Friday, November 2, 2018
Oars up! Oars out! We're going adventuring.
The first thrill of our adventure is the sheer delight of seeing 10 women on stage – 10! – in the American Conservatory Theater production of…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 05:09PMThursday, October 18, 2018
Waitress is very much like one of the wacky pies its title character concocts – an odd combination of ingredients that come together in a surprisingly delightful way. As a musical, it's ab…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:15PMFriday, September 14, 2018
Playwright Lucas Hnath imagines what happened to Nora after she stepped through that door in the audaciously titled A Doll's House, Part 2, which opens the Berkeley Repertory Theatre season …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:25PMThursday, September 13, 2018
On Your Feet! The Emilio & Gloria Estefan Broadway Musical is exactly what you think it's going to be, and that's not a bad thing. Nor is it a great thing, but this amiable show lands sq…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 06:30PMThursday, June 28, 2018
p>What's the primary reason to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's School of Rock? It's elementary: the kids.
This grand-scale musical adaptation of the 2003 movie hit (screenplay by Mike White, d…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:14PMFriday, June 22, 2018
Remarkable. Inspiring. Hilarious. Moving. There aren't enough descriptive words to fully express just how wonderful and fascinating and exhilarating it is to experience Soft Power the new mu…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 05:22PMSaturday, June 16, 2018
There's a better musical struggling to emerge from the overgrown but amiable mess that is A Walk on the Moon, the world premiere that American Conservatory Theater is launching on the Geary …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:03PMThursday, June 7, 2018
There's something so comforting and so terrifying about family. That dichotomy is captured perfectly in Stephen Karam's The Humans, the Tony Award-winning drama that is now touring the count…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 05:12PMThursday, May 3, 2018
When I originally reviewed the musical version of The Color Purple based on Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and the Steven Spielberg's 1985 movie version, I felt the production w…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:13PMWednesday, May 2, 2018
There's some epic myth-making happening on the stage of American Conservatory Theater's Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3). Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks – one of those gre…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:21PMMonday, April 30, 2018
Anyone who laments the lack of spectacular new Broadway stars need look no further than Annaleigh Ashford, a bona fide star if ever there was one. A Tony Award-winner for You Can't Take It w…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:27PMSunday, April 29, 2018
Angels in America is back in the Bay Area, this time at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where it is directed by Tony Taccone, who, with Oskar Eustis helped bring this play into the world when it…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 05:41PMThursday, April 19, 2018
Taylor Iman Jones as Mopsa (center) and the company perform “We Got the Beat,” the opening number of the new musical Head Over Heels, which features songs by the Go-Go’s. (below) Peppe…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 06:11PMMonday, March 12, 2018
Bold, irreverent, and laugh-out-loud funny, Qui Nguyen's Vietgone, at American Conservatory Theater's Strand Theater, can also be frustratingly scattershot and amateurish. Continue reading �…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 06:37PMFriday, March 2, 2018
Julia Cho is exactly the kind of playwright I crave. She's thoughtful, adventurous and fanciful in a way that relates directly to reality (she's not a fantasist – her flights mean somethin…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 10:10PMThursday, March 1, 2018
In this version of the story, adapted by Dan Moses and Kate Kilbane, the horrible things aren't quite as godawful as they are in Ovid (the cannibalism, for instance, is absent), but they're …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:53PMSunday, February 4, 2018
George Bernard Shaw's Widowers' Houses last played Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company more than 20 years ago, and though the theater company has come up on the world (bigger, spiffier theater…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 06:06PMThursday, February 1, 2018
What an incredible talent to balance the dark weight of tragedy and the electrifying light of hope. That's what playwright Dominique Morisseau does in Skeleton Crew, a powerful play now at M…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 07:31PMTuesday, January 30, 2018
There's a lot to love about American Conservatory Theater's The Birthday Party, a funny, slightly freaky Harold Pinter. The cast is uniformly strong, director Carey Perloff (essaying her las…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 06:35PMThursday, December 28, 2017
If you're a theater fan, 2017 was a very good year. If you're an American, depending on your point of view, 2017 was a terrifying year. Quite often, it seemed, the theatrical stage and the n…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 05:04PMFriday, December 8, 2017
The thing I can't stand about 24-hour cable news networks is that it's 5% news and 95% talking heads spouting opinions and fighting over those opinions.
The thing I loved about Lillian Hell…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:38PMSaturday, December 2, 2017
The Bay Area finally gets to see Shakespeare in Love on stage thanks to Marin Theatre Company, and while the cast boats some of the Bay Area's best actors – Stacy Ross, Lance Gardner, Mega…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:51PMFriday, December 1, 2017
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's Bright Star is a beautiful musical, especially if you have a penchant for bluegrass music and florid stories with twists, turns and not-so-surprising surpris…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 06:35PMSunday, November 26, 2017
Thirteen years ago – such an appropriate number of years – American Conservatory Theater made some sort of deal with the devil to get The Black Rider onto the stage of the Geary Theater.…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:17PMSunday, October 1, 2017
Robert O'Hara is one of those playwright/directors who, when his name is attached to a project in any way, you pay attention. He's smart, funny and has a keen eye for theatrical disruption. …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:00PMSunday, August 13, 2017
Just when it seems the news can't get any worse, it gets worse. This weekend in Virginia we saw some of the worst of humanity, with terror, death, hatred and ignorance all on full display. A…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 11:43PMFriday, August 11, 2017
Except for the flying cars, we are pretty much living The Jetsons, and we take it in stride. Playwright Madeleine George attempts to knock some wonder – and perspective – into us in her …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:56PMSunday, August 6, 2017
There are so many great moments in The Making of a Great Moment, the new play from the scintillating San Francisco playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, that it's hard to decide if the best ones …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:32PMThursday, July 20, 2017
Let us all take a moment to praise the national treasure that is Jerry Herman, the musical theater maestro behind three massive hits: Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles. It's an oppo…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:33PMSunday, July 16, 2017
Think about how often you've seen the Asian-American experience represented in a piece of musical theater. Perhaps Flower Drum Song comes to mind or a sliver of Miss Saigon. A more serious r…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:50PMSunday, July 9, 2017
Except for large proscenium frame, the stage of California Shakespeare Theater's Bruns Amphitheater is mostly bare. There's no back wall to the stage, so the light from the setting sun on th…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:44PM 
