KRCB-FM: Second Row Center
187 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 5 years ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingHouse lights down. Cue the music. The curtain rises weekly on KRCB’s early-morning news segment Second Row Center.
There’s a lot of theatre in the Bay Area. With so many options and limited time and resources, how does one go about deciding just what to see? That’s where a critic can be of assistance.
Theatre critic Harry Duke has been knocking around Bay Area stages for twenty years since his days in the Sonoma State University Theatre Arts program. He’s turned what used to be post-show conversations with fellow artists into full-fledged reviews of Bay Area theatre that can be found in the Sonoma County Gazette and on the For All Events website. More than a simple recitation of a plot (you can look that up yourselves,) his reviews are honest evaluations of the components that make a good show good and a bad show bad.
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Episodes
Million Dollar Quartet - March 13, 2019
March 13, 2019 14:28 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBOn December 4, 1956, a legendary jam session was held at rock and roll pioneer Sam Phillips’ Sun Records studio in Memphis, Tennessee. Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley were labeled the “Million Dollar Quartet” by a local journalist and the moniker stuck to the recordings of the session released decades later. In 2006, Colin Escott and Floyd Matrux unleashed a highly fictionalized and time-compressed theatrical version of the event also titled Million Dollar Qu...
Hello, Dolly! - March 6, 2019
March 06, 2019 16:50 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBAnyone going to a performance of Hello, Dolly! - running now at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco through March 17 - with an appetite for an enlightened look at male/female relationships is likely to leave quite hungry. The current national tour of the 2017 revival of the 1964 Broadway smash based on Thorton Wilder’s 1955 revision of his 1938 play extrapolated from an Austrian playwright’s 1842 extension of an English dramatists 1835 one-act reflects the then-common attitudes towar...
After Miss Julie - February 27, 2019
February 27, 2019 17:32 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBSometimes the most interesting dramas are the simplest - a single set, a few characters, a conflict. “Naturalistic” plays, as they are sometimes referred, were the result of a late 19th century movement in European theatre to enhance the realism of plays with an understanding of how heredity and environment can influence an individual. The most famous play to come out of this period is Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. Set in the downstairs kitchen of an estate, it’s a thre...
Forever Plaid - February 20, 2019
February 20, 2019 16:24 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBMusical zombies rise from the dead to sing an evening of ‘50’s pop standards. Let me try that again. On February 4, 1964, The Plaids, an eastern Pennsylvania-based vocal quartet, were headed for a major gig at the Fusel-Lounge at the Harrisburg Airport Hilton when their cherry red Mercury was broadsided by a bus full of Catholic schoolgirls. The girls, who escaped unscathed, were on their way to see the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Plaids went on to that Great Performance Hall in ...
Hamlet - February 13, 2019
February 13, 2019 17:55 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBTo see or not to see? That is the question. Anyone with even the slightest interest in theatre has probably seen a production or two of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in their lifetime. Considered by many to be Shakespeare’s - if not the world’s - greatest play, it’s one-third ghost story, one-third dysfunctional family drama, and one-third revenge tale. It’s now the first-ever Shakespeare play to be mounted on the Nellie W. Codding stage at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center. Artistic Dire...
Arsenic & Old Lace - February 6, 2019
February 06, 2019 20:26 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBSerial killing would seem to be rather ghoulish subject matter for a comedic play, yet Arsenic and Old Lace has been a reliable audience-pleaser for over seventy-five years. Sonoma Arts Live has a production running through February 10. Joseph Kesselring’s tale of the Brewster sisters and their pension for helping lonely old men meet their maker via a glass of elderberry wine debuted on Broadway in 1941 and ran for 1,444 performances. It starred Jean Adair, Josephine Hull, and Boris Karloff ...
How I Learned What I Learned - January 30, 2019
January 30, 2019 17:03 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBWhen playwright August Wilson passed away in 2005, he left behind a body of work that has become a staple of the American theatre. As much a documentarian as a poet and author, the ten plays (Jitney, Fences, et al.) of Wilson’s Century (or Pittsburgh) Cycle chronicle the twentieth century African-American experience mostly through the lives of the residents of Pittsburgh’s Hill District, where Wilson grew up. In 2002, Wilson stepped away from the Cycle and turned to himself as his subject w...
Moon Over Buffalo - January 23, 2019
January 24, 2019 00:11 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBContinuing with the tradition of theatre companies producing theatre about theatre, 6th Street Playhouse is presenting Ken Ludwig’s 1995 door-slamming farce Moon Over Buffalo. The backstage comedy runs through February 3. Buffalo, New York’s Erlanger Theater is hosting the repertory company of George and Charlotte Hay (Dodds Delzell & Madeleine Ashe), grade-B actors and grade-A hams who never made it big on stage. Content to spend their waning years touring second-rate theatres and playing...
Top Torn Tickets of 2018 - Part Two, the Musicals - January 16, 2019
January 16, 2019 16:27 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIt’s said that musicals are the bread and butter of community theatre, so here’s a list of the North Bay productions I toasted this past year. Here are my top torn tickets of 2018: Part Two, the Musicals (in alphabetical order): Always, Patsy Cline… - Sonoma Arts Live - Danielle DeBow’s Patsy was as heartbreaking as Karen Pinomaki’s Louise was amusing in director Michael Ross’s labor of love. Excellent costume and set design work (also by Ross) along with outstanding live music accompanimen...
Top Torn Tickets of 2018 - Part One, the Plays - January 9, 2019
January 09, 2019 15:30 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MB‘Tis the time for “Best of …” lists, so in the spirit of my illustrious predecessor and with a nod to the substantial differences in mounting a musical versus a play, here are my top torn tickets of 2018 - Part One, the Plays (in alphabetical order): Blackbird - Main Stage West – As dark subject matter goes, this look at a pedophile and his victim is as unsettling a piece of theatre as I’ve seen. Under David Lear’s direction, Sharia Pierce and John Shillington acted the hell out of David Har...
Love, Linda - January 2, 2019
January 02, 2019 15:41 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBFor years, Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater has closed out the year with a musical cabaret show. Past years’ productions have celebrated the work of musical artists from Edith Piaf to Mahalia Jackson to Frank Sinatra. This year, the work of classic American tunesmith Cole Porter takes center stage via Love, Linda, a look at Porter through the eyes of his wife, Ms. Linda Lee. Veteran cabaret performer Maureen McVerry plays Mrs. Cole Porter and yes, there was a Mrs. Cole Porter. More than a marriag...
Dear Evan Hansen - December 26, 2018
December 26, 2018 16:22 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBDear Evan Hansen, I attended the opening night performance of the San Francisco run of your national tour at the Curran Theatre. I’ve heard a lot about your show - the six Tonys (including Best Musical) and the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. I’ve seen the songs performed on various television shows and many of my friends own the album. I know this show has touched a nerve with a lot of people and, after seeing it, I understand why. Yet, I left the theatre feeling a bit uncomfortable....
12 Dates of Christmas - December 19, 2018
December 19, 2018 01:04 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBOne-person shows with a holiday theme tend to skew toward the male variety, whether it’s a show about a disgruntled department store Christmas elf (David Sedaris’s Santaland Diaries) or a single dad desperate to maintain the fiction of Santa Claus with his children (David Templeton’s Polar Bears). Even Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol has been reduced to a one-man show with Scrooge. Playwright Ginna Hoben’s the 12 Dates of Christmas is a rare female-centric holiday themed show that, desp...
Sonoma/Napa Holiday Theater Preview - December 12, 2018
December 12, 2018 17:17 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBFor folks looking for some respite from Christmas shopping or from becoming participants in the demolition derby that is mall parking, North Bay theatre companies are providing several seasonal entertainments to help keep you in the holiday spirit. Family-friendly musicals are the usual fare and there are several on tap. While not all would be classified as holiday-specific shows, they’ll still get the kids out of the house for a few hours and give adults some welcome relief. Santa Rosa J...
Polar Bears - December 5, 2018
December 05, 2018 17:59 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBWhen after sixteen years David Templeton hung up his theater critic’s hat, his stated purpose was to turn his full attention to other pursuits: artistic, journalistic, theatrical and otherwise. Since then, he continues to write, has a full-time gig as the Community Editor at the Petaluma Argus-Courier, and took a featured role in Left Edge Theatre’s pole dancing extravaganza The Naked Truth. An “otherwise” pursuit for Templeton would be directing, and he’s about to do just that with his holid...
Marin Theater Holiday Preview - November 28, 2018
November 28, 2018 16:37 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIf you’re trying to avoid attending the umpteenth production of The Nutcracker in your lifetime, Marin theatre companies are providing several other entertainment options for this holiday season. Last year, the Marin Theatre Company (marintheatre.org) was one of the participants in the rolling world premiere of Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. The continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was a smashing success, so it’s no surprise that Gunde...
The New Century - November 21, 2018
November 21, 2018 18:09 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBFor an area with as large a gay population and as much theatre as Sonoma County, it’s surprising how little gay-themed theatre is produced in the region. Oh sure, the larger companies will produce the more mainstream musicals like Cabaret or La Cage aux Folles every few years, and Halloween usually brings The Rocky Horror Show, but little else seems to cross local stages. The nomadic Pegasus Theater Company, in existence in one form or another for about 20 years, is the exception. Its Rus...
Uncle Vanya - November 14, 2018
November 14, 2018 17:41 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBI don’t know anyone who attends theatre to reinforce their belief that life is simply a series of travails to be endured until the sweet release of death, but if you’re out there, have I got show for you. Birdbath Theatres is presenting Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in a new adaptation by Jesse Brownstein, directed by David Abrams and playing at The Belrose through November 18. Vanya (Rob Garcia) and his niece Sonya (Winona Wagner) manage the small estate of his late sister where they live wit...
God of Carnage - November 7, 2018
November 07, 2018 17:17 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIn the past month, North Bay stages have been occupied by vampires, ghosts, a Thing, and Transylvanian transvestites. The Novato Community Playhouse now finds itself overrun with the most ghastly, heinous, and horrifying creatures ever to set foot on a theatrical stage. I am referring, of course, to white upper middle-class parents. They are the featured monsters in playwright Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage, directed by Terry McGovern and running at the Playhouse through November 11. Alan and...
Blithe Spirit - October 31, 2018
October 31, 2018 15:49 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIf you’re wary of attending the latest splatter fest at your local multiplex and seeking a kinder, gentler Halloween season entertainment, Napa’s Lucky Penny Productions brings you Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit, running through November 4. It’s an old-fashioned ghost story laden with Coward’s acerbic wit and charm. Author Charles Condomine (Tim Kniffin) is researching the occult world for his next novel. He’s invited a local medium, Madame Arcati (Karen Pinomaki), to conduct a séance in his ho...
Oslo - October 24, 2018
October 25, 2018 15:35 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBAt a time when the language of diplomacy has been reduced to a 140-character tweet transmitted at 3 am, it’s good to be reminded of the men and women for whom the quest for peace demanded actual thought and personal interaction. J. T. Rogers’ Oslo, now running in its West Coast premiere at the Marin Theatre Company through October 28, is a look at the circumstances and personalities responsible for the Oslo Accords. The 1993 Accords, considered to be a breakthrough in the search for Middle ...
The Addams Family, Count Dracula - October 17, 2018
October 25, 2018 15:32 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBThe credits for the Spreckels Theater Company production of The Addams Family, running now through October 28, notes that the musical is “based on characters created by Charles Addams.” It is not a recreation of the beloved 1960’s sitcom. It is not an adaptation of the visually inventive films of the ‘90’s. At the insistence of the Charles Addams Foundation, who retain control of all things Addams, the source material for the musical had to be the cartoons Addams published for fifty years in ...
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - October 10, 2018
October 25, 2018 15:26 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBThere’s an interesting style of theatre in which a piece of dramatic prose, usually a short story or selected chapters from a longer piece, is fully staged and performed. Usually referred to as a “word-for-word” or “page-to-stage” dramatization, it takes some getting used to as literally every word on the written page -every word- is spoken. It’s the approach director John Shillington and the SRJC Theatre Arts Department take to tell the story of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Two...
Guys and Dolls - October 3, 2018
October 03, 2018 14:58 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIf you’ve missed having Summer Repertory Theatre around this year, 6th Street Playhouse’s production of “Guys and Dolls” may hold you until SRT’s return in 2019. SRT Artistic Director James Newman helms this production of the 1950 musical about colorful New York gamblers trying to avoid the police, a persistent fiancé, and the goodly influence of local missionaries. Nathan Detroit (played by Ariel Zuckerman) runs the “oldest, established, permanent floating crap game in New York" but police...
Church & State, Time Stands Still - September 26, 2018
September 27, 2018 05:21 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBLast year, Healdsburg’s Raven Players surprised this critic with a very interesting production of Quiara Alegría Hudes “Water by the Spoonful”. The play, which tells parallel stories of the tribulations of a returning Iraq war vet trying to assimilate back into civilian life and a group of recovering drug addicts trying to stay clean, was not what I expected from this theatre group whose home is located one block from the quaint wine country destination’s town square. It was a fascinating var...
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Naked Truth - September 19, 2018
September 19, 2018 16:12 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBSpreckels Theatre Company opens their season with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Simon Stephens’ adaptation of Mark Haddon’s 2003 novel about a boy with ‘behavioral difficulties’ took England and Broadway by storm and earned multiple awards on both continents. Christopher (Elijah Pinkham) is a 15-year-old boy with an unspecified cognitive condition (that some read as autism or Asperger’s) living with his father in Swindon, England. He discovers a neighbor’s dog has bee...
The Comedy of Errors, Henry IV Part 1 - August 29, 2018
September 12, 2018 14:18 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBLike an Elizabethan game of whack-a-mole, as soon as North Bay theatre companies knock out one outdoor summer Shakespeare production, another one seems to pop up. Marin Shakespeare brought us Pericles at Dominican University’s Forest Meadows amphitheater, the Raven did A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Healdsburg’s Seghesio Winery, and Shakespeare in the Cannery did Shakespeare in Love in the, well, Cannery. A few more weeks of summer means a few more weeks of North Bay Shakespeare al fresco. ...
North Bay Theatre Season Preview - September 5, 2018
September 12, 2018 14:18 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBWith September come football games that actually matter, open season on California tree squirrels (daily limit of four) and the opening of the new artistic season for many North Bay theatre companies. Here’s some of what they have in store for local audiences: Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater (cinnabartheater.org) transforms itself into Berlin’s Kit Kat Club and bids you willkommen, bienvenue, and welcome to the classic Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret. Broadway veteran Michael McGurk and Peta...
Cabaret, Savage Wealth - September 12, 2018
September 12, 2018 14:17 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBTheatregoers hankering for a classic or the desire to see something new have two productions running now that fit the bill. Cinnabar Theater presents the 50-year-old classic Cabaret. The Kander and Ebb musical, which has gone through significant changes via numerous revivals since its 1966 debut, is the tale of two couples whose lives intersect via the Kit Kat Klub, a seedy pre-WWII Berlin cabaret. Cliff Bradshaw (Lucas Brandt) is an American traveling through Europe as he attempts to writ...
The Trial of John Brown - August 22, 2018
August 22, 2018 14:14 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBSo, what’s former Spreckels Performing Arts Center Manager Gene Abravaya been doing since his retirement to the Arizona desert? “Well”, he told me in a recent interview, “I’ve been enjoying my retirement and developing style and techniques for the abstract sculptures I am interested in designing.” “Oh”, he added, “and I’ve been working on a new play.” That play, The Trial of John Brown, will have a one-time staged reading at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park this Saturd...
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change & Heroes - August 15, 2018
August 15, 2018 15:25 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBRelationships are front and center in two very different shows now running on the North Bay’s northernmost stages through August 19. The Cloverdale Performing Arts Center is presenting Heroes, playwright Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of a 2003 French play about three World War I vets in a retirement home. Gustave (Robert Bauer), Henri (Peter Immordino), and Philippe (Dale Harriman) pass their days sitting on a terrace, annoying each other, and plotting their escape from the veterans’ home. Con...
Shall We Dance - August 8, 2018
August 10, 2018 01:03 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBTranscendence Theatre Company’s seventh season of “Broadway Under the Stars” continues with a dance-centric production entitled, appropriately enough, Shall We Dance. The show runs through August 19 at the Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen. Transcendence imports Broadway and national touring professionals to populate their productions so the caliber of performance is always quite high. Director Leslie McDonel and choreographer Marc Kimelman guide a cast of seventeen talented art...
Pericles, Shakespeare in Love - Aug 1, 2018
August 01, 2018 13:36 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MB‘Tis the season for Shakespeare al fresco so pack a picnic, grab a blanket and check out these North Bay productions: Marin Shakespeare closes out its season under the stars with Pericles, a play whose authorship by Shakespeare has fostered many a debate. Plot points include incest, assassination, famine, a shipwreck, marriage, maternal death, familial separation, attempted murder, kidnapping, pirates, prostitution, and a seemingly dead person rising from a watery grave. Who knew Shakespeare...
Always... Patsy Cline - July 25, 2018
July 25, 2018 14:37 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBJukebox musicals have become the bread and butter for a lot of community theatre groups. Minimal casts, simple sets and the built-in audience that comes with a popular singer or musical group is tough for an artistic director to resist. Around since the 1970’s, the genre really exploded onto the scene with the success of the ABBA-themed “Mamma Mia!” and continues with the recent Broadway opening of the Go-Go’s-themed “Head Over Heels”. Back in 1988, playwright Ted Swindley took 27 songs r...
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - July 18, 2018
July 18, 2018 13:56 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBThe Hunchback of Notre Dame was originally scheduled as the closing production of the Spreckels Theatre Company’s 2017-2018 season. The musical, whose development by Walt Disney’s theatrical arm started in Germany and ended in New Jersey (having never made it to Broadway), is an atypical Disney production. More Les Miserables than The Little Mermaid, it’s an interesting amalgam of Victor Hugo’s original gothic novel with music and elements from Disney’s 1996 animated adaptation. Far darker t...
School of Rock - July 11, 2018
July 11, 2018 14:08 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBOne might think that the talents behind Downtown Abbey and Phantom of the Opera would be odd choices to make a Broadway musical out of a 2003 comedy starring Jack Black. One would be correct. School of Rock, now on the San Francisco stop of its National Tour, is Julian Fellowes and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s overblown take on that modest film whose charm relied mostly on one’s appreciation of its star. Dewey Finn (Rob Colletti, doing Jack Black-light) has been kicked out of his band, has no ...
llyria - July 4, 2018
July 04, 2018 22:16 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIn a world of theatre based on movies and television shows, why not Shakespeare? Such is Illyria, a musical adaptation of Twelfth Night first produced Off-Broadway in 2002 and now running at Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse. Don’t let the words ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘musical’ chase you away. Peter Mills has written a book and score that takes the plotline of the Bard’s 17th century comedy, modernizes it a bit in speech and time period, sets it to music and comes up with a terrifically entertain...
Stairway to Paradise - June 27, 2018
June 27, 2018 14:15 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBSonoma’s Transcendence Theatre Company opened its seventh season of “Broadway Under the Stars” in Jack London State Park with Stairway to Paradise, the first of four staged concert events scheduled this year. The company takes performers with Broadway, touring company, film and television experience and creates an original themed musical revue around them. This year’s theme is ‘Every Moment Counts’ and director/choreographer Tony Gonzalez has designed 20+ production numbers full of memorable...
The Fantasticks, Bullshot Crummond - June 20, 2018
June 20, 2018 13:49 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBTwo community theatre workhorses have galloped onto North Bay stages. Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater is presenting The Fantasticks, the 1960 musical that ran for a record 42 years Off-Broadway and then had a revival in 2006 that ran for another eleven years. It’s a modest production with a sweet score and engaging performances. It’s a simple tale of two neighboring families. Mrs. Hucklebee (Krista Wigle) and Mr. Bellomy (Michael van Why) each have a child they wish to fall in love with th...
Honky - June 13, 2018
June 13, 2018 23:26 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MB“Everyone’s a little bit racist” sing the puppets in the musical Avenue Q. Playwright Greg Kalleres takes that thought and runs with it in Honky, running now at Left Edge Theatre. It opens up with a commercial for Skymax 16’s, the latest craze in athletic footwear. It ends with the tag line “S’up now?” which we soon learn is the last thing said to a black teen before he’s killed for the shoes. Lights up on the office of Davis Tallison (Mike Pavone), the white president of a company that ma...
Hands on a Hardbody - June 6, 2018
June 06, 2018 15:37 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBTen down-on-their-luck Texans gather on a car lot to compete for a cherry red Nissan pickup. They must lay their gloved hands upon the truck and, except for scheduled breaks every six hours, never let go. The last person standing wins. That’s the premise behind Hands on a Hardbody, a 2012 musical now in its Bay Area premiere run at Napa’s Lucky Penny Community Arts Center. Based on a 1997 documentary that followed 24 contestants in an actual endurance competition, Pulitzer Prize-winning play...
Mamma Mia - May 30, 2018
May 30, 2018 23:03 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBHigh atop Mount Tamalpais, at about the 2,000 foot level, sits the Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre where the “great outdoor theatre adventure” known as The Mountain Play has been produced for the past 105 years. Your all-day adventure includes a slow, winding ride up the mountain, a hike to the 4,000 seat amphitheatre and a trek down to your seat lugging coolers full of food and ‘adult’ beverages (they’re allowed.) You get your umbrella and seat cushions arranged, unpack your goodie basket and ...
Jeeves Intervenes, The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) - May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 18:59 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBThat the name ‘Jeeves’ immediately conjures up the image of a staid British manservant is a tribute to the staying power of author P. G. Wodehouse’s character. Since his first appearance in 1915, he’s been featured in films, television, and even an internet search engine. There was but a single theatrical venture until playwright Margaret Raether began writing a series of plays beginning with Jeeves Intervenes, running now at Sonoma Arts Live. Jeeves (Randy St. Jean) is the unflappable vale...
Women In Jeopardy, Eurydice - May 16, 2018
May 16, 2018 14:14 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBFemale protagonists in peril are the focus of one very silly and one very melancholy production running now in the North Bay. Left Edge Theatre’s “Women in Jeopardy!” is a laugh-out-loud look at the changing dynamic among a group of single friends once one of them begins a relationship. That the friends are middle-aged women makes for a nice change of pace. Mary (Shannon Rider) and Jo (Sandra Ish) are having a tough time adjusting to a new addition to their circle of friends. Their frie...
Peter Pan - May 9, 2018
May 09, 2018 14:12 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBJ. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan has been seen on stage in one form or another for well over 100 years. It’s survived being Disney-fied and even Christopher Walken-ized in a disastrous live television spectacle. The most popular adaptation is the 1954 musical starring Mary Martin. It’s that version that takes flight in a well-mounted production running at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center through May 20. Peter Pan (a winsome Sarah Wintermeyer) has lost his shadow while eavesdropping on story t...
La Cage aux Folles - May 2, 2018
May 02, 2018 14:36 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIt’s been thirty-five years since La Cage aux Folles took Broadway by storm. What began in 1973 as a French stage farce followed by a series of films, the Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman musical was considered daring for its time with its portrayal of a happily domesticated male couple thrown for a loop by a request from their son. With marriage equality the law of the land and RuPaul’s Drag Race a crossover hit, it seems less daring today but its message of self-acceptance still packs a p...
Into The Woods - April 25, 2018
April 25, 2018 13:03 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBThe Santa Rosa Junior College theatre season ends with their production of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. It’s a fairy tale mash-up with elements of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood set to a classic Sondheim score. As in the original tales - and not like most adaptations - things do not end well for the characters. A childless baker (Brett Mollard) and his wife (Katie Smith) make a bargain with a witch (Alanna Weatherby) to lift a...
Death of a Salesman, Farragut North - April 18, 2018
April 18, 2018 14:40 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBDramas old and new dominate North Bay stages with two good ones continuing their runs. Film, television, and theatre veteran Charles Siebert headlines the 6th Street Playhouse production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Miller’s Pulitzer Prize and multi-Tony Award winning treatise on the elusiveness of the American Dream is considered by many to be the greatest American play ever written. While almost seventy-years-old, in the hands of the right artistic team it can seem as fresh as ...
Lost in Yonkers, Time of Your Life - April 11, 2018
April 11, 2018 13:04 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBPulitzer Prize-winning dramas hit North Bay stages, first with the Raven Players production of Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers. Simon, whose best-known works are comedies tinged with a little melancholy (The Odd Couple, The Sunshine Boys) won the 1991 Pulitzer for Yonkers, which is a melancholy family drama tinged with comedy. With their mother deceased and their father off to work to pay off a loan shark he owes for covering his late wife’s medical bills, Jay (Ari Votzaitis) and Arty (Logan W...
Amadeus - April 4, 2018
April 04, 2018 16:55 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIn Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg assesses Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with the criticism that it has “too many notes.” Cinnabar Theater’s current production suffers from the opposite - it’s missing a few. Amadeus is actually the story of Antonio Salieri (Richard Pallaziol), the most celebrated composer of his time and a man who’s dedicated his life to God and mankind as thanks for God’s granting him the gift of musical talent. Enter Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Aaron...