1,373 stories by "Chad Jones"
In today's San Francisco Chronicle, I write about how Shrek, the hit series of animated films, became a Broadway musical and how that musical has actually improved " according to the creativ…
Salacious (and accurate) title aside, David Bell's The Play About the Naked Guy is a little bit sweet and a whole lotta funny. The Impact Theatre production, affectionately and astutely dire…
With a wink and a nod to Shakespeare, playwright Liz Duffy Adams explains the title of her play Or, in a spiffily rhymed prologue. It's about love or lust. Danger or delight. Gay or straigh…
David Cale is a perfectly attractive human being " he's got great posture, a receding hairline and a beautifully expressive face. But once you fall under his spell as a storyteller " and you…
Last night I fell in love with a 77-year-old Broadway legend.
Actually, I started with a giant crush that developed during a recent phone interview with Chita Rivera (read the story in the…
The millennium approached, then quickly fell behind us. Time marches on, but Tony Kushner's Angels in America remains a landmark achievement of 20th century theater.
The legacy of the play …
We met him as a baby. Then we got to know a little bit more about his father. And now we get to watch Marcus Eshu make his first steps into manhood.
Tarell Alvin McCraney's Brother/Sister …
You know that annoying habit we have of combining couples' names to form one idiotic name " you know, Brangelina, TomKat, Bennifer.
Well, I have a new one. After last night's 42nd Street M…
To quote one of the Jets, "Dig this and dig it the most." The most compelling drama at Wednesday's opening of West Side Story wasn't happening on the stage of the Orpheum Theatre. It was a f…
You never need an excuse to celebrate the genius of Stephen Sondheim, but here goes. We're still celebrating his 80th birthday (which actually occurred last March). He has a new book out, Fi…
What is it that makes West Side Story so incredibly intoxicating, even 53 years after its premiere? There's no denying the power of Jerome Robbins' athletic and gorgeous choreography or the …
Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, gazes over a map of Afghanistan and says to Abdur Rahman, the country's Amir, "Your country is in the wrong place."
That imagined pronouncement could have occurr…
Craig Marker gives a performance of such magnitude in Marin Theatre Company's 9 Circles that it almost eclipses the play itself.
Obviously the play has to be substantial and artful enough…
Love, tension and desperation are deeply felt in Habibi, the world-premiere production of Sharif Abu-Hamdeh's drama about always feeling away from home. This is yet another co-production fro…
Sometimes I feel like I got to San Francisco just a little bit too late.
By the time I got here in 1990, the cabaret heyday was long past, and just a year before, the famed Venetian Room i…
Anybody's enjoyment of the 1962 Stephen Sondheim/Burt Shevelove/Larry Gelbart musical farce A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum depends largely on the actor playing Pseudolus, the…
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Leslie Martinson, director of Superior Donuts, should bring together such good actors. Martinson is also the company's casting director and has been wit…
There's nothing like the ooze of blood to usher in the holiday season. And by holiday season, I mean Halloween, which suddenly seems to be more reverently and feverishly celebrated than Than…
Cormac McCarthy makes a pretty good argument for the ruin of mankind in The Sunset Limited, a 2006 "novel in dramatic form." But then again, McCarthy is his own best argument for mankind's s…
There are some wonderfully theatrical theological discussions going on around town these days.
At the Victoria Theatre in the Mission, outlandish talk show host Jerry Springer is facilita…
One general problem I have with Greek tragedy is that I'm not Greek and, most days, not terribly tragic. I've experienced, a time or two, the feeling of catharsis that can come from being im…
Much Ado About Nothing can be one of Shakespeare's trickier romantic comedies. It's full of sparring lovers, great lines and thoroughly entertaining comic bits. But it also contains some har…
If you want to see what funny looks like, you should see Bill Irwin in a comedy. In recent years, he's been fairly serious, what with his stage work in shows like Who's Afraid of Virginia Wo…
Comparing The Brothers Size, the second part of Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brother/Sister Plays cycle, to In the Red and Brown Water, the first part, is inevitable but ultimately unnecessar…
The irony surrounding Friday's opening-night for La Cage aux Folles at San Mateo's Broadway by the Bay was sweet. Audience members showing up for this glitzy gay musical fairy tale were not …
