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Theatre Eddys

Theatre Eddys

San Francisco Bay Area Theater Reviews

solo show

Penelope

March 29, 2025 by Eddie Reynolds

Penelope Ellen McLaughlin (Text); Sarah Kirkland Snider (Music) The Pear Theatre in a co-production with Bootstrap Theater Foundation Twenty years after divorcing a man who constantly lied to her, she opens her front door to find a nurse with someone she is told is her husband, someone she does not recognize just as he does not know who she is.  He is returning … [Read more...] about Penelope

Queering the Masses

February 1, 2025 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

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

Takes All Kinds

January 19, 2025 by Eddie Reynolds

Takes All Kinds Dan Hoyle The Marsh In the fall of 2022, Dan Hoyle found himself at a “40s-something” party where during the chit-chat of chardonnay sipping, someone said to him, “So you do journalistic theatre?  But aren’t they both kinda collapsing?” Given an insatiable drive to discover core truths about a community, culture, and/or even an entire country; a … [Read more...] about Takes All Kinds

Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord

April 5, 2024 by Eddie Reynolds

Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord Kristina Wong American Conservatory Theatre With the hard rock and blues beats of J Roddy Watson and the Business blasting out, “I’ve been pulling threads, doing all kinds of evil,” a woman sits at her sewing machine and quickly whirls a piece of cloth through the machine’s needles, pulling out a mask – the kind we were all desperately … [Read more...] about Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord

Swimming with Lesbians

January 29, 2024 by Eddie Reynolds

Swimming with Lesbians Marga Gomez The Marsh Grab your life preserver; stop by the bar on the Lezzo Deck for a ‘sapphotini;’ and welcome aboard The Celesbian, “the world’s oldest lesbian cruise line because we have the world’s oldest lesbians on board.”  We may think we are at The Marsh Berkeley; but under the command of the comic antics of veteran author and performer … [Read more...] about Swimming with Lesbians

How I Learned What I Learned

January 22, 2024 by Eddie Reynolds

How I Learned What I Learned August Wilson (Co-Conceived with Todd Kreidler) TheatreWorks Silicon Valley As an elderly, Black man emerges from the theatre’s exit door with aged limp but also with a dignified and sure stature, he intently and silently watches projected, vintage black-and-white film clips of the neighborhoods and their peoples of Black America’s … [Read more...] about How I Learned What I Learned

Out of Character

June 29, 2023 by Eddie Reynolds

Out of Character Ari’el Stachel Berkeley Repertory Company One of the most remarkable aspects of Berkeley Rep’s latest world premiere show, Out of Character, is the vast array of characters on the stage – unique, interesting people of so many races, places of origin, and family backgrounds with accents, personalities, and personal stories so rich, authentic, and … [Read more...] about Out of Character

Where Did We Sit on the Bus?

May 12, 2023 by Eddie Reynolds

Where Did We Sit on the Bus? Brian Quijada (Book and Music); Satya Chávez (Additional Compositions) Marin Theatre Company When he was in the third grade, Brian Quijada sat in a classroom during a lesson about Rosa Parks contemplating the bus where she took her seat.  In the front, he heard, was where the whites normally sat; in the back were the Blacks.  Brown-skinned, … [Read more...] about Where Did We Sit on the Bus?

FANNIE: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer

March 13, 2023 by Eddie Reynolds

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

Satchmo at the Waldorf

February 14, 2023 by Eddie Reynolds

Satchmo at the Waldorf Terry Teachout San Jose Stage Company Coughing and wheezing desperately for his next breath and with shoulders hunched as he stumbles toward the portable oxygen tank in the corner, the elderly man we see entering the large, backstage dressing room still is recognizable at first sight.  After all, who else always has a white handkerchief hanging … [Read more...] about Satchmo at the Waldorf

Talk to Your People

March 8, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds

Talk to Your People Dan Hoyle The Marsh     Celebrated creator and performer of solo shows about such topics as Nigerian oil scandals (Tings Dey Happen), Red States folks telling their side of the story (The Real Americans), and heart-wrenching yet funny portrayals of men and women from minority races and cultures (The Border People), Oakland … [Read more...] about Talk to Your People

“Who Killed Sylvia Plath”

May 20, 2019 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

Who Killed Sylvia PlathLynne KaufmanThe MarshLorri HoltAs she sits looking at her own tombstone – the fourth one after feminist vandals keep chiseling away her last name “Hughes” of a husband they believe caused her early-age suicide – Sylvia Plath quotes the lyrics of Taylor Swift, another so-called femme fatale often now linked to the poet who died over twenty-five years … [Read more...] about “Who Killed Sylvia Plath”

“Border People”

February 8, 2019 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

Border PeopleDan HoyleThe MarshDan HoyleHow many average-sized, white guys can start a one-man show in San Francisco taking on the South Bronx, slang-filled dialect and the smooth-moving body motions of a six-foot-five black man and not get booed off the stage?  What if that same white actor employs numerous other ways of positioning his eyebrows, eyes, mouth, posture, … [Read more...] about “Border People”

“How I Learned What I Learned”

January 16, 2019 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

How I Learned What I LearnedAugust Wilson (Co-Conceived with Todd Kreidler)Marin Theatre (in co-production with Lorraine HansberryTheatre and Ubuntu Theatre Project)Steven Anthony JonesAs the elderly man walks across the stage carrying his aged limp with dignity and purpose, we are immediately struck by eyes that twinkle with humor and a face beautifully burrowed with a … [Read more...] about “How I Learned What I Learned”

“A History of WWII: THe D-Day Invasion to the Fall of Berlin”

January 14, 2019 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

A History of WWII: The D-Day Invasion to the Fall of BerlinJohn FisherThe MarshJohn FisherIs it because he was just an over-imaginative, hyper-active boy?  Was it the fact his parents had a woods in the back yard that begged to be the site of grandiose war games with the neighborhood gang?  Did he really see himself as a WASP-y kid who needed the thrill of play … [Read more...] about “A History of WWII: THe D-Day Invasion to the Fall of Berlin”

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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

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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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Theatre Eddys reviews performances throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

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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