Falsettos William Finn (Music & Lyrics); William Finn & James Lapine (Book) 42nd Street Moon As state legislatures by the dozens pass anti-LGBTQ laws by the score, 42nd Street Moon’s opening of William Finn and James Lapine’s Falsettos could hardly be timelier. A compelling, well-voiced cast of seven under the sensitive, spot-on direction by Dennis Lickteig … [Read more...] about Falsettos
5 E
La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola Gioachino Rossini (Composer): Jacopi Ferretti (Original Italian Libretto); Donald Pippin (English Libretto) Pocket Opera Music that excites the imagination and pleases the senses; voices that soar with their clarity and amaze with their electricity; an adapted, English libretto that teases and titillates with its rhymes and rhythms; acting that elicits … [Read more...] about La Cenerentola
Big Data
Big Data Kate Attwell American Conservatory Theater A stranger shows up at the door, and you let him in, not knowing quite why. He settles in as if he knows the place and begins asking mundane but also personal questions and taking some notes. Somehow, he seems already to know a lot about you and describes aspects of yourself, your inner desires, and even dreams for … [Read more...] about Big Data
Rigoletto
Rigoletto Giuseppe Verdi Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave Opera San José Little wonder it is that from its Vienna premiere in 1851 until the twenty-first century, Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto is one of the world’s most-beloved, most-performed operas. Soaring in music that includes famous, widely recognized arias that are difficult for an audience member not to … [Read more...] about Rigoletto
Manahatta
Manahatta Mary Kathryn Nagle Aurora Theatre Company Two American stories, four centuries apart, interlock in their telling, with characters, events, motives, triumphs, and tragedies strikingly similar in Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Manahatta, which premiered in 2018 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Now in an intimately engrossing and enlightening production at Aurora … [Read more...] about Manahatta
Rent
Rent Jonathan Larson (Book, Music & Lyrics) Hillbarn Theatre & Conservatory In January 1996, onto a Broadway stage burst a sexy, soaring musical daring to bestow unforgettable faces and personalities to seven artists struggling to survive not only their 1989, East Village poverty, but also the plague of AIDS/HIV that appeared ready to wipe out an entire … [Read more...] about Rent
People Where They Are
People Where They Are Anthony Clarvoe San Jose Stage Company A Black man dressed in coat and tie walks into a room lined with bookshelves where six chairs are arranged in a circle. Looking at the other five people, he asks the one other Black – Mrs. Clark, a woman with a welcoming smile – “Why are all these white people here? In Alabama, Black and white in the same … [Read more...] about People Where They Are
My Home on the Moon
My Home on the Moon Minna Lee San Francisco Playhouse Outside, the crushing sounds of a next-door bakery’s demise reverberate, facing the same deadly fate as the deli and tea shop that were part of the once-vibrant neighborhood. Inside Pho Lan Restaurant, owner Lan prays before the altar to her ancestors while her young chef, Mai, holds up a stack of unpaid bills, … [Read more...] about My Home on the Moon
How I Learned What I Learned
How I Learned What I Learned August Wilson (Co-Conceived with Todd Kreidler) TheatreWorks Silicon Valley As an elderly, Black man emerges from the theatre’s exit door with aged limp but also with a dignified and sure stature, he intently and silently watches projected, vintage black-and-white film clips of the neighborhoods and their peoples of Black America’s … [Read more...] about How I Learned What I Learned
Kinky Boots
Kinky Boots Cyndi Lauper (Music & Lyrics); Harvey Fierstein (Book) City Lights Theater Company Sometimes it just feels right to start with dessert. When a musical ends with a stage full of people of every shape, size, race, sex, and sexual orientation all dancing in stiletto-heeled boots that rise to hug their hips, it is difficult not to start there with the … [Read more...] about Kinky Boots
A Chorus Line
A Chorus Line James Kirkwood and Nicolas Dante (Book): Marvin Hamlisch (Music); Edward Kleban (Lyrics) Originally Conceived by Michael Bennett San Francisco Playhouse What is immediately striking as the twenty-four dancing hopefuls both sprint and shuffle onto the stage is the wide variety of shapes, sizes, races, and ages among them. At first glance, many of them is … [Read more...] about A Chorus Line
Out of Character
Out of Character Ari’el Stachel Berkeley Repertory Company One of the most remarkable aspects of Berkeley Rep’s latest world premiere show, Out of Character, is the vast array of characters on the stage – unique, interesting people of so many races, places of origin, and family backgrounds with accents, personalities, and personal stories so rich, authentic, and … [Read more...] about Out of Character
Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George Stephen Sondheim (Music & Lyrics); James Lapine (Book) Los Altos Stage Company “Order.” “Design.” “Tension.” “Composition.” “Balance.” “Light.” As each word is announced by the artist whose science of painting is guided by these exacting principles, the members of his most famous composition move into place, aided by his … [Read more...] about Sunday in the Park with George
Othello
Othello William Shakespeare San Jose Stage Company The more Iago’s seeds of deceit begin to take root and wind their deadly vines around the too-receptive Othello, the more brilliant becomes Director Kenneth Kelleher’s decision to place San Jose Stage Company’s production of the Bard’s tragedy in a barely lit, black-walled jazz club of the 1950’s. With the background, … [Read more...] about Othello
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz Frank Baum (Book); Harold Arlen & E.Y. Harburg (Music & Lyrics); Herbert Stothart (Background Music) American Conservatory Theater Let’s be clear: Not only are we not in Kansas anymore, in the current American Conservatory Theater production, we are also definitely not in the same version of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz that we read in … [Read more...] about The Wizard of Oz
