot and dusty in McCarthy, Texas where it has not rained in three years. But in the summer of 1975, the loyal "Disciples of James Dean" are mopping the sweat from their brows as they gather … [Read more...] about Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean: A New Musical
Sweat
Sweat Lynn Nottage Palo Alto Players Stories are how we often best learn new truths about the world around us. Lynn Nottage -- the first and only woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama two times -- clearly understands the power of narratives to deliver messages and to raise questions that we in the mostly liberal and Blue Bay Area somehow have missed while … [Read more...] about Sweat
Co-Founders
Co-Founders Ryan Nicole Austin, Beau Lewis, Adesha Adefela Music Team Led by Victoria Theodore American Conservatory Theater For seven years, Esata has been coding in her mother's West Oakland basement, creating an interacting avatar of her deceased father, Cyril -- an incredible accomplishment for someone non-degreed who learned to code with her dad on an Atari … [Read more...] about Co-Founders
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity Neil Simon (Book); Cy Coleman (Music); Dorothy Fields (Music) San Jose Stage Company (The Stage) Sometimes there are so many aspects of a spectacular production that it is almost impossible to know where to begin. That is especially true for San Jose Stage Company's current summer hit-in-the-making, Sweet Charity. First, the 1967-premiering musical … [Read more...] about Sweet Charity
Next to Normal
Next to Normal Brian Yorkey (Book & Lyrics); Tom Kitt (Music) Ray of Light Theatre Lifelong mental disease, paralyzing grief, severe depression, feelings by a child of a parent's abandonment, drug abuse, the questionable practices of modern psychiatry, suicide. While not the subjects normally associated with the Great American Musical, Brian Yorkey (book and … [Read more...] about Next to Normal
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night William Shakespeare Adaptation Conceived by Kwame Kwei-Armah & Shaina Taub Music & Lyrics by Shaina Taub Los Altos Stage Company One early line in William Shakespeare's romantic comedy, Twelfth Night, has inspired a host of musical adaptations through the years: "If music be the food of love, play on." In 2018, New York's Public Theatre … [Read more...] about Twelfth Night
Harvey Milk Reimagined
Harvey Milk Reimagined Stewart Wallace (Composer); Michael Korie (Librettist) Opera Parallèle "And shame to rage, And rage to pride, And pride to hope, And hope will never be silent." At the age of forty-eight and just days before his assassination, the first out gay elected city official in California reflects his own life's journey in a climatic moment of … [Read more...] about Harvey Milk Reimagined
