the aves Jihae Park Berkeley Repertory Theatre There is no doubt but that Marsha Ginsberg's designed serene pond setting with its yellow lilies floating in slow circulation underneath a wooden boardwalk with its lone bench is nothing short of serenely mesmerizing -- a scene made even more idyllic by the dreamlike songs of birds, crickets, and rain storms created … [Read more...] about the aves
Joan Crawford Superstar
Joan Crawford Superstar Chris Chase Intentional Theatrics A woman too many currently only know as the callous, abusing mother in Mommie Dearest -- a daughter's memoir and subsequent film that has largely been debunked as totally false -- is the focus of Chris Chase's, Joan Crawford Superstar, now in a totally fascinating and engrossing premiere production by … [Read more...] about Joan Crawford Superstar
Henry V
Henry V William Shakespeare The Pear Theatre “Therefore take heed how you impawn one person, How you awake our sleeping sword of war. We charge you in the name of God, take heed; For never two such kingdoms did contend Without much fall of blood.” The King who looks squarely, calmly, and bluntly into the eyes of the Archbishop of Canterbury – a man … [Read more...] about Henry V
Shameless Hussy
Shameless Hussy Lynne Kaufman The Marsh Surrounded by the sounds of fog horn, crashing waves and terrifying thunder, a trembling eleven-year-old girl cries to her mother as the two leave her native France, bound for the U.S, "I am losing my country, my language, and my father". Her mother hands her a notebook and suggests she write in it letters to the father left … [Read more...] about Shameless Hussy
Jersey Boys
Jersey Boys Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice (Book) Bob Gaudio (Music); Bob Crewe (Lyrics) Palo Alto Players Let it be known by anyone and everyone who has seen once, twice, or a dozen times Jersey Boys in New York, London, or on touring stages throughout the country and abroad that seeing the 2005, multi-Tony-award-winning juke-box hit one more time in a … [Read more...] about Jersey Boys
The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors William Shakespeare, with Modern Verse Translation by Christina Anderson American Conservatory Theater, A Touring Production by the Acting Company What a difference a week can make! A week ago, New York's touring Acting Company opened at American Conservatory Theatre a must-see, poetic play of powerful prose about a turbulent, turning point … [Read more...] about The Comedy of Errors
Writing Fragments Home
Writing Fragments Home Jeffrey Lo Hillbarn Theatre & Conservatory Forty-year-old Jay awaits anxiously with luggage in hand for his mom to get home from work, nervously practicing various ways of saying, "Hi, Mom, it's good to see you/How was work?/I'm sorry ... can I move back home?" When Mary Beth walks in, her first reaction? "What's wrong?... What are you … [Read more...] about Writing Fragments Home
Cyrano
Cyrano Edmond Rostand, Adapted by Jeffrey Lo & Max Tachis Los Altos Stage Company From its premiere night in 1897 Paris when the audience was still applauding an hour after the final curtain fell, through multiple stagings on the Great White Way starring some of Broadway’s finest, and after hundreds of productions worldwide in multiple languages, Edmond … [Read more...] about Cyrano
Zorro
Zorro Héctor Armienta (Music & Libretto) Opera San José A pulp fiction novel written in 1919 by John McCulley was so popular that he wrote dozens more short stories for decades about its hero. Within a year of McCulley's publication, Douglas Fairbanks starred in a swashbuckling silent film whose popularity helped spawn to-date more than 40 more films, ten TV … [Read more...] about Zorro
Two Trains Running
Two Trains Running August Wilson American Conservatory Theater, A Touring Production by the Acting Company Many duo-tracks run in parallel, crisscross, and sometimes collide in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, the 1960s contribution to his ten-play, 20th Century American Cycle. Death and life, white and Black, love and loneliness, older generation and younger … [Read more...] about Two Trains Running
The Underpants
The Underpants Steve Martin, Adapted from Carl Sternheim San Jose Stage Company Even though they were "clean cotton, neat, and perfectly ironed," when the young and beautiful Louise drops her bloomers while standing on a bench in Dusseldorf to see the passing king, heads quickly turn, male hearts skip a beat, and news of the scandal spreads fast -- especially when … [Read more...] about The Underpants
Here There Are Blueberries
Here There Are Blueberries Moisés Kaufman & Amanda Gronich Berkeley Repertory Theatre (A Tectonic Theater Project) In 2007, an unnamed former U.S. Army officer donated a 32-page album with 116 black-and-white photos to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum -- an album he had found over sixty years prior in 1946 in an abandoned apartment in … [Read more...] about Here There Are Blueberries
The Heart Sellers
The Heart Sellers Lloyd Suh TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in Co-Production with Aurora Theatre and Capital Stage When last year TheatreWorks Silicon Valley received the rights to produce the much-sought-after The Heart Sellers, Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli learned that two other Northern California companies also hoped to include on their playbill Lloyd Suh's … [Read more...] about The Heart Sellers
The Boiling: A Tale of American Nihilism
The Boiling: A Tale of American Nihilism Sunhui Chang Magic Theatre in Association with Campo Santo At the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, playwright Sunhui Chang heard on a local Seattle newscast how two potentially infected individuals had voluntarily checked into a quarantine motel, only for one to be caught later on a surveillance camera walking out … [Read more...] about The Boiling: A Tale of American Nihilism
Penelope
Penelope Ellen McLaughlin (Text); Sarah Kirkland Snider (Music) The Pear Theatre in a co-production with Bootstrap Theater Foundation Twenty years after divorcing a man who constantly lied to her, she opens her front door to find a nurse with someone she is told is her husband, someone she does not recognize just as he does not know who she is. He is returning … [Read more...] about Penelope
