1,373 stories by "Chad Jones"
I'm so sorry you missed my performance in Etiquette, the unique show brought to us by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' DARE program. I must say, not to be too boastful, that my performan…
It's so incredibly exciting to be enthralled by someone or something. In the case of Rinne Groff's Compulsion at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, it's someone and something.
The world-premiere …
>Tarell Alvin McCraney's In the Red and Brown Water feels like ritual. It feels like a party. It feels like living, breathing poetry. And that's a hell of way to begin a prodigious three-…
I'll just say it right up front: the first time I saw Teatro ZinZanni, I left the spiegeltent with a raging headache.
That was 10 years ago, and the show was, appropriately, Love, Chaos &a…
If only playwright Alice Childress could see Margo Hall's performance in her 1955 play Trouble in Mind now at Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company.
Hall has long been one of those Bay Area ac…
Dreamgirls, as a movie, seemed apologetic that it was a musical at all. Set in the Motown-ish world of a Supremes-ish girl group, the story lends itself to abundant music without straining c…
If you need proof of how lively and diverse the San Francisco theater scene can be, let me direct your attention to two wildly different shows I've seen recently. One is about as old fashion…
First, two issues that need addressing:
- Why isn't Sam Harris performing his new gay marriage anthem "My Reclamation" at San Francisco's Gay Pride celebration? It's a beautiful, movi…
One of the most exciting things about the world premiere of American Conservatory Theater's The Tosca Project is that it shines a big old spotlight on the riches of the Bay Area.
Here is a …
Spectacular things are happening at the Bruns Amphitheater " on stage and off.
At long last, California Shakespeare Theater is getting a performance venue worthy of its status as one of th…
Marin Theatre Company's Equivocation is enormously enjoyable theater.
I liked Bill Cain's play last summer when I saw it at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, and I still like its…
There's no big anniversary, but there's still something to celebrate. Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon is going on 36 years old and is brighter, fresher and funnier than ever. Members of…
>I loved it before and I love it even more now.
About a year ago, Word for Word and Theatre Rhinoceros joined forces for an evening of three shorts stories by gay writers adapted for th…
On the theatrical spectrum, this is the exact opposite of the sitcom-ready Sunset and Margaritas now at TheatreWorks (read my review of that play in the Palo Alto Weekly here), which is to s…
You could describe Marilee Talkington in a number of ways, starting with the fact that she is going blind. She is partially sighted, visually impaired, visually handicapped, sensorily challe…
How strange it is to see two wildly different comedies at two different theaters and find they have something in common: plot twists that involve the restraining of characters by tying them …
Watching the audience on stage at Intersection for the Arts was a stunning experience. Sometimes theater companies trying to push boundaries and break down walls really do get it right.
Th…
Omoze Idehenre and Manoel Felciano in American Conservatory Theater's The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Photo by Kevin Berne Theater is musical even when it's not necessarily musical theater. At t…
Opera's not really my bag, but I had a fantastic time reviewing West Bay Opera's Der Freischütz for the Palo Alto Weekly. The short run ended today (Sunday, Feb. 28), but the review lives o…
The original cast of [title of show] included (from left) Heidi Blickenstaff, Hunter Bell (seated), Jeff Bowen (top), and Susan Blackwell. [title of show] will be presented as part of the 20…
EXTENDED THROUGH MARCH 27! The last major magic show to hit the Bay Area theater scene involved Siegfried and Roy giving their stamp of magical approval to a kid who sang show tunes while do…
Curtains, the final collaboration of legendary John Kander and Fred Ebb (Rupert Holmes came in to finish the show after Ebb's death), is finally taking a Bay Area bow. Diablo Theatre Company…
Consider the last couple years in the life of local director Mike Ward. He received a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award nomination for best director and he was nominated fo…
EXTENDED THROUGH AUG. 1! Above: Kara Emry and William McMichael get Shanghaied in Pearls Over Shanghai. Below: Eric Wertz and Steven Satyricon dream of "un bel di."Photos by David Wilson Mas…
The Sound of Music, Julie Andrews, 1965. TM and Copyright © 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved. Courtesy: Everett Collection.  Back in the dark ages of VHS, I remember be…
