The Boiling: A Tale of American Nihilism Sunhui Chang Magic Theatre in Association with Campo Santo At the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, playwright Sunhui Chang heard on a local Seattle newscast how two potentially infected individuals had voluntarily checked into a quarantine motel, only for one to be caught later on a surveillance camera walking out … [Read more...] about The Boiling: A Tale of American Nihilism
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Camelot
Camelot Frederick Lowe (Music); Alan Jay Lerner (Book and Lyrics) Coastal Repertory Theatre Since its Tony Award winning premiere in 1960 when the President whose too-brief time in the White House became associated with the musical's magical aura, Lerner and Lowe's Camelot has been staged in over 1000 additional productions large and small around the globe, … [Read more...] about Camelot
Cuckoo Edible Magic
Cuckoo Edible Magic Reed Flores San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company (SFBATCO) It is Tumaiguini, the first month of the CHamoru year; and as the moon shifts to a new phase, something has ripped a hole in the universe, permitting a dark force to enter the world. Across the San Francisco Bay Area, imported rice cookers, elderly Tai Chi women, and dark shadowy … [Read more...] about Cuckoo Edible Magic
Kinky Boots
Kinky Boots Cyndi Lauper (Music & Lyrics); Harvey Fierstein (Book) Mountain Play Celebrating Pride Month with full glitz and gusto, Mountain Play opens its 111th season on Mount Tamalpais with Harvey Fierstein (book) and Cyndi Lauper’s (music and lyrics) Kinky Boots, the 2013 musical that took the country by storm and won thirteen Tony nominations and ultimately … [Read more...] about Kinky Boots
Best Available
Best Available Jonathan Spector Shotgun Players What happens when we get to peek behind the curtain of a well-respected, nonprofit theater that is currently looking for a new artistic director after the former one suddenly resigned under mysterious circumstances? To answer that question for a hypothetical theater company – the City Repertory Company – acclaimed, … [Read more...] about Best Available
Forever Plaid
Forever Plaid Stuart Ross (Book); James Raitt (Musical Continuity, Supervision & Arrangements) 42nd Street Moon If ever there were a musical whose subtitle should be “Oldies But Goldies,” it would have to be Stuart Ross’s (book) Forever Plaid, a 25+-song collection from close-harmony, all-male (and usually white) groups of the 1950s like the The Four Aces, The Four … [Read more...] about Forever Plaid
King Liz
King Liz Fernanda Coppel City Lights Theater Company With Jay Z blasting through the office’s speakers, Gabby serves as a cool DJ in shades while her boss, Liz, enters the office dressed in 5th Avenue glamor – and also in dark shades – lip synching the rap lyrics that help her pump up for the day’s money-making ventures: “As sure as I made it here, I could make it … [Read more...] about King Liz
Bees & Honey
Bees & Honey Guadalís Del Carmen Marin Theatre Company “Love me as I love you, Give me your love beyond measure, Find me like a bee to a honeycomb, Long live the honey of my life!” Inspired by this chorus from “Como Abeja al Panal” (“Like a Bee to a Honeycomb”) by the Latin song writer Juan Luis Guerra, Guadalís Del Carmen has penned a sweet-and-sour, … [Read more...] about Bees & Honey
Miriam and Esther Go to the Diamond District
Miriam and Esther Go to the Diamond District Andrea Gordon Rainbow Zebra Productions LLC at the Magic Theatre Memories of parents long dead, of childhoods interrupted, and of a sibling relationship almost non-existent swirl amongst a stored-box clutter of letters, pictures, knickknacks, and clothing from lifetimes past as two sisters sort through their own and their … [Read more...] about Miriam and Esther Go to the Diamond District
Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea
Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea Nathan Alan Davis The Pear Theatre Eighteen-year-old Dontrell is the kind of son any mother would be so proud to have: Straight A’s throughout school, all AP classes, and now only three weeks before beginning his first semester at John Hopkins University. But his mom cannot stop praying every day that the “t-minus 21” countdown of days … [Read more...] about Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea
Men on Boats
Men on Boats Jaclyn Backhaus Palo Alto Players Palo Alto Players opens the 2015, Off-Broadway-premiering Men on Boats in which playwright Jaclyn Backhaus seeks to entertain and enlighten us about the first government-sanctioned trip in 1869 down the Green River as it spills ripping and roaring into what we now know as the Grand Canyon. With a twist that mirrors … [Read more...] about Men on Boats
“The Lady Scribblers”
When Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660, not only did he restore live theatre that had been banned during the Cromwell/Puritan reign, he declared the roles of women could and should in fact be played by women. During the same period and throughout the reign of William and Mary, women also began to write plays and see them produced, with two even being … [Read more...] about “The Lady Scribblers”
Stage Kiss
Tonsil hockey, pecking, sucking face, tongue wrestling, snogging (in Harry Potter terms), or just good ol’ making out – whatever the nickname, the meeting of two sets of human lips is the central and most-repeated action of Sarah Ruhl’s Stage Kiss. Sometimes barely touching a cheek, sometimes a thwarted attempt embarrassingly missing target, but most often involving long … [Read more...] about Stage Kiss
Love in the Time of Piñatas
Body covered in skin-tight fishnet (black, of course), shoulders bedecked in a cape of shaking circles of metallic colors, beard sparkling with glitter to match his highlighted eyes, and high tops that light up as he prances about, Baruch Porras Hernandez enters the intimate setting of Z Below announcing to his cheering fans: “Hellooooo, everyone! I’m just your friendly, … [Read more...] about Love in the Time of Piñatas
Miss Saigon
The story originating from Puccini’s much-beloved opera Madame Butterfly is well enough known that most audience members arrive – as they might for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – anticipating the tragic ending to its ill-fated love story. Decade-long runs both in London and New York in the 1990s as well as continual, packed-house tours worldwide these past twenty years also … [Read more...] about Miss Saigon
