Sunday, May 10, 2015
Leave it playwright Lauren Yee to bring clear definition to the sub-genre "existential slasher comedy." That's exactly what her Hookman is, a fascinating world-premiere play from Encore Thea…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:29PMSaturday, April 18, 2015
Some houses leak when it rains. For Shelah, the deluge inside is almost as severe as the one outside, and that's just the water. The metaphorical flood – of tragedy – has only just begun…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 05:19PMFriday, April 17, 2015
In the world of pop culture, we've had precious few insights into the world of autism. Certainly the work of Oliver Sacks and Temple Grandin (and the HBO movie about her starring Claire Dane…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:49PMSunday, April 5, 2015
The greatest crime the musical Nick & Nora seems to have committed in its ill-fated 1991 debut was not being nearly as good as it should have been and not being nearly the catastrophe ev…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 10:00AMFriday, March 27, 2015
It's a museum piece come to life, a poem that dances, a classic that feels ultra-modern. Shotgun Players' Antigonick is all that and more, including somewhat baffling and exhausting.
You do…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 10:47AMSunday, March 22, 2015
In Aaron Posner's Stupid Fucking Bird, an energizing riff on Chekhov's The Seagull, a playwright laments that what he's written is just another play where nothing real happens. You can't rea…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:59PMSaturday, March 21, 2015
Faith is one of the most valuable and powerful things human beings have to give away, and anyone who takes advantage of that faith with anything less than sincerity and devotion qualifies as…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:30PMThursday, March 19, 2015
Tremble those gladdies, possums. Our dear Dame Edna is departing. She's not shaking off this mortal coil (for her that somehow seems tacky), but she is saying a final goodbye. Sort of. Dame …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:34PMSunday, March 8, 2015
Any celebration of Alice Munro merits attention, but when that celebration comes from Word for Word, the ever-astonishing local company that transforms short fiction into brilliant theater w…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:16PMSaturday, March 7, 2015
Award-winning San Francisco playwright Christopher Chen gets deep into existential nihilism in his latest world premiere, Aulis: An Act of Nihilism in One Long Act. That title pretty much sa…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:17PMTuesday, March 3, 2015
Think of A. Rey Pamatmat's Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them as sort of a '90s "Peanuts" strip come to life. Sixteen-year-old Kenny is like Charlie Brown. Twelve-year-old Edith is Kenny's …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:37PMSunday, March 1, 2015
It's only logical that Judy Collins would end up doing a show devoted to the songs of Stephen Sondheim. The legendary American singer is, after all, the only one to deliver Sondheim an actua…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 12:47PMWednesday, February 25, 2015
p>For someone who kills zombies in her day job, Danai Gurira sure knows her way around a compelling drama. Best known as the kick-ass, Katana-wielding Michonne on AMC's "The Walking Dead,…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:40PMThursday, February 19, 2015
Newsies that unlikely Broadway hit that started out as a flop movie musical, isn't so much about groundbreaking theater as it is a sterling example of how efficient Disney can be at creating…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:25PMMonday, February 16, 2015
In some ways, the less you know about Just Theater's latest show, the better. Here's what you need to know and then you can read the rest after you've seen it: this is a very modern show in …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:33PMSunday, February 8, 2015
There are breathtaking moments – literally, your capacity to process oxygen is shut down – in Nicky Silver's script of The Lyons now at the Aurora Theatre. Silver takes an average situat…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:22PMFriday, February 6, 2015
If, as they say, 'tis the gift to be simple, then Early Shaker Spirituals is truly gifted.
Just what is this show exactly? Is it an hourlong piece of documentary theater about songs sung (a…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:17PMWednesday, February 4, 2015
Oakland playwright Marcus Gardley is the winner of the Will Glickman Award for the best new play to have its premiere in the Bay Area in 2014. The play is The House that will not Stand, loo…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 05:34PMMonday, January 26, 2015
I reviewed Julie Hébert's drama Tree at the San Francisco Playhouse for the San Francisco Chronicle. Here's a sample: "Director Jon Tracy’s powerful and poignant production feels grounded…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:53PMSaturday, January 24, 2015
A critic's personal feelings or attachment to a subject are often irrelevant when it comes to writing about a particular play. But in the case of Berkeley Repertory Theatre's world premiere …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:51PMThursday, January 22, 2015
Is anyone in the theater world more spirited than Angela Lansbury? She has been giving great performances on stages and screens of various sizes for 70 years. She has every right to rest on …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 01:47PMMonday, December 8, 2014
Our sorry political state may be sending the country down the toilet, but it sure is inspiring some grand entertainment. Veep and House of Cards offer two distinct points of view on the absu…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 11:49PMThursday, November 6, 2014
Has any mother ever inspired so much and such varied art?
Colm Tóibín's Testament, now at American Conservatory Theater, is another in a long line of interpretations of Mary, mother of Je…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:14PMWednesday, November 5, 2014
In Naomi Wallace's And I and Silence now at the Magic Theatre we meet two interesting women, Dee and Jamie, who became friends while in prison. Both are in for nine-year stints, and as their…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:58PMFriday, October 31, 2014
For those of us with no ear for legalese, for whom courtroom scenes in TV shows and movies induce narcolepsy, the premise of Elevator Repair Service's Arguendo does not sound promising. This…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:26PMSaturday, October 25, 2014
There are ovations and there are ovations. The opening of an envelope gets a standing ovation these days, so the stand and clap doesn't really mean much anymore. But at the opening night of …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:14PMSunday, October 12, 2014
Tory Ross' sublime performance as Mrs. Lovett, maker of the "worst pies in London," threatens to hijack the TheatreWorks production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and turn…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:47PMWednesday, October 8, 2014
Samuel D. Hunter's The Whale, now at Marin Theatre Company is a difficult play to watch. That description might not make you want to run out and buy a ticket, but hold on. Difficult doesn't …
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 03:32PMMonday, October 6, 2014
A love letter to Emily Skinner...
Dear Ms. Skinner,?
I had the pleasure of seeing you perform in 42nd Street Moon's production of Do I Hear a Waltz, and I was completely captivated by y…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 12:49PMSunday, September 28, 2014
Bay Area playwright Aaron Loeb's award-winning play Ideation returns to San Francisco Playhouse, this time on the main stage. The play features the cast and director from its SF Playhouse Sa…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 04:06PMThursday, September 25, 2014
Now this is how you revive a musical.Sure, you could set Les Misérables or Sunday in the Park with George in a circus with results that would likely be as baffling as they are entertaining.…
SOURCE: Chad Jones' Theater Dogs at 02:54PM 
