Allegiance Marc Acito, Jay Kuo & Lorenzo Thione (Book); Jay Kuo (Music & Lyrics) Palo Alto Players With only the clothes on their backs and one tightly clutched suitcase each, shock-faced people stand shoulder-to-shoulder while riding in a cattle car to a location unknown – a destination surrounded by barbed wire in a desolate area reeking of dust and lacking … [Read more...] about Allegiance
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change Joe DiPietro (Book & Lyrics); Jimmy Roberts (Music); Doug Katsaros (Orchestrations) Hillbarn Theatre & Conservatory For someone who has seen well over 150 live theatre shows every, pre-COVID year for at least the past twenty years, how is it I have missed seeing the 1996-premiering, second-longest-running Off-Broadway … [Read more...] about I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change
Gem of the Ocean
Gem of the Ocean August Wilson TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Arriving amidst a COVID shut-down to assume his position as only the second Artistic Director of the Tony-Award-winning, fifty-two-year-old company TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, nationally known director Tim Bond has had to wait almost two years to bring his vast experience and unique insight as a director … [Read more...] about Gem of the Ocean
August: Osage County
August: Osage County Tracy Letts San Jose Stage Company Why do we return time and again to the muck and mirk, the venom and vile of such time-honored works as Macbeth or Who Killed Virginia Woolf? In many ways, these are not pleasant outings at the theatre; but a great production of either can be exhilarating and entertaining just the same, given great … [Read more...] about August: Osage County
Fefu and Her Friends
Fefu and Her Friends María Irene Fornés American Conservatory Theater It is New England in the mid 1930s; flowers are blooming, birds are singing; and Fefu has invited seven of her female, educator friends to come to her lovely countryside estate to practice their talks for an upcoming event – a reunion of former classmates, some of whom have not seen each other in … [Read more...] about Fefu and Her Friends
Hotter than Egypt
Hotter than Egypt Yussef El Guindi Marin Theatre Company, in Co-Production with A Contemporary Theatre Wisconsinites Jean and Paul are in exotic Egypt to bask in the winter sun, sail on the Nile on feluccas, and relish the history of the museums – all as part of their twenty-fourth wedding anniversary celebration. Engaged and soon to be married, Cairenes Maha and … [Read more...] about Hotter than Egypt
La Cage Aux Folles
La Cage Aux Folles Harvey Fierstein (Book); Jerry Herman (Music & Lyrics) Based on the Play by Jean Poiret San Jose Playhouse Anyone hoping to find any time soon in the San Jose area even a yard of chiffon, silk organza, netting, voile, or gauze much less any spangles, sequins, boas, or feathers might as well give up. Costume Designer Julie Englebrecht surely … [Read more...] about La Cage Aux Folles
Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses Mary Zimmerman (based David Slavitt’s translation of the myths of Ovid) Pear Theatre and Dragon Productions The element that flows and freezes, falls from the sky and evaporates into the air, sustains all life and can drown all existence – This is the medium in which multiple, life-altering transformations occur in each of a dozen-plus vignettes of … [Read more...] about Metamorphoses
Vietgone
Vietgone Qui Nguyen (with Original Music by Shane Rettig) City Lights Theater Company On the surface, a story detailing the journey of some Vietnamese immigrants as they escape the fall of Saigon in 1975 and land in a refugee camp in Arkansas, Vietgone is actually an irreverent, topsy-turvy, wild ride of a moving and engaging love story – in this case, a … [Read more...] about Vietgone
Circle Mirror Transformation
Circle Mirror Transformation Annie Baker Custom Made Theatre Co. Sometimes it takes the youngest among us to ask the most obvious question (e.g., the child in The Emperor’s Clothes). By the time sixteen-year-old Lauren asks in Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation, “Why are we doing this?” I personally wanted to stand up and applaud that finally … [Read more...] about Circle Mirror Transformation
Water by the Spoonful
Water by the Spoonful Quiara Alegría Hudes San Francisco Playhouse Remaining estranged from a son for ten years. Maneuvering through a messy divorce. Refusing any sort of relationship with a birth mother while caring for the dying aunt (her sister) who raised him. Being the mother now detested by your son. Wanting to find the Japanese birth parents … [Read more...] about Water by the Spoonful
Escape from the Asylum
Escape from the Asylum Patricia Milton Central Works When in June 2019 I reviewed Central Works’ world premiere of Patricia Milton’s The Victorian Ladies’ Detective Collective, I ended my glowing review of the gripping, yet humorous murder mystery with a hope “the playwright decides that – just like Holmes and Watson – Fortescue, Hunter, and Smalls might deserve … [Read more...] about Escape from the Asylum
Ain’t Misbehaving: The Fats Waller Musical Show
Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show Richard Maltby, Jr. & Murray Horwitz (Book) Luther Henderson (Musical Adaptations, Orchestrations & Arrangements) Hillbarn Theatre & Conservatory Maybe we do not get musical confirmation until the last and fifteenth song of Act One that “this joint is jumping;” but there is no doubt as the … [Read more...] about Ain’t Misbehaving: The Fats Waller Musical Show
Dot
Dot Colman Domingo New Conservatory Theatre Center Family gatherings during the December holidays are often a time of maneuvering about carefully on rather thin ice, with members skating gingerly around issues in order not to reopen past and often persistent cracks in relationships. For the Shealy family, skirting away from the one fact most want to ignore as they … [Read more...] about Dot
Passing Strange
Passing Strange Stew (Book & Lyrics); Stew & Heidi Rodewald (Music) Created in Collaboration with Annie Dorsey Shotgun Players A young, wide-eyed teenager – identified only as “Youth” – is searching for his real self, something beyond his life as a middle-class, black kid in Los Angeles living with his big-hearted, Jesus-loving mom. His multi-year … [Read more...] about Passing Strange
