Dear San Francisco Shana Carroll & Gypsy Snider, Co-Creators A Production of The 7 Fingers at Club Fugazi San Francisco’s Club Fugazi is personally for me a sacred space where many memories were created during the more than twenty-five times I attended what became the world’s longest-running cabaret show during its forty-five-year history, Beach Blanket Babylon. … [Read more...] about Dear San Francisco
Anything Goes
Anything Goes Cole Porter (Music & Lyrics) P.G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay & Russell Crouse (Original Book) Timothy Crouse & John Weidman (New Book) 42nd Street Moon It only takes those first, several, familiar notes of the “Overture” to send a spreading wave of swaying shoulders, nodding heads, and tapping toes throughout the 42nd Street Moon … [Read more...] about Anything Goes
Justice: A New Musical
Justice: A New Musical Lauren M. Gunderson (Book); Bree Lowdermilk (Music); Kait Kerrigan (Lyrics) Marin Theatre Company “Equal Justice for All.” For 191 years, half of the U.S. population could justifiably question if that welcoming sign above the U.S. Supreme Court entrance really applied to them because from its founding in 1789 until September 21, 1981, no woman … [Read more...] about Justice: A New Musical
SIX
SIX Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss (Music, Lyrics & Book) BroadwaySF “Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Divorced. Beheaded. Survived.” These six words quickly conjure up for millions of people around the globe – folks who read even a bit of history, watched a few Netflix series, and/or played a few games of trivia at a local bar – the six wives of a king well known five … [Read more...] about SIX
The Travelers
The Travelers Luis Alfaro Magic Theatre, in Co-Production with Campo Santo A parable. An allegory. A dream. A mind-bending, fascinating fable. Any and all of these descriptors are possibilities to describe Luis Alfaro’s newest, stage creation, The Travelers, now in a gripping world premiere by Magic Theatre and Campo Santo – a co-production both ethereal and … [Read more...] about The Travelers
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Music); Lorenzo Da Ponte (Libretto) West Bay Opera How can an opera about an arrogant, despicable rake who travels throughout Europe seducing women for pure sport and then leaving them often after having promised marriage continue to be one of the most popular, most produced operas of all times? Why in this particular era of “Me … [Read more...] about Don Giovanni
The Headlands
The Headlands Christopher Chen American Conservatory Theater There are so many reasons to get your ticket today to see the West Coast premiere of Christopher Chen’s The Headlands at American Conservatory Theater before the last curtain on March 5: For anyone who lives in or near San Francisco, the play is like a SF love fest, featuring some of the most … [Read more...] about The Headlands
Satchmo at the Waldorf
Satchmo at the Waldorf Terry Teachout San Jose Stage Company Coughing and wheezing desperately for his next breath and with shoulders hunched as he stumbles toward the portable oxygen tank in the corner, the elderly man we see entering the large, backstage dressing room still is recognizable at first sight. After all, who else always has a white handkerchief hanging … [Read more...] about Satchmo at the Waldorf
Picasso at the Lapin Agile
Picasso at the Lapin Agile Steve Martin Los Altos Stage Company In 1905, Pablo Picasso painted Au Lapin Agile that depicts a self-portrait of himself as a harlequin, a seamstress with whom he had a brief affair (Germaine Pichot), and the owner of the famous cabaret club in Paris’ Montmartre where he liked to hang out as a young man of twenty-five with other artists of … [Read more...] about Picasso at the Lapin Agile
Miss You Like Hell
Miss You Like Hell Quiara Alegría Hudes (Book & Lyrics); Erin McKeown (Music & Lyrics) City Lights Theater Company in Co-Production with Teatro Visión Many a book and movie through the years have chronicled “the great American road trip” across the continent as individuals, friends, and families have ventured into the plains, mountains, and lonely towns in … [Read more...] about Miss You Like Hell
Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea
Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea Nathan Alan Davis The Pear Theatre Eighteen-year-old Dontrell is the kind of son any mother would be so proud to have: Straight A’s throughout school, all AP classes, and now only three weeks before beginning his first semester at John Hopkins University. But his mom cannot stop praying every day that the “t-minus 21” countdown of days … [Read more...] about Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea
Paradise Blue
Paradise Blue Dominique Morisseau Aurora Theatre Company In Aurora Theatre Company’s award-winning Detroit ’67 in 2018, the sounds of Detroit’s homegrown, Motown music were the background beat of Dominique Morisseau’s funny and frightening, heart-warming and heart-stopping play, Detroit ’67, the first of a trilogy about her hometown and a story that explodes amidst … [Read more...] about Paradise Blue
Cashed Out
Cashed Out Claude Jackson, Jr. San Francisco Playhouse Walking into the theatre and seeing the impressive scenic design of Tanya Orellana, my expectations for San Francisco Playhouse’s world premiere of Cashed Out only increased. Already I was excited that this commissioned work coming from the Playhouse’s pandemic Zoomlet series of ten-minute plays is written by a … [Read more...] about Cashed Out
The Play That Goes Wrong
The Play That Goes Wrong Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer & Henry Shields Palo Alto Players Finally, after past, short-handed productions such as Two Sisters (making for a much shorter evening of Chekhov), The Lion and the Wardrobe (forget the Witch), and Cat (a solo musical?), the Cornley Drama Society has recruited enough members to stage The Murder at Haversham … [Read more...] about The Play That Goes Wrong
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 Dave Malloy Shotgun Players Having opened November 15, 2022, Shotgun Players’ audience-immersive, modern-sounding opera set in a Russian cabaret setting of 1812 – Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 by Dave Malloy – has already received the highest of accolades from both my fellow critics and especially from … [Read more...] about Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
