Co-Founders Ryan Nicole Austin, Beau Lewis, Adesha Adefela Music Team Led by Victoria Theodore American Conservatory Theater For seven years, Esata has been coding in her mother's West Oakland basement, creating an interacting avatar of her deceased father, Cyril -- an incredible accomplishment for someone non-degreed who learned to code with her dad on an Atari … [Read more...] about Co-Founders
Musical
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity Neil Simon (Book); Cy Coleman (Music); Dorothy Fields (Music) San Jose Stage Company (The Stage) Sometimes there are so many aspects of a spectacular production that it is almost impossible to know where to begin. That is especially true for San Jose Stage Company's current summer hit-in-the-making, Sweet Charity. First, the 1967-premiering musical … [Read more...] about Sweet Charity
Next to Normal
Next to Normal Brian Yorkey (Book & Lyrics); Tom Kitt (Music) Ray of Light Theatre Lifelong mental disease, paralyzing grief, severe depression, feelings by a child of a parent's abandonment, drug abuse, the questionable practices of modern psychiatry, suicide. While not the subjects normally associated with the Great American Musical, Brian Yorkey (book and … [Read more...] about Next to Normal
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night William Shakespeare Adaptation Conceived by Kwame Kwei-Armah & Shaina Taub Music & Lyrics by Shaina Taub Los Altos Stage Company One early line in William Shakespeare's romantic comedy, Twelfth Night, has inspired a host of musical adaptations through the years: "If music be the food of love, play on." In 2018, New York's Public Theatre … [Read more...] about Twelfth Night
Brigadoon
Brigadoon Alan Jay Lerner (Book & Lyrics); Frederick Lowe (Music) South Bay Musical Theatre "When you love someone deeply, anything is possible ... even miracles." In times such as we are now experiencing where more and more people are either deeply losing hope, becoming daily more cynical, or just checking out, the idea of miracles probably for most seems a … [Read more...] about Brigadoon
Jersey Boys
Jersey Boys Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice (Book) Bob Gaudio (Music); Bob Crewe (Lyrics) Palo Alto Players Let it be known by anyone and everyone who has seen once, twice, or a dozen times Jersey Boys in New York, London, or on touring stages throughout the country and abroad that seeing the 2005, multi-Tony-award-winning juke-box hit one more time in a … [Read more...] about Jersey Boys
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
The Cher Show
The Cher Show Rick Elice (Book); Various Artists (Music & Lyrics) Broadway San Jose Born in El Centro, California of an Armenian-American truck driver father with drug and gambling problems and a mixed-European-heritage, actress and model mother (parents who divorced when she was ten months old), Cheryl Sarkisian was mocked at school in the 1950s as a … [Read more...] about The Cher Show
Nobody Loves You
Nobody Loves You Itamar Moses (Book); Gaby Alter (Music & Lyrics) American Conservatory Theater When reality TV with a "You're-off-the-island" edge merges with a bachelor/bachelorette dating show format that opens the floodgates for immediate social media inputs, memes, and votes for winners, then the result is a rom-com that is furiously fun from beginning to … [Read more...] about Nobody Loves You
The Prom
The Prom Bob Martin & Chad Beguelin (Book); Matthew Sklar (Music); Chad Beguelin (Lyrics) Foothill Music Theatre At the small-town high school of Fulton, Mississippi in 2010, a high school senior girl was refused the right to bring her girlfriend to the prom, leading to an ACLU suit in court; an eventual prom where only seven students joined her and her date; … [Read more...] about The Prom
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
Urinetown
Urinetown the Musical Mark Hollmann (Music & Lyrics); Greg Kotis (Book & Lyrics) South Bay Musical Theatre Capitalists who care more about cash than care of the people; legislators fawning over CEO’s and accepting bribes on the side; devastating droughts, shrinking water tables, and dubious responses by government officials; authoritarian threats and promised … [Read more...] about Urinetown
Evita
Evita Andrew Lloyd Webber (Music); Tim Rice (Lyrics) San Francisco Playhouse With music that ranges from solemn classical, hip-swishing Latin, and grinding rock to soaring ballads and anthems, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita leaves any audience member with enough memorable earworms for a full night’s worth of dreams. The endurance of Webber’s music coupled with lyrics by … [Read more...] about Evita
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
Being Alive: A Sondheim Celebration
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
