Hairspray Marc Shaiman (Music); Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman (Lyrics); Mark O'Donnell & Thomas Meehan (Book) San Francisco Playhouse It is only fair to open this review of San Francisco Playhouse’s Hairspray with a warning: From the opening “Good Morning Baltimore” to the finale “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” multiple worms will be implanted deep within … [Read more...] about Hairspray
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Ride the Cyclone
Ride the Cyclone Jacob Richmond & Brooke Maxwell (Book, Music & Lyrics) City Lights Theater Company Wild, weird, wacky, and most of all, wonderful are just some of the descriptors for City Lights Theatre Company's summer-time offering, sure to be a sell-out hit for the next several weeks. Ride the Cyclone is Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell's 2009 bizarre … [Read more...] about Ride the Cyclone
La Rondine
La Rondine Giacomo Puccini (Music); Giuseppe Adami (Libretto) English Translation by Donald Pippin Pocket Opera in a Co-Production with Mercury Theater Composed in 1913 as a commissioned Viennese operetta, Giacomo Puccini's La Rondine overflows with music sumptuous and mesmerizing as well as contagiously inviting with its ballroom-worthy waltzes and hints of … [Read more...] about La Rondine
The Employee Dharma Handbook
The Employee Dharma Handbook Geetha Reddy TheatreWorks Silicon Valley In the heart of a Valley where the next IPO can birth hundreds of new millionaires and where many companies are founded, run, and heavily populated by Indian immigrants and Indian Americans, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley commissions and opens a fantastically engaging, intriguing, and often funny … [Read more...] about The Employee Dharma Handbook
Arab Spring
Arab Spring Denmo Ibrahim Golden Thread Productions and San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company With fireworks occasionally exploding to mark the 4th of July in a Houston sweltering in 100+ degrees, a brother and sister who have not seen each other in five years arrive to bury in Muslim tradition a father she has not seen in twenty and one with whom he only recently … [Read more...] about Arab Spring
The Cottage
The Cottage Sandy Rustin Palo Alto Players Plop into a cocktail shaker a bit of Vaudeville, a few Carol Burnett/Lucille Ball antics, a "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" pop-up, and a "Saturday Night Live" over-the-top skit; and then add for good measure a touch of Mel Brooks' no-holds-barred, bodily-function humor. Shake together these across-the-decades masters of … [Read more...] about The Cottage
Becoming a Man
Becoming a Man P. Carl Z Space Polly spent the first fifty years of her life as a girl/woman who came out as queer and eventually married her girlfriend of twenty years, Lynette. On March 16, 2017, at the Hotel Chandler in New York, this same person was called "sir" at the front desk, in the elevator, and at breakfast. As bearded Carl proudly tells us, "I became … [Read more...] about Becoming a Man
Doubt
Doubt Douglas J. Cuomo (Composer); John Patrick Shanley (Libretto) Opera Parallèle A rigidly traditional nun's vague but deeply-felt suspicions about a modern-leaning, charismatic priest's inappropriate conduct with the first black student in a 1964 Bronx Catholic school is the subject of John Patrick Shanley's much-acclaimed Doubt: A Parable, winner of both the … [Read more...] about Doubt
The Lunchbox
The Lunchbox Ritesh Batra (Book & Co-Lyrics); The Lazours (Music & Co-Lyrics) Berkeley Repertory Theatre Repeatedly in publicity materials, program, and even the pre-show announcement, "heart, humor, and hope" are the three words used to describe The Lunchbox, a musical now in world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. And admittedly, there may be no … [Read more...] about The Lunchbox
Tosca
Tosca Giacomo Puccini Libretto by Luigi Illica & Giuseppe Giacosa West Bay Opera With music that flows with abundant passion and fury, with performances directed and acted with creative insight and fervor, and with a setting made grand and glorious by massive and majestic projections, West Bay Opera once again proves with its current production of Giacomo … [Read more...] about Tosca
In the Heights
In the Heights Lin-Manuel Miranda (Music & Lyrics) Quiara Alegría Hudes (Book) South Bay Musical Theatre As our country born of immigrants seeking a better life is only weeks away from celebrating its 250th anniversary, recent immigrant citizens and non-citizens alike feel their lives and livelihood here threatened by a current administration and its cohorts … [Read more...] about In the Heights
Pictures from Home
Pictures from Home Sharr White Marin Theatre There is that box in your closet that you know is there but have not opened in years -- a box crammed with family photos and a history of beach, holiday, dress-up, and back-yard poses. What memories lie there ready to reveal stories you have forgotten or relationships you have not resolved? How much reality is actually … [Read more...] about Pictures from Home
Frozen
Frozen Kirsten Anderson-Lopez & Robert Lopez (Music & Lyrics) Jennifer Lee (Book) Palo Alto Players Whether one is five, ninety five or any where in between, Palo Alto Players has a hit that is sure to be deemed "hygge" by everyone who is lucky enough to attain a ticket to its current blockbuster, Disney's Frozen. Even that Nordic term for anything that … [Read more...] about Frozen
Mean Girls
Mean Girls Tina Fey (Book); Jeff Richmond (Music); Nell Benjamin (Lyrics) Ray of Light Theatre With a twenty-five-year history of picking musicals "with our gut" that "pack a punch" -- musicals that other companies often shun like Carrie, Jerry Springer: The Opera, an all-female Jesus Christ Superstar, or Lizzie the Musical -- Ray of Light Theatre triumphantly … [Read more...] about Mean Girls
Clouds from an Crumbling Giant: our wild shining days
Clouds from a Crumbling Giant: our wild shining days Shinichi Iova-Koga inkBoat "There is being. There is nonbeing. There is a not yet beginning to be nonbeing. There is a not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning to be nonbeing. Suddenly there is nonbeing." ~Chuang Tzu Has there ever been a time when humans during their short stay on earth did not wonder, … [Read more...] about Clouds from an Crumbling Giant: our wild shining days
