MAJORÂ TO MINOR The Pearl Theatre Company and Gingold Theatrical Group's revival of George Bernard Shaw's 1905 comedy Major Barbara feels like theater for people who go to shows for the sa…
JUST A CLOSER WALK WITH PATSY Patsy Cline, the once and future crossover country icon who made audiences "fall to pieces," couldn't be more fondly or accurately recalled. It happens weekly i…
ROASTING CHESTNUTS Nothing if not all-inviting, this modestly entitled holiday revue, It's A Wonderful Santaland Miracle, Nut Cracking Christmas Story…Jews Welcome! is Stage 773's second c…
AULIS WELL AT THE COURT THEATRE With its new production of Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis, Court Theatre embarks upon an ambitious three-year venture: to present a trilogy of Greek tragedies …
LES MIZ DIRECTOR JOHN CAIRD BRINGS LA BOHÈME TO SFO San Francisco Opera's crowd-pleasing rendition of La Bohème, which opened on Friday night, offers vocal enchantment unhampered by a…
A NOT QUITE FRACTURED FAIRY TALE A late bloomer, Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale belies its adage that "A sad tale's best for winter." This tragi-comedy has a spring to it as well, contrasti…
GETTING THERE IS HALF THE FUN One of Chicago's longest running, righteously rooted hits, Hellcab follows a strong and simple formula: Depict the encounters a Chicago cab driver experiences o…
SILVER DOESN'T EVEN GET A BRONZE It took fifteen actors, two writers, two directors, and three designers to create a Working Theater's one-hour interactive theatrical experience, a Silver Li…
THE SLEUTH, THE DIVA, AND THE NAPOLEON OF CRIME Over many seasons P.G. Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle have been very good to City Lit, rightly since the theater fully returns the complimen…
HAUNTEDÂ BY POWER Aurora Theatre once again proves its might by presenting the West Coast Premiere of a great play. Opening this week and running through Dec. 7, 2014, Breakfast with Mugab…
GETTING ROOTS WRONG The Dark Continent just got a bit less light. Concluding their all-Lynn Nottage season (which featured Ruined and Intimate Apparel), Eclipse Theatre Company offers the sa…
AÂ CASE WHERE CURIOSITY WON’T KILL THE CAT Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the global phenomenon Cirque du Soleil arrives at San Francisco's AT&T Park for the U.S. Pr…
SINKING SHIP SAILS IN UNCHARTERED WATERS My favorite element in Powerhouse, a delightful new devised play created by director Jon Levin, writer Josh Luxenberg and the Sinking Ship Ensemble, …
THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS Shotspeare is a comedy punch mulled from liquor, a few conservatory-trained actors and Ringling Brothers clowns, and the brutalization of one of the best plays ever…
HE'S GOT THE WORLD ON A STRING Last year, I saw an incredible theatrical production"a puppet show no less"that will stick with me for the rest of my life. Written, produced, designed, built,…
SOME VERY MATERIAL MAKE-BELIEVE The self-described "greatest show on Earth" has now reached the greatest city on Lake Michigan. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's very literal Legends …
COMPLETELY SMART The exciting and insightful writer Itamar Moses may be one of our brightest playwrights, yet he has astoundingly been given short shrift by the L.A. theater community. Wi…
BRAWL IN THE FAMILY Ozzie (Bill Pullman) and Harriet (Holly Hunter) are living out the American dream. They have a house, a car, a TV, and two sons: happy-go-lucky high-schooler Rick (Raviv …
MORE SINNED AGAINST At one point in act four, the disillusioned and blinded Gloucester refuses help along the road: "I have no way and therefore want no eyes." It’s a line that Bill Bu…
GRANTING YOUR WISH FOR A FUN OPERA Gioachino Rossini's Cinderella (La Cenerentola) was written in 1817 during the bel canto era when operas were written to showcase beautiful singing, and Je…
REIMAGINING THE REIMAGINED ATÂ NCTC No one can deny why Romeo and Juliet has achieved cult status. Not only is Shakespeare's comic tragedy one of the most enduring stories ever told, but i…
RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE AS SURREAL BURLESQUE Delightful wouldn't be a word I'd expect to use when describing a Robert Wilson show. But The Old Woman, adapted by Darryl Pinckney from an absurdist…
SLIDING BORES A or B? The question of Ken Levine's title refers to the choice between two parallel universes set forth in his two-act two-hour two-hander. Played out simultaneously with flip…
COOL AS A CUCUMBER BUT NOT AS REFRESHING In Boys in the Band, the character of Harold states: "Although I’ve never seen my soul, I understand from my mother’s Rabbi that it’…
WE SHALL DANCE! It's no puzzlement why this sumptuous reclamation of Broadway greatness, Marriott Theatre's The King and I, is such a grand night for singing, an enchanted evening, and, like…