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Theatre Eddys

Theatre Eddys

San Francisco Bay Area Theater Reviews

Musical

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

May 30, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds 5 Comments

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder Robert L. Freedman (Book & Lyrics); Steven Lutvak (Music & Lyrics) Based on Roy Horniman’s 1907 Novel, Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal Lamplighters Music Theatre In full, formal black dress, six mourning Londoners in excellent but foreboding harmonies warn us upfront, “For those of you of weaker constitution … [Read more...] about A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Ruthless! The Musical Comedy

May 6, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds

Ruthless! The Musical Comedy Marvin Laird (Music); Joel Paley (Lyrics and Book) Los Altos Stage Company When third-grader Tina Denmark hears of the lead role in her school’s new musical, Pippi [Longstocking] in Tahiti, she declares “I would kill for that part;” and she is actually not kidding.  The deadly ambitious pipsqueak who has trouble talking without singing or … [Read more...] about Ruthless! The Musical Comedy

Octet

April 28, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

Octet Dave Malloy (Book, Lyrics, Music, Vocal Arrangements) Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Co-Production with Signature Theatre Barely acknowledging the others and each appearing a bit hesitant and even lost, eight individuals – four women, four men – arrive one by one to sit in a circle in what appears to be a church basement.  With a nod by one, they begin a sliding … [Read more...] about Octet

Allegiance

April 25, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

Allegiance Marc Acito, Jay Kuo & Lorenzo Thione (Book); Jay Kuo (Music & Lyrics) Palo Alto Players With only the clothes on their backs and one tightly clutched suitcase each, shock-faced people stand shoulder-to-shoulder while riding in a cattle car to a location unknown – a destination surrounded by barbed wire in a desolate area reeking of dust and lacking … [Read more...] about Allegiance

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

April 24, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change Joe DiPietro (Book & Lyrics); Jimmy Roberts (Music); Doug Katsaros (Orchestrations) Hillbarn Theatre & Conservatory For someone who has seen well over 150 live theatre shows every, pre-COVID year for at least the past twenty years, how is it I have missed seeing the 1996-premiering, second-longest-running Off-Broadway … [Read more...] about I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

Vietgone

March 28, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds

Vietgone Qui Nguyen (with Original Music by Shane Rettig) City Lights Theater Company   On the surface, a story detailing the journey of some Vietnamese immigrants as they escape the fall of Saigon in 1975 and land in a refugee camp in Arkansas, Vietgone is actually an irreverent, topsy-turvy, wild ride of a moving and engaging love story – in this case, a … [Read more...] about Vietgone

Ain’t Misbehaving: The Fats Waller Musical Show

March 20, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds

Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show Richard Maltby, Jr. & Murray Horwitz (Book) Luther Henderson (Musical Adaptations, Orchestrations & Arrangements) Hillbarn Theatre & Conservatory   Maybe we do not get musical confirmation until the last and fifteenth song of Act One that “this joint is jumping;” but there is no doubt as the … [Read more...] about Ain’t Misbehaving: The Fats Waller Musical Show

Passing Strange

March 14, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds

Passing Strange Stew (Book & Lyrics); Stew & Heidi Rodewald (Music) Created in Collaboration with Annie Dorsey Shotgun Players A young, wide-eyed teenager – identified only as “Youth” – is searching for his real self, something beyond his life as a middle-class, black kid in Los Angeles living with his big-hearted, Jesus-loving mom.  His multi-year … [Read more...] about Passing Strange

Sense and Sensibility

March 13, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds

Sense and Sensibility Paul Gordon (Book, Music & Lyrics) Based on the Novel by Jane Austin TheatreWorks Silicon Valley   For those who have experienced even a few of the 175 plays and musicals that Robert Kelley directed during the first fifty years of the Tony Award winning company he founded – Theatreworks Silicon Valley – there are much … [Read more...] about Sense and Sensibility

Celebrating 150 Years of Gilbert and Sullivan! A Sesquicentennial Soiree of Scenes

February 20, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds 1 Comment

Celebrating 150 Years of Gilbert and Sullivan!  A Sesquicentennial Soiree of Scenes Lamplighters Music Theatre W.S. Gilbert (Lyrics); Arthur Sullivan (Music)   With a triumphant heralding of opening notes emerging from an orchestra pit that has been empty during two years of COVID, Lamplighters Music Theatre returns with glorious flair just in time to celebrate … [Read more...] about Celebrating 150 Years of Gilbert and Sullivan! A Sesquicentennial Soiree of Scenes

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

March 5, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds

 The 2014, multi-Tony-Award-winning musical with its music-hall-sounding score and oft-rhyming-and-rapid-firing lyrics receives a fast-moving, laugh-out-loud rendering under the jocular direction of Daren A. C. Carollo.  His directorial tongue never leaves his cheeks as he has conceived innumerable, over-the-top ways to tickle our innards while watching the demises of the … [Read more...] about A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

The SpongeBob Musical

February 13, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

 Goofy but cute?  Check.  Nutty-and-fruity but timely in theme?  Check.  Sappy but good-hearted?  Check.  For kids and adults alike?  Check.  Ignore the title and just go see it?  Check. For anyone like myself that somehow – in my case, even with six kids – never tuned in even once to Stephen Hillenburg’s award-winning, Nickelodeon hit, SpongeBob … [Read more...] about The SpongeBob Musical

Chicago

February 11, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds

Hips snap and swirl.  Hands spread their fingers, Fosse-style.  Shoulders roll as twelve bodies slowly swing around in unison, grouped together in a triangle that moves in soft but precisely placed steps.  Through the center in her black lingerie snakes a slinking gal singing in a smoky, sensuous voice, “C’mon babe, why don’t we paint the town, and all that jazz?” And onto … [Read more...] about Chicago

The Fantasticks

February 3, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds

In 1960, it was a little musical that broke many molds, especially from the beloved musicals by big Broadway composers/writers like Rogers and Hammerstein, George Abbott, and Lerner and Loewe.  It had little plot and became one of several of the earliest so-called ‘concept’ musicals that would later lead to dozens of others such as A Chorus Line, Assassins, and Avenue Q.  There … [Read more...] about The Fantasticks

Princess Ida

February 3, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds

An operetta from the conservative Victorian Age that satirizes feminism and women’s education and sets up a battle between the sexes that the men are destined to win is not exactly a winning formula for most 2020 audiences.  But the operetta is by the perennially loved W.S. Gilbert (libretto) and Albert Sullivan (music); and there are many, modern aficionados of the famed pair … [Read more...] about Princess Ida

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Eddie is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.

Theatre Eddys Ratings Legend

5 E's - Loved It
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Good production but something is lacking or not clicking.
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Below average but had at least one interesting component.
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Waste of time.

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About Eddie

Theatre Critic for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, writing 150+ reviews annually for Theatre Eddys and Talkin' Broadway (San Jose/Silicon Valley). Read More

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