Otello Giuseppi Verdi (Music); Arigo Boito (Libretto) West Bay Opera After his successful Aida premiered in 1871, the great Giuseppi Verdi decided with firm finality to retire from opera composition; but the librettist Arigo Boito had other ideas. Boito's persistent temptations for Verdi to tackle one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, Othello, finally led to a … [Read more...] about Otello
Parade
Parade Alfred Uhry (Book); Jason Robert Brown (Music & Lyrics); Hal Prince (Co-conceived); Daniel Felsenfeld (Orchestrations) BroadwaySF It is 1913 in Atlanta, not quite fifty years after the city lay in total ashes at the end of the Civil War. An annual, Memorial Day parade is in progress; but in this parade, there are no signs of American flags -- only … [Read more...] about Parade
Yellow Face
Yellow Face David Henry Hwang Shotgun Players Following a decade in the 1990s when Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson railed against the growing influence of Chinese Americans and questioned where their loyalties really lay (going famously after nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee as a traitor), David Henry Hwang opened in 2007 his play, Yellow Face, a brilliantly scripted … [Read more...] about Yellow Face
To My Girls
To My Girls JC Lee New Conservatory Theatre Center "A toast: To the reassembly of people I desperately love ... This weekend is about reclaiming a glimpse of the joy we used to take for granted. So let's retract the claws and try to have a good time." After years apart from their days and nights together as twenty-somethings in New York's gay scene, a small … [Read more...] about To My Girls
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer W.S. Gilbert (Libretto) & Arthur Sullivan (Music) Lamplighters Musical Theatre "Ring forth ye bells with clarion sound, Forget your knells, for joy abounds. Forget your notes of mournful lay, Sound forth your throats pure joy today." With full voices resounding in happy harmonies, a chorus of both the wealthy and the working class rejoice that … [Read more...] about The Sorcerer
Simple Mexican Pleasures
Simple Mexican Pleasures Eric Reyes Loo New Conservatory Theatre Center No one would possibly dare accuse Eric of even having one toe still in the closet -- not his friends, family, colleagues, or even a casual passer by on the streets of L.A. But when his boyfriend in Seattle sends him a text that "I think it's over" just as Eric is packing his hoards of … [Read more...] about Simple Mexican Pleasures
Crumbs from the Table of Joy
Crumbs from the Table of Joy Lynn Nottage Aurora Theatre Company For seventeen-year-old Ernestine Crump on the verge of her high school gradation, life sometimes "feels like floating out of your body, entering the Milky Way and getting stuck in it just as its curdling." That is especially true for this young Black girl living in lily-white Brooklyn in 1950. After … [Read more...] about Crumbs from the Table of Joy
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Simon Stephens, Based on the Novel by Mark Haddon San Francisco Playhouse A boy of fifteen years, three months, three days can count from a fast moving train the exact number of trees on a hillside, of clouds in the sky, and of hues of green in the meadows passing by. He notes without hesitation that his neighbor … [Read more...] about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
the aves
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
