When he was just fourteen and called by Robert Kelley to come and play the piano for a local theatre’s rehearsal session, could then young William Liberatore ever imagine that nearly five decades later in 2024 he would be opening his fiftieth show as music director with that same company, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley – a show he and Kelley, the company’s founder and now- … [Read more...] about Being Alive: A Sondheim Celebration
Best Bet
Young Frankenstein
Young Frankenstein Mel Brooks & Thomas Meehan (Book); Mel Brooks (Music & Lyrics) Los Altos Stage Company When it comes to parody and farce, who does it better than Mel Brooks? Whether garnering tear-producing laughs by satirizing Star Wars movies (Spaceballs), Alfred Hitchcock thrillers (Anxiety), westerns (Blazing Saddles), Broadway (Producers), and so much … [Read more...] about Young Frankenstein
Everybody’s Talking about Jamie
Everybody’s Talking about Jamie Dan Gillespie Sells (Score) & Tom MacRae (Book & Lyrics) Based Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, Directed by Jenny Popplewell Ray of Light Theatre What better way for a San Francisco audience to celebrate Pride Month than enjoying to the hilt a joyous, upbeat, and totally inspiring coming out story of a sixteen-year-old whose only dream … [Read more...] about Everybody’s Talking about Jamie
Dear San Francisco
Dear San Francisco Shana Carroll & Gypsy Snider, Co-Creators A Production of The 7 Fingers at Club Fugazi Co-created by choreographic superstars Shana Carroll and Gypsy Snider, Dear San Francisco is ninety-minutes of breath-taking, heart-pumping acrobatics; aerial exhibitions; vaulting bodies; juggling of hats and umbrellas; hoop diving; and so much more. But what … [Read more...] about Dear San Francisco
The Lehman Trilogy
The Lehman Trilogy Stefano Massini Adapted by Ben Power American Conservatory Theater It is a story whose ending we already too well know. The world’s fourth largest investment bank files for the biggest bankruptcy in American history, sending Wall Street into panic and initiating the 2008-09 global financial crisis and the collapse of numerous, other banking … [Read more...] about The Lehman Trilogy
Galileo
Galileo Danny Strong (Book); Michael Weiner & Zoe Sarnack (Music & Lyrics) Berkeley Repertory Theatre From one side we hear, “Science asks the questions; the Bible has the answers;” from the opposing view, “The Scriptures is a book about going to heaven; it is not a book about how the heavens go.” Sounds like countering arguments made in some current, state … [Read more...] about Galileo
Torch Song
Torch Song Harvey Fierstein Marin Theatre With strut and style, Virginia Ham strolls into the spotlight in full drag glory to lip sing with wonderfully exaggerated aplomb a queen’s torch anthem. By the time she has wowed us with mimicked words escaping her Mammoth-Cave-sized mouth; with eyes ready any moment to pop out of their sockets; and with hands that flit, flip, … [Read more...] about Torch Song
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew William Shakespeare Modern Verse Translation by Amy Freed and Play On Shakespeare African-American Shakespeare Company Like his Merchant of Venice with its many antisemitic references, William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew – even for all its underlying silliness – is often viewed as a difficult work to swallow by modern audiences, given what … [Read more...] about The Taming of the Shrew
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams San Francisco Playhouse As we enter the theatre, we immediately notice at the stage’s corner a young man intently smoking, looking one moment longingly into a non-descript distance and writing the next with much intent into a small notebook clasped tightly in his hand. In between, he rummages through a collection of records, … [Read more...] about The Glass Menagerie
The Chinese Lady
The Chinese Lady Lloyd Suh The Pear Theatre A young girl barely fourteen dressed and in make-up of her traditional, royal Chinese background sits in a small room surrounded by reminders of her Chinese heritage. With sparkling personality and sweet smile, she tells us that while her lips are moving, she is not speaking; that the words we hear are not hers; and that the … [Read more...] about The Chinese Lady
Love Letters
Love Letters A.R. Gurney The Pear Theatre A.R. Gurney’s 1989-premiering Love Letters has been performed hundreds of times by theatres on-and-off-Broadway, coast-to-coast, and internationally, featuring thousands of couples – often the biggest names in show biz – who generally star in the two-hander show only one night. By design of the playwright, actors do not see a … [Read more...] about Love Letters
Blue Door
Blue Door Tanya Barfield Aurora Theatre Company Like Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge, Lewis heads to bed, soon to toss and turn and to spend a night confronted by the ghosts of his life – in his case, direct-line ancestors stretching over a hundred years. As one ghost announces, “This is a summoning” for this distinguished, Black, mathematics professor who before … [Read more...] about Blue Door
Something Rotten
Something Rotten Karey Kirkpatrick & John O’Farrell (Book); Wayne & Karey Kirkpatrick (Music & Lyrics) Hillbarn Theatre & Conservatory With eyes sparkling their excitement and a spry body moving almost like a stringed puppet, the Minstrel sings, “Welcome to the Renaissance, where we ooh and ahh you with ambiance ... where everything is new.” Touting … [Read more...] about Something Rotten
A Strange Loop
A Strange Loop Michael R. Jackson (Book, Music & Lyrics) American Conservatory Theater, in Co-Production with Central Theatre Group Two minutes until the intermission of The Lion King ends. The usher – who just happens to be named Usher – dings the ‘bing-bong-bing’ warning to scurry folks back to their seats. Recurring thoughts begin swarming in his head – often … [Read more...] about A Strange Loop
Florencia en el Amazonas
Florencia en el Amazonas (Florence in the Amazon) Daniel Catân (Music); Marcela Fuentes-Berain (Libretto) Based on the Writings of Gabriel Garcia Márquez) Opera San José The romantic drama of multiple loves lost, denied, and finally found intertwine with the Amazon’s alluring myths and fantasy in Opera San José’s magnificent dip into the waters of Daniel Catán’s … [Read more...] about Florencia en el Amazonas
