Five Women Wearing the Same Dress Alan Ball Coastal Rep Theatre Five young women each wearing identical, bridesmaid dresses that one describes as "makes me look like a linebacker" along with little hats that "makes us look like the flying nun" find escape from the outdoor reception in the former bedroom of the bride whom all -- including her younger sister -- more … [Read more...] about Five Women Wearing the Same Dress
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Queering the Masses
Queering the Mass Davóne Tines The Chan National Arts Center With background sounds of thunder and rain with a roving red spot sweeping in the otherwise darkened arena, a rich, stirring voice begins to intone, “I’m. lost, and I’m calling for my baby; I need you cause I’m so alone.” As the sole singer dressed in white top and black shorts and long stockings … [Read more...] about Queering the Masses
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams Los Altos Stage Company Perched outside the apartment’s open window on the fire escape where he will spend much of the upcoming play, a young man smokes and comments with little emotion, “The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted; it is sentimental; it is not realistic.” We will soon learn that this is Tom, … [Read more...] about The Glass Menagerie
Noises Off
Noises Off Michael Frayn Palo Alto Players “Doors and sardines. Getting on, getting off. Getting the sardines on, getting the sardines off. That's farce. That's the theatre. That's life.” Perhaps no line better summarizes the challenge and the fun potential of both the fictional director and the actual stage director of Palo Alto Players’ latest opening, Michael … [Read more...] about Noises Off
The Best of The Second City
The Best of The Second City The Second City Berkeley Repertory Theatre For sixty-four years emanating from its Chicago birthplace has come generation after generation of some of the world’s greatest comedian superstars, all getting their start doing improv and ensemble acts at The Second City. The likes of Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Tina Fay, Chris … [Read more...] about The Best of The Second City
Who’s-Dead McCarthy: Stories by Kevin Barry
Who’s-Dead McCarthy: Stories by Kevin Barry Kevin Barry Word for Word In its 31st year of transforming “the page to the stage,” Word for Word once again celebrates the literary genre of the short story by bringing to the intimate stage of Z Below three delightful gems by a much awarded, contemporary, Irish writer in Who’s-Dead McCarthy: Stories by Kevin Barry. The stories … [Read more...] about Who’s-Dead McCarthy: Stories by Kevin Barry
Murder on the Orient Express
Murder on the Orient Express Adapted by Ken Ludwig from the Novel by Agatha Christie Palo Alto Players For many of us, there is nothing better than curling up in a comfy chair and opening the first page of an Agatha Christie novel to see what devilish deed Hercule Poirot will solve this time. Perhaps the only thing better is to see all the suspense, speculation, and … [Read more...] about Murder on the Orient Express
Garuda’s Wing
Garuda’s Wing Naomi Iizuka Magic Theatre in a Co-Production with Campo Santo “I’m going to tell you a story, and then maybe you’ll remember.” The last line of Naomi Iizuka’s latest play, Garuda’s Wing, is clearly aimed at us, the audience. The story we have witnessed over the past ninety minutes in Magic Theatre and Campo Santo’s world premiere production has been … [Read more...] about Garuda’s Wing
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Jeffrey Lane (Book); David Yazbek (Music & Lyrics) San Jose Stage Company Filled with more corn than an Iowa field in mid-summer, San Jose Stage Company’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is overflowing with groaner puns, slapstick silliness, sexual innuendos, and sophomoric vulgarity the likes of high-school boys making fart jokes. Based on the … [Read more...] about Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
tick, tick … Boom!
tick, tick… BOOM! Jonathan Larson (Book, Music & Lyrics); David Auburn, Script Consultant New Conservatory Theatre Center “Maybe I really have written the show that will reinvent musicals for our generation, the Hair of the ‘90s.” With that hope, a struggling playwright and composer heads to a workshop production of the musical he has been writing for five years. … [Read more...] about tick, tick … Boom!
The Music Man
The Music Man Meredith Wilson (Book, Music & Lyrics) Palo Alto Players Musicals often burst onto the stage with numbers that arouse an audience to peak attention and leave fond impressions (and earworms) that can last a lifetime. Among the dozens of opening numbers that are my big-sound, big-number favorites are the likes of Belle entering the village in Beauty and the … [Read more...] about The Music Man
The Skin of Our Teeth
The Skin of Our Teeth Thornton Wilder Los Altos Stage Company Alert! Alert! It’s the coldest day of the year, and it’s only August. An ice wall has moved the Cathedral of Montreal into Vermont; and in Excelsior, New Jersey, dinosaurs and mammoths alike are getting as worried about their survival as are the mounting number of refugees who are heading southward … [Read more...] about The Skin of Our Teeth
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream William Shakespeare Shotgun Players With costumes wonderfully strange, weird, and entirely fanciful and a setting that is dark, mystical, and mysterious as a vast forest in a dream might be, Shotgun Players opens A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a cast that bends genders, mixes races, and celebrates diversity in almost every dimension possible. … [Read more...] about A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Far Country
The Far Country Lloyd Suh Berkeley Repertory Theatre “I do not want to take from America … I want to give to America.” So does the amiable, big-smiling Gee patiently make his case to the persistently doubtful U.S. Inspector to prove in 1909 that he is a naturalized American citizen who – like everyone living in Chinatown in 1906 – lost all his proof-of-birth papers in the … [Read more...] about The Far Country
Ruddygorre Or, The Bruja’s Curse
Ruddygore Or, The Bruja’s Curse W.S. Gilbert (Libretto) & Arthur Sullivan (Score) Adapted by David Euresti Lamplighters Musical Theatre The Company that for seventy-one years has entertained Bay Area audiences with its Gilbert and Sullivan fare has taken one of the pair’s Victorian parodies of the English, nineteenth-century melodrama, Ruddygore, and married it … [Read more...] about Ruddygorre Or, The Bruja’s Curse
