Get Eddie’s recommendations for shows on stage now that you should be sure not to miss.
Into the Woods
With its Into the Woods, The Mountain Play accentuates in hundreds of touches large and small the humor and whimsical nature of the brilliant lyrics and book while at the same time finding ways to touch our hearts and draw a tear or two as we watch the familiar childhood stories find new lives. With a crackerjack cast full of superb voices and an impressive orchestra of delightful musicality, The Mountain Play scores a big hit in its 110th season as the Company presents this fractured, farcical, fairy tale that is a musical impossible not to love.
1776
In the current, national tour of 1776 now in a too-short, Broadway San Jose run, a dramatization of the Continental Congress’s final month leading up to the eventual signing of the Declaration of Independence is told by those who were largely overlooked and whose liberties were ignored by the founding fathers. In this 1776, those white men so hallowed in our history have been replaced by a cast of those with mixed race, ethnicity, and gender and with all members identifying as either female, transgender, nonbinary, or gender non-conforming. The result is that the history lesson takes on powerful, current implications and comparisons, making this 1776 the best version I personally have ever seen.
Singin’ in the Rain
The fact that South Bay Musical Theatre’s cast of thirty not only can tap but keep us laughing during many screwball comedic moments, swaying to songs familiar, and rooting for the happy, romantic ending we know is coming – all that only means an evening at the Saratoga Civic Theatre is going to be a trip down memory lane well-worth taking to enjoy “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Romeo and Juliet
African-American Shakespeare Company’s Artistic Director, L. Peter Callender, pens and directs a honed-down, fast-paced, contemporary version ofRomeo and Juliet, made particularly compelling and gripping with an excellent cast of actors mostly of color.
The Scottsboro Boys
The resounding, toe-tapping opening of the final collaboration by one of Broadway’s most famed duos, John Kander and Fred Ebb, receives a rousing, eye-popping, and thrilling production as 42nd Street Moon’s presentsThe Scottsboro Boys – a musical that is also startling, unnerving, and unsettling in both structure and content. Focusing on the horrific true story of false, rape accusations against nine, young Black men in 1931 Alabama, The Scottsboro Boys is presented as a minstrel show, a 19th-century-born form of American-born theatre popular way into the 20th century where black-faced whites in song, dance, jokes, and skits portrayed Blacks as lazy, dim-witted, happy-go-lucky to a fault, and overall foolish.
Chinglish
In Chinglish (a word meaning the mash-up of Chinese and English), David Henry Hwang deftly and deliciously constructs a script ripe for the tightly-paced, tongue-in-cheek, tantalizing direction of Jeffrey Lo. He guides a SF Playhouse cast that is stellar in comedic prowess and stunning in their collective abilities to speak fluent Chinese.
The NI¿¿ER LOVERS
So much packed into only ninety minutes. So much to continue to contemplate after exiting the theatre. So much still to do. A ticket to Magic Theatre’s world premiere of Marc Anthony Thompson’s The NI¿¿ER LOVERS: An Amerikkan Musical is a ticket to an evening of entertainment that cannot adequately be described in a review but must be absorbed in person, with the operative word being must. This is a show that is a must-see if ever there was one.
Cyrano
As a person who has seen various, excellently produced versions of Rostand’s classic over the years, I left Jeff Costello’s adapted and directed Cyrano with a heart full, a smile large, and a spirit totally satisfied. Kudos go to him, this cast, and the entire creative team of Aurora Theatre Company for a Cyrano that sings, sizzles, and soars.
Harold and Maude
Judging from the laughs, tears, and sustained rounds of applause of Los Altos Stage Company’s sold-out, opening night audience, Harold and Maude even as the stage version still has a half-century later a loyal, loving fan base. When that fact is coupled with a production as well-cast, well-conceived, and well-executed as LASC’s, then this dark dramedy about living, loving, and dying is nothing less than a do-not-miss charmer.
Come From Away
The immediate, sustained standing ovation full of loud, long ‘hurrahs’ at the evening’s end for the touring production’s return visit to San Francisco (first playing in February 2019) echoed the similar responses Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s Come from Away has consistently received since its 2017 opening on Broadway, where it played to mostly standing-room only performances for five years (as well as subsequently on stages in Dublin, Toronto, Melbourne, and London).
