The Scottsboro Boys is a musical on crusade. Not for the first time in their storied career, composers John Kander and the late Fred Ebb make some of the worst human traits entertaining all …
David Thompson is the first to admit that regardless of the show itself, he would do anything to work with John Kander, Fred Ebb and Susan Stroman, three major theater artists with whom he h…
I'm going to paraphrase the title song of Eve Ensler's Emotional Creature, now having its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Don't tell them not to cry or to calm it down or be …
If only a 94-year-old scandal were sensational in ways we no longer understood, we could look back and wonder what all the fuss was about and why the media underestimated the taste of the ge…
Sometimes names are facts. Like now " there's magic at the Magic Theatre. The play is Luis Alfaro's world-premiere Bruja, and it's extraordinarily powerful. Even better, it has one foot ver…
There are seven locked rooms in Duke Bluebeard's castle, and Nick Hillel knows what's in each one. From blood to torture to tears, the contents of the room were originally devised in French …
The inevitable homecoming is upon us. The Broadway musical version of Green Day's American Idiot, which had its world premiere in 2009 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, has returned to the Bay …
The members of GrooveLily, vocalist/electric violinist Valerie Vigoda, keyboardist/vocalist Brendan Millburn and drummer/vocalist Gene Lewin seem like such nice people. They seemed nice in 2…
I recently had the pleasure of sitting in the studio with Chloe Veltman, host of the KALW radio show "Voicebox." Our topic of the evening was singing actresses. More specifically, we discuss…
When you call Ben Vereen's mobile phone, you get a most entertaining voicemail message. It's Chita Rivera singing, "My wish for you is a sweet, happy life." Then a cheerful Vereen says that'…
A little bit weird (in the most wonderful way) and a whole lot good, Christina Anderson's Good Goods is a captivating drama that becomes a highly satisfying love story " or love stories to b…
Dael Orlandersmith's Black n Blue Boys / Broken Men is a brutal experience. How could it not be? Its 90-plus minutes are all about the sexual, physical and emotional abuse of young men and h…
Watching four people try to practice "the art of coexistence," as the playwright puts it, is entertaining but ultimately depressing in Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage at Marin Theatre Company.…
Summer camp has started early this year, but not to worry. This is some high quality high camp. We've had a few Bay Area productions of Xanadu, the Broadway musical version of the notorious…
What did Spokane, Washington ever do to Martin McDonagh? The London-born, Ireland-identified playwright famously wrote six plays, including The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Cripple of Ini…
p>According to the Wall Street Journal, the King really is the King of Broadway. News came down last month that Disney's The Lion King is now Broadway's all-time highest grossing show. I…
With her dad, Pat Boone, on the big stages of Las Vegas, Debby Boone was able to explore Sin City in the swinging '60s. She remembers seeing some of the big-name performers " Sinatra, Streis…
You may think you know the Tenderloin " drugs, poverty, violence, crime " and certainly those impressions are valid, but Cutting Ball theater's world-premiere Tenderloin challenges audiences…
So far, playwright Annie Baker is two for two in the Bay Area. It took a while for the country's hottest young playwright to make her mark locally, but she has done it now. Twice. And a thir…
Linda McLean's Any Given Day, now having its American premiere at the Magic Theatre, is theater for grown-ups. There's nothing fanciful or sensational about. It's basically duet conversation…
When Darren Criss was a kid going to American Conservatory Theater's Young Conservatory, he attended one of the company's annual galas. Joel Grey was the headliner. Now Criss, all grown up a…
When faced with the prospect of seeing another production of Othello, I usually gird my loins, wipe my nose with a strawberry-embroidered hanky and settle in for a show I know I'm not going …
Dwelling in the past, as so many human beings come to find, causes nothing but frustration and disappointment. The same is true for Jordan Harrison's play Maple and Vine now at American Cons…
There are all kinds of battles going on in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker " brother vs. brother, brothers vs. the tramp, the tramp vs. the truth, loneliness vs. despair, etc. " but the really…
When Annie Baker made her Bay Area debut with Body Awareness at the Aurora Theatre Company, I was impressed by the arrival of an intriguing, intelligent and compassionate new voice on the Am…