Chinglish David Henry Hwang San Francisco Playhouse With a congenial big smile behind the center-stage lectern, American businessman Daniel Cavanaugh punctuates his talk on “Doing Business in China” with examples how Chinese interpreters often massacre common English phrases in commercial signage, with “Chief Financial Officer” becoming “Financial Affairs Is Everywhere … [Read more...] about Chinglish
Best Bet
The NI¿¿ER LOVERS
The NI¿¿ER LOVERS: An Amerikkan Musical Marc Anthony Thompson, Writer & Composer Magic Theatre In 1848, a young, married couple devised and successfully executed in eight days a daring, dangerous plan to escape the horrific bondage of slavery in Macon, Georgia to find freedom in Boston – the light-skinned wife disguised as a man and her darker-skinned husband, as … [Read more...] about The NI¿¿ER LOVERS
Cyrano
Cyrano Edmond Rostand, Adapted by Josh Costello Aurora Theatre Company From its premiere night in 1897 Paris when the audience was still applauding an hour after the final curtain fell, through multiple stagings on the Great White Way starring some of Broadway’s finest, and after hundreds of productions worldwide in multiple languages, Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de … [Read more...] about Cyrano
Harold and Maude
Harold and Maude Colin Higgins Los Altos Stage Company Maybe fifty-two years ago the film was a flop according to both critics and audiences. Maybe in 1980 as a stage play, it closed on Broadway after only four nights. But somewhere along the way the screenplay that was originally written by Colin Higgins as his master thesis became a cult film favorite, turned a … [Read more...] about Harold and Maude
Come From Away
Come From Away Irene Sankoff & David Hein (Book, Music & Lyrics) BroadwaySF “I’m sitting in my car.” “I’m in the library.” “I’m in the staff room.” “And I turned on the radio.” Like almost everyone worldwide and everyone in the opening night audience of BroadwaySF’s Golden Gate Theatre, citizens of Gander, Newfoundland remember where they were at 8:46 a.m. … [Read more...] about Come From Away
A Distinct Society
A Distinct Society Kareem Fahmy TheatreWorks Silicon Valley An executive order on January 27, 2017, by a president barely one week in office barred citizens from seven countries – all majority Muslim – from entering the United States. Protests, legal challenges, and suits followed; but in the meantime, border agencies began reacting and enacting, often changing … [Read more...] about A Distinct Society
Grand Horizons
Grand Horizons Bess Wohl San Jose Stage Company As the Beach Boys in the background sing joyfully their upbeat harmonies of “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older … to live together in the world where we belong,” a couple clearly pushing well into their seventies goes about prep for dinner – she pulling the roast from the oven and arranging it ever so properly on their … [Read more...] about Grand Horizons
The Triumph of Love
The Triumph of Love Pierre De Marivaux, Translated by Stephen Wadsworth Shotgun Players Gender confusions left and right that lead to infatuations built on false pretenses. A cunning princess plotting to capture the love of a naïve prince who has been taught his whole life to hate and eventually usurp her. Loves built on mounting lies leading to three planned … [Read more...] about The Triumph of Love
Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit Noël Coward City Lights Theater Company The world was at war; England was constantly threatened from the skies; the fear of death of self and of loved ones was on everyone’s mind. What better time to write a three-act farce about a séance gone haywire recalling an author’s dead wife from the beyond – a ghost only he can see and a ghost who has devilish … [Read more...] about Blithe Spirit
Merrily We Roll Along
Merrily We Roll Along Stephen Sondheim (Music & Lyrics); George Furth (Book) Based on the Original Play by George S. Kaufman & Moss Hart 42nd Street Moon 6 a.m., October 1957, on a rooftop of a New York apartment building, two friends look to the sky, searching for the world’s first orbiting satellite. Frank has just been released from the Army and is about … [Read more...] about Merrily We Roll Along
Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the Roof Joseph Stein (Book); Jerry Bock (Music); Sheldon Harnick (Lyrics) BroadwaySF After its record-setting, award-winning initial run on Broadway in 1964; its five Broadway revivals since; countless openings on local and touring stages globally and in towns and cities from coast to coast in America – not to mention the 1971 film whose scenes are now … [Read more...] about Fiddler on the Roof
Clue
Clue Based on Screenplay by Jonathan Lynn Written by Sandy Rustin Additional Material by Hunter Foster & Eric Price Based on Paramount Pictures film, Clue Based on Hasbro Board Game, CLUE San Francisco Playhouse Six guests arrive at a New England, country mansion in 1954; and soon each receives from the host a plain-paper-wrapped gift – either a dagger, a … [Read more...] about Clue
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams The African-American Shakespeare Company In 1944, Tennessee Williams skyrocketed from near obscurity to wide-spread fame with the premiere of The Glass Menagerie, a play touted as a memory play both in the script and in its evident connections to the playwright and his family of an excessively attention-seeking mother, a mentally … [Read more...] about The Glass Menagerie
FANNIE: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer Cheryl L. West TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Despite having suffered polio as a child, a Mississippi sharecropper worked in the cotton fields twelve-to-eighteen-hour a day starting at the age of six in a state where 77% of the people were Black like she but where the minority whites ran 100% of everything. But then one day … [Read more...] about FANNIE: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
Perfect Arrangement
Perfect Arrangement Topher Payne Hillbarn Theatre & Conservatory The red stage light comes on, accompanied by a resounding ring; theme music fills the air; and lights come up on what could almost be a recreation of Lucy and Desi’s apartment. Canned applause joins in ushering to the stage another episode of Perfect Arrangement. But what starts out as a … [Read more...] about Perfect Arrangement
