All stories by Lily Janiak on BroadwayStars

Monday, April 4, 2022

Review: Lorraine Hansberry Theatre makes uneven return with ‘Intimate Apparel’ by Lily Janiak

Unlike words, fabric never tells lies in this 2003 play by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Tuesday, March 29, 2022

NCTC’s ‘PrEP Play’ examines the debt gay men of today owe to the past by Lily Janiak

Yilong Liu's queer fantasia about the drug used to prevent HIV infection is in synergy with the theater's own narrative of remembering and mourning.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Thursday, March 24, 2022

Review: San Francisco Playhouse’s ‘Water by the Spoonful’ trickles instead of floods by Lily Janiak

Still, there are plenty of joys to be had from this Pultizer Prize winner by Quiara Alegría Hudes, of "In the Heights" fame.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:08PM
Wednesday, March 16, 2022

In spring 2022, Bay Area theater returns — for real this time by Lily Janiak

Artistic directors finally make long-delayed directing debuts, and musicians make their musical theater debuts.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Tuesday, March 15, 2022

As ACT mounts ‘Fefu,’ let’s insist on María Irene Fornés’ place in the canon by Lily Janiak

American Conservatory Theater's production of María Irene Fornés' "Fefu and Her Friends" shines a light on a playwright never given her just due.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Monday, March 14, 2022

Review: TheatreWorks’ ‘Sense and Sensibility’ is a visual feast to cure pandemic blues by Lily Janiak

In Paul Gordon's musical adaptation of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility," the contrast between the Dashwood sisters takes on new resonance.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 03:01PM
Sunday, March 13, 2022

Review: Shotgun’s ‘Passing Strange’ is a gorgeous meditation on making art and growing up by Lily Janiak

The Tony Award-winning musical by Stew and Heidi Rodewald offers nothing less than a vision of what it is to be human.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:11PM
Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Despite pandemic and racial reckoning, unpaid theater internships still abound by Lily Janiak

American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theatre, TheatreWorks and Oregon Shakespeare Festival have all paused internship programs.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Sunday, March 6, 2022

Review: ‘Talk to Your People’ burrows under white liberal pieties and finds not much by Lily Janiak

Dan Hoyle's show at the Marsh suggests there might not be that much drama, variety or depth within liberal, white, affluent male guilt.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:12AM
Thursday, March 3, 2022

Review: Urland’s ‘Bedtime Stories’ at Stanford Live rekindles childhood awe and terror by Lily Janiak

Audiences to this sound-driven show from the Dutch collective Urland might find themselves transported back to childhood.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:05PM
Wednesday, March 2, 2022

She wore a cape to S.F. City Hall to protest police violence. Then she got kicked out by Lily Janiak

San Francisco artist Patricia Diart got the idea for "The Cape" after seeing the video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck in 2020.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 04:57PM

‘The Lehman Trilogy’ postponed at American Conservatory Theater by Lily Janiak

National Theatre Productions is "unable to say with confidence when the show can arrive in the Bay Area."

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:46PM
Tuesday, March 1, 2022

‘Tina Turner,’ ‘Pretty Woman’ and more announced as part of Broadway San Jose’s 2022-23 season by Lily Janiak

The season concludes with "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical," a jukebox musical recounting the icon's hard-won victories.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 03:00PM
Saturday, February 26, 2022

Review: Oakland Theater Project bottles up ‘The Tempest’ by Lily Janiak

The inventive 10-year-old company is ever worthy of attention, even when individual shows don't quite hit the mark.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:39PM
Friday, February 25, 2022

Review: A shortened script is the magic trick ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ needed by Lily Janiak

Stone-melting, fire-spewing, bone-crunching special effects pack more power in a one-part "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child."

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:29PM
Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Lifting mask mandate recasts Bay Area front-of-house staff as referees of warring audiences by Lily Janiak

Ushers, house managers and security staff are in the crosshairs of audience members' diametrically opposed preferences.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Remembering Dell’Arte’s Joan Schirle, mentor to Bay Area artists by Lily Janiak

Schirle was an accordionist, a ballerina, a mask artist, a playwright, an actor and a scholar.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Review: Marin Theatre Company’s ‘Pass Over’ is Black freedom on stage by Lily Janiak

Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu's play, part of a wave of works by Black writers on Broadway last year, is penetrating in insight.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:02PM
Sunday, February 6, 2022

Review: Even with pigs, gore and frontier justice, Magic’s ‘The Kind Ones’ feels flimsy by Lily Janiak

Fitz is less a character who's lived a life before the play starts than a concept a playwright might pluck out of the ether.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:16PM
Friday, February 4, 2022

Marin Shakespeare’s new leader loves the Bard but won’t gloss over his problems by Lily Janiak

Raphael Massie of Oregon Shakespeare Festival succeeds the not-quite-retiring Robert Currier at the San Rafael company.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Thursday, February 3, 2022

Review: S.F. Playhouse’s ‘Heroes of the Fourth Turning’ seems to predict 2021’s Capitol riot by Lily Janiak

Rhetoric is both air raid siren and war cry in Will Arbery's Pulitzer Prize finalist.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 03:01PM

Theater artists on omicron: ‘I’m tired of living through history’ by Lily Janiak

"It is strange to have it all swept away — all at once, and slowly," said Allison Page, executive artistic director of sketch comedy company Killing My Lobster.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Tony Kushner discusses updating the Sharks vs. Jets clash in ‘West Side Story’ by Lily Janiak

"Battles in scarcity economies become incredibly ugly for what seem to outsiders like very small stakes," Tony Kushner said.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Monday, January 31, 2022

Trans, ally artists make their own Harry Potter art, regardless of what J.K. Rowling thinks by Lily Janiak

These trans-positive projects transcend a time-honored question: whether it's possible to separate art from a problematic artist.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Sunday, January 30, 2022

Review: SFBATCO’s ‘I, Too, Sing America’ is the jolt of positive energy we need by Lily Janiak

The idea for the show sprang in part from co-creator Othello Jefferson's ritual of reading Black poetry to his two daughters.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 03:48PM
Friday, January 28, 2022

Review: When waters get choppy, Berkeley Rep’s ‘Swept Away’ rights itself by Lily Janiak

The Avett Brothers musical asks: When a whaling voyage goes horribly awry, how far would you go to stay alive?

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:07PM
Thursday, January 27, 2022

Review: ACT’s ‘Freestyle Love Supreme’ says you are worth a comic aria by Lily Janiak

Blasphemously talented singers, beatboxers and rappers cook up, on the fly, a miniature hip-hop opera about your day.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:37PM

Nikki Meñez, 28-year-old Filipino American Bay Area native, joins Z Space leadership team by Lily Janiak

Meñez is the final piece of Z Space's new distributive leadership model.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Bay Area actors on understudying during omicron, when they’re needed as never before by Lily Janiak

"There can be the stress of whether you match up, whether you’re quote-unquote ‘as good,’" Nic A. Sommerfeld said.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM

‘Astonishment, horror and glee’: Bay Area understudies recount on- and offstage drama by Lily Janiak

Actors at TheatreWorks, Bay Area Children's Theatre, Berkeley Rep and more share the thrills and chills of filling in last-minute.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Thursday, January 13, 2022

Review: ‘The Band’s Visit’ trades razzmatazz for open desert highways, arias burning inside by Lily Janiak

The quiet assurance of the Tony-winning show at BroadwaySF's Golden Gate Theatre almost makes other musicals look insecure.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:53PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic