Absolutely Science Fiction! Stories by Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut Word for Word and Z Space Imagine living in a home "which clothed and fed and rocked [you] to sleep" but also a home where the thoughts of your ten-year-old children could turn their nursery into Alice's wonderland, Aladdin's carpet ride, or maybe an hot African plain full of hungry lions. Now … [Read more...] about Absolutely Science Fiction!
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Two Gentlemen of Verona
Two Gentlemen of Verona William Shakespeare Silicon Valley Shakespeare Rash decisions based on love at first sight, gender-switching disguises in order to spy on a cheating lover, servants spilling puns by the dozens about their love-crazed masters, banishment to the forest where all will eventually be made right, and a totally illogical happy ending for all -- … [Read more...] about Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Toxic Avenger
The Toxic Avenger Joe DiPietro (Book & Lyrics); David Bryan (Music & Lyrics) Los Altos Stage Company Slapstick, camp, and parody abound as an audience's constant laughter peppers the air in the Bus Barn Theater of Los Altos Stage Company. Topics like global warming, corporate greed, corrupt political leaders, and toxic pollution are generally not that … [Read more...] about The Toxic Avenger
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz L. Frank Baum (Book); Harold Arlen & E.Y. Harburg (Music & Lyrics); Herbert Stothart (Background Music) Mountain Play From the opening notes of the Overture, bits of familiar tunes brighten more than three thousand faces as toes tap and heart beats quicken. Young and old alike have made once again their way up Mount Tamalpais in yellow … [Read more...] about The Wizard of Oz
Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really
Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really Kate Hamill San Francisco Playhouse Since the 1897 publication of Bram Stoker's gothic horror novel Dracula, hundreds upon hundreds of adaptations in cartoons, films, plays, and musicals from amateur to Hollywood and Broadway have spread the tale of the iconic vampire, Count Dracula, who moves from Transylvania to England … [Read more...] about Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really
Anon(ymous)
Anon(ymous) Naomi Iizuka The Pear Theatre A young man is surrounded by people of many colors, races, and nationalities who answer his initial "Where I come from is far away from here" with memories of their own origins: "hills of green tea," "waterfalls taller than the tallest skyskraper," "monsoon rains," "the smell of fried squid," and many more. The … [Read more...] about Anon(ymous)
Flex
Flex Candice Jones San Francisco Playhouse The squeaks and stomps of tennies across maple, the grunts and grinds of girls blocking others bodies, and the sudden silence and swoosh of aiming and shooting for the basket fill the electric air as San Francisco Playhouse becomes a high school gym full of young women's dreams of a state, basketball championship and maybe … [Read more...] about Flex
La Belle et la Bête (The Beauty and the Beast)
La Belle et la Bête (The Beauty and the Beast) Philip Glass, Based on the Film by Jean Cocteau Opera Parallèle Fantastically blurring live stage performance with cinematic screening where reality and surrealism blend into an evening of spectacular entertainment, Opera Parallèle presents Philip Glass' 1994 opera, La Belle et la Bête (The Beauty and the Beast) while … [Read more...] about La Belle et la Bête (The Beauty and the Beast)
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee William Finn (Music & Lyrics); Rachel Sheinkin (Book) Conceived by Rebecca Feldman; Additional Material by Jay Reiss Foothill Music Theatre Maybe few people still have a dictionary anywhere near their desk or on their home's bookshelf. Maybe nearly everyone now relies on Gmail, MSWord, Google search, or AI to … [Read more...] about The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
After Happy
After Happy Patricia Milton Central Works A last-minute, desperate search for a Pirate Queen for the annual Pirate Festival in a community where most residents live under blue-tarp tents after a destructive hurricane named Happy. A bribery deal in process in Liberia for a Louisiana, family oil company to buy a forest where indigenous people live in order to give … [Read more...] about After Happy
Salome
Salome Richard Strauss (composer); Hedwig Lachmann (libretto) Based on French language play by Oscar Wilde West Bay Opera Among a number of Biblical women such as Jezebel and Delilah whose names to this day connote evil, betrayal, and manipulation, Salome has always engendered much distain, but also much fascination. After all, as recorded twice in … [Read more...] about Salome
Running After Shadows
Running After Shadows Vincent Terrell Durham City Lights Theater Company In the middle of his latest Instagram, live-stream "unboxing" as he practically is making love to his just-arrived garlic press and doing a one-man, conga line wearing his new, authentic, red, "America's Test Kitchen" apron, recent culinary convert Morgan Collins opens one more, unexpected … [Read more...] about Running After Shadows
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
