Get Eddie’s recommendations for shows on stage now that you should be sure not to miss.
A Distinct Society
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley presents the world-premiere “A Distinct Society” as a wake-up call that is crying out for us all to hear that the border concerns of others are the concerns of us all, for each of us is in some way a member of our own “distinct society” that may someday be defined by someone as “not a part.”
Grand Horizons
Bess Wohl’s Grand Horizons leads us on a journey that at first appears familiar and predictable but proves to be just as upending in its twists and turns as life so often is. A romantic comedy where romance is full of dysfunction and disappointment while still providing a possible path for refreshers and restarts, Grand Horizons provides all the fodder needed for The Stage’s director, cast, and creative team to dish up a totally fulfilling evening of much laughter and even a couple, final, heartfelt tears.
The Triumph of Love
Part fairy tale, part farce, part rom-com, and part commedia dell’arte, Marivaux’s The Triumph of Love opens Shotgun Players’ 31st love-themed season with a must-see production that sparkles, sizzles, and satisfies from beginning to its own triumphant end.
Blithe Spirit
No matter how many times one may have laughed through the near three hours (with one fifteen-minute intermission and one, five-minute pause) of merry-making in previous productions of Noël Coward’s widely and wildly popular Blythe Spirit, grab a ticket today; and discover entirely new and different ways Director Mark Anderson Phillips and this City Lights cast and creative team have found to ensure an evening of out-of-this-world hilarity.
Merrily We Roll Along
42nd Street Moon opens a rousing, robust, and oft riveting Merrily We Roll Along in which a first-class cast of fifteen bring much acting muscle and notable musical prowess to full bear under the clever and captivating direction of Dennis Lickteig.
Fiddler on the Roof
Under the direction of Bartlett Sher, this long-running, touring Fiddler explodes in contemporary freshness of concept while retaining enough of what we all remember fondly. The result is a Fiddler on the Roof ready to reignite returnees’ love and to introduce a whole new generation to a story that, in the end, is about forced immigration and its profound effects on families and their traditions and histories – a storyline now more relevant than ever.
Clue
Sandy Ruskin’s stage version of the popular, murder mystery game “Clue” with its 216 possible endings of who killed whom, with what, and where becomes San Francisco Playhouse’s co-founder and director Susi Damilano’s chance to insert 2160 (or more) silly shenanigans and stunts full of slapstick in a production featuring a cast of veteran, Bay Area actors that face mounting murders and an ever-murkier mystery.
The Glass Menagerie
With a cast that proves to a person its mettle, the African-American Shakespeare Company’s The Glass Menagerie is a welcomed retake of an old friend with the reminder that the family dynamic memories of Tennessee Williams are those that can meaningfully speak to all us of whatever background, whatever era.
FANNIE: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
With words ringing both spoken and sung in resounding, reverberating tones and vibrations, Greta Oglesby delivers an astounding, long-to-be-remembered performance of Cheryl L. West’s Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. From the moment Greta Oglesby’s Fannie peers into the audience, it feels as if she is looking at and talking to each of us individually. In a sweet-sounding, Southern, sing-song voice that immediately captures our rapt attention, she tells us, “Now I ain’t never told the whole story; but I stopped by to tell ya’ll ‘cause, children, lotta work to be done if we ever gonna right this country.”
Perfect Arrangement
At a time when discrimination of all sorts, types, and colors is once again becoming the norm coast-to-coast; when many state governments are on the verge of conducting witch hunts for those they consider ‘deviant;’ and when the LBGTQ rights won just a few years ago are state after state threatened, Hillbarn Theatre opens Topher Payne Perfect Arrangementin a production that is definitely must-see. A two-hour evening that is packed with early belly laughs ends with an audience stunned in silent awe as we watch a daring chapter of important history being born. Applause, applause, applause – all genuine, none canned – to Hillbarn for the foresight to offer this gift to the Bay Area at this particular and scary time in our history.
