All stories by Chad Jones on BroadwayStars

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Merry murderous mayhem in musical Gentleman's Guide by Chad Jones

You really do root for the murderer in the delightful A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder. That may seem an insensitive scene in these brutal, terrifying days we're living in, but the r…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:06PM[SHARE]
Sunday, November 22, 2015

SF Playhouse offers a sweet, satisfying Kiss by Chad Jones

San Francisco Playhouse puckers up and offers a nice juicy kiss for the holidays in Stage Kiss a delightfully daffy theatrical spin with a touch of real-life melancholy. This is the first t…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 05:31PM[SHARE]
Saturday, November 21, 2015

Steve Cuiffo dazzles as Lenny Bruce at the Curran by Chad Jones

My knowledge of Lenny Bruce is sorely limited (I've seen the Dustin Hoffman movie and heard other comics express their reverence), but I'd like that to change. After seeing Steve Cuiffo Is L…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:13PM[SHARE]
Friday, November 20, 2015

Odysseo: full gallop gorgeous by Chad Jones

If Bojack Horseman and Mr. Ed count, I can say I'm a horse person. I fell off the back of a running stallion as a child while visiting relatives on a farm in Idaho (that horse really wanted …

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:06PM[SHARE]
Thursday, November 19, 2015

Aurora builds a mighty (funny) Monster by Chad Jones

When salsa splatters across the unsealed Carrara marble, the horror of the architect played by Danny Scheie resounds through the intimate Aurora Theatre Company. An hors d'oeuvre has fallen …

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:33PM[SHARE]
Saturday, November 14, 2015

Cal Shakes gets terrifically Tempest tossed by Chad Jones

On a day when terrible things were happening in the world, being immersed in William Shakespeare's The Tempest was sweet balm, especially as performed by the fine actors of California Shakes…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:16PM[SHARE]
Friday, November 13, 2015

If/Then? No/Thanks. by Chad Jones

If/Then is not a musical I like much. I saw it on Broadway because I was enthusiastic about creators Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey after their powerhouse effort on Next to Normal (a show that I …

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:44PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, November 4, 2015

MTC's Mañana captures real-life struggles, passions by Chad Jones

Elizabeth Irwin's My Mañana Comes cuts through any pretense and gets right to the heart of real life in these United States. In so much of the entertainment we consume (and, truth be told…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:40PM[SHARE]
Sunday, November 1, 2015

42nd Street Moon hits the high seas with Coward's Sail Away by Chad Jones

Sail Away, the last musical for which the great Noël Coward wrote the whole shebang (book, music, lyrics), had two things going for it when it premiered on Broadway in 1961. First was the…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:16PM[SHARE]
Thursday, October 29, 2015

Sweet transvestite! Ray of Light rocks Rocky Horror by Chad Jones

Any prospect of a live Rocky Horror Show makes us shiver with antici................pation, And the good news is this Rocky is a rollicking ride through one of the most beloved cult musicals…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:36PM[SHARE]
Monday, October 26, 2015

Arctic Requiem celebrates work, spirit of local hero by Chad Jones

A very personal play, BootStrap Theater Foundation's Arctic Requiem: The Story of Luke Cole and Kivalina is both educational and emotional. You'll learn more about Native Alaskan Inupiat peo…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 06:14PM[SHARE]
Saturday, October 24, 2015

Curran brilliance continues with stunning Ghost Quartet by Chad Jones

Before I rhapsodize about the incredible Ghost Quartet now at the Curran Theatre as part of the Curran: Under Construction series, can I just say how extraordinary this series has been so fa…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:47PM[SHARE]
Friday, October 23, 2015

Hypocrites' Pirates sets sail at Berkeley Rep by Chad Jones

The Hypocrites' Pirates of Penzance is one part Yo ho! and one part Yo, ho! Which is to say, this is not your great-grandparents' Gilbert and Sullivan, and what a blessed relief that is. No …

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:31PM[SHARE]
Thursday, October 22, 2015

Trekking gently through O'Neill's nostalgic Wilderness by Chad Jones

Can we agree that Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! is warm and wonderful...and weird? The sepia-tinted 1933 play is a rare light work from tragedian O'Neill, though its fantasy elements " th…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:44PM[SHARE]
Friday, October 16, 2015

Stuff, nonsense and dreams in Curran's Object Lessson by Chad Jones

You'd think, from the piles and walls of boxes that fill the stage of the Curran Theatre, that Geoff Sobelle's would involve shame " shame that we're so attached to our stuff and that we acc…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:24PM[SHARE]
Friday, October 9, 2015

Cutting Ball pumps energy into vivid Dream by Chad Jones

What a rare treat to have had two productions of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life Is a Dream on local stages this year. First there was California Shakespeare Theater's production (read …

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:31PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Ramping up the teenage angst in Crowded Fire's Truck Stop by Chad Jones

The whole time I was watching Lachlan Philpott's Truck Stop, a Crowded Fire Theater production at Thick House, I was working myself into a state of anxiety imagining being the parent of a te…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:53PM[SHARE]
Saturday, October 3, 2015

Uneven tone tilts ACT's Monstress double bill by Chad Jones

Two of the Bay Area's most interesting theater artists, Philip Kan Gotanda and Sean San José, were asked to adapt a short story from Lysley Tenorio's 2012 collection Monstress for American …

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 06:19PM[SHARE]
Thursday, October 1, 2015

Performances make Dogfight musical sing by Chad Jones

There are two very good reasons to see the musical Dogfight at San Francisco Playhouse. The 2012 stage adaptation of the 1991 movie starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor has its moments (mo…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:00PM[SHARE]
Thursday, August 20, 2015

Cal Shakes scares up big laughs in vivacious Vep by Chad Jones

How appropriate to go (high) camping under the stars in the Orinda hills with the California Shakespeare Theater. One doesn't think of Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep as a play for …

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 06:40PM[SHARE]
Sunday, August 2, 2015

A toast to Champagne and her wily Poon by Chad Jones

Just when it seems all the colorful characters are fleeing San Francisco, along comes an Oasis of (fake) tits and glitter. Yes, Oasis, the new South of Market nightclub, has defied the real …

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:56PM[SHARE]
Monday, July 20, 2015

Trickle down theory: parallel lives in Now for Now by Chad Jones

I've never seen anything quite like Now for Now, the new theatrical work devised and performed by Mark Jackson and Megan Trout now at Z Below through July 26 (time is short " go see it). As …

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 05:49PM[SHARE]
Sunday, July 19, 2015

Delightful Matilda mostly avoids chokey by Chad Jones

What is it about Roald Dahl that makes his books so ripe for adaptation? Probably the most famous book-to-screen-to-stage example from his canon is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which b…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:13PM[SHARE]
Friday, July 17, 2015

Music makes good Company at SF Playhouse by Chad Jones

Robert (Keith Pinto, center) suffers his friends and their attempts to fix him up Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's 1970 musical Company now at San Francisco Playhouse. Below: Amy (Monique…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:09PM[SHARE]
Thursday, July 16, 2015

This is the time: Anna Deavere Smith at Berkeley Rep by Chad Jones

If you've ever seen a show by our foremost docudramatist, Anna Deavere Smith, you know the power she has over an audience. She conducts extensive interviews on her chosen topic, then she re-…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:17PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, July 15, 2015

The delights of TheatreWorks' time-twisting Triangle by Chad Jones

In the wake of my review of TheatreWorks' world premiere musical Triangle someone tweeted a link to the review and suggested that the show could make it to Broadway. I have some thoughts abo…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 12:47AM[SHARE]
Sunday, July 12, 2015

Cal Shakes dreams a Dream under the stars by Chad Jones

There's so much talk about nature and stars in Life Is a Dream that it seems perfectly natural to be sitting outside on a temperate summer night watching Pedro Calderón de la Barca's 1635…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:24PM[SHARE]
Saturday, July 11, 2015

Shout to the top with Shotgun's Girls by Chad Jones

Would that Caryl Churchill's 1982 play Top Girls was something of a dated relic in its details of the horrors, tribulations, indignities and injustices suffered by women through the ages. Th…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:55PM[SHARE]
Friday, June 26, 2015

Flames lick the American dream in Aurora's Detroit by Chad Jones

There's a particular kind of fear that grips those who have all the things we're "supposed" to have " jobs, houses, marriages, ideals. The fear, of course, is not in the having of it all but…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:25PM[SHARE]
Saturday, June 20, 2015

Reveling in the rambling genius of Eddie Izzard by Chad Jones

p>Eddie Izzard was back in town this week with his Force Majeure tour. His San Francisco stop at the Golden Gate Theatre offered congratulations to audience members for being the smartest…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:37PM[SHARE]
Sunday, May 10, 2015

Hooked from the start on Yee's Hookman by Chad Jones

Leave it playwright Lauren Yee to bring clear definition to the sub-genre "existential slasher comedy." That's exactly what her Hookman is, a fascinating world-premiere play from Encore Thea…

SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:29PM[SHARE]

All that Chat

2025-2026 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 12, 2025: Call Me Izzy - Studio 54
Sep 16, 2025: Art - Music Box Theatre
Oct 08, 2025: Beetlejuice - Palace Theatre
Nov 13, 2025: Oedipus - Studio 54
Nov 16, 2025: Chess - Imperial Theatre
Mar 23, 2026: Giant - Music Box Theatre
Apr 06, 2026: Becky Shaw - Hayes Theater
Apr 16, 2026: Proof - Booth Theatre
Apr 26, 2026: Drama Desk Cut-Off