Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Even without Cal Shakes productions, Bay Area summer theater is a bounty by Lily Janiak

Season highlights include San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Magic Theatre and Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Thursday, May 25, 2023

Review: Berkeley Rep’s ‘Let the Right One In’ shows that theater needs more vampires by Lily Janiak

Blood spills like a curtain, dribbles like egg yolk and curdles like a swamp thing in Jack Thorne’s adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:07PM
Wednesday, May 24, 2023

ACT’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ design informed by S.F.’s queer underground  by Tony Bravo

From Burning Man to South of Market nightlife, the American Conservatory Theater production pays homage to Bay Area culture and queer history.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Tuesday, May 23, 2023

‘Supportive,’ ‘loving,’ ‘unhinged’: ACT’s refreshing casting choices poised to make ‘Wizard of Oz’ sparkle by Lily Janiak

Director Sam Pinkleton’s cast list reveals Bay Area actors anew, but for potential they’ve always had. 

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Friday, May 19, 2023

Cutting Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from Pride Night a low blow, even for the Dodgers by Tony Bravo

The drag charity group’s community award was rescinded by the L.A. team. But who have the glam nuns actually offended?

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 05:57PM

Marin Theatre Company, still without artistic director, unveils four shows for 2023-24 by Lily Janiak

Sara Porkalob, Lisa Peterson and Harvey Fierstein are part of the Mill Valley company’s next lineup.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Thursday, May 18, 2023

Bay Area Children’s Theatre has closed, ending 19 years of joyous theater for families by Lily Janiak

Bay Area Children’s Theatre's abrupt shuttering is only the latest blow to local theater’s struggle to recover from the pandemic.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 06:36PM
Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Review: Gender-expansive ‘1776’ at Broadway San Jose indicts Congress in 2023 by Lily Janiak

Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus’ production dispels the old boys’ club with multiracial female, nonbinary and trans performers. 

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:33PM

Bay Area Theatre Week is back. Here’s where to score $20 tickets by Lily Janiak

TodayTix and Theatre Bay Area’s promotion offers discounts to Ray of Light, BroadwaySF and many more.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 12:00PM
Thursday, May 11, 2023

Review: S.F. Playhouse’s ‘Chinglish’ is plump to bursting with jokes about what gets lost in translation by Lily Janiak

David Henry Hwang’s play is comedy’s equivalent of being in Davies Symphony Hall.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 03:10PM
Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Review: Quintuple-threat performer partly rescues rote ‘Where Did We Sit on the Bus?’ by Lily Janiak

In Marin Theatre Company’s West Coast premiere, you might wish Satya Chávez had a script to match their talent and craft.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:55PM
Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Playwriting is an inhospitable career. Here’s how one Bay Area company is helping address that by Lily Janiak

Playwrights Foundation, which has fostered Christopher Chen and Lauren Gunderson, announces structural changes to meet theater’s new reality.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:50PM

How S.F.-bound ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ and anti-drag legislation prop each other up by Lily Janiak

The musical based on the Robin Williams film, with its onslaught of “man-in-a-dress” gags, helps make possible and justify oppressive laws.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Sunday, May 7, 2023

As other theaters play it safe, Magic’s ‘The N— Lovers’ in S.F. is real art by Lily Janiak

Marc Anthony Thompson’s world premiere about escaping slavery is satire that doesn’t say, “Eat your vegetables.”

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:38PM
Saturday, May 6, 2023

Review: S.F.’s Oasis now hosts immersive theater, with all its pleasures and pitfalls by Lily Janiak

Detour Dance’s “We Build Houses Here,” about castaways, inspires in audiences a perpetual feeling of FOMO. 

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:11PM
Friday, May 5, 2023

Embattled leader Nataki Garrett resigns from Oregon Shakespeare Festival by Lily Janiak

The move marks an about-face from the attitude the Oakland native displayed in a February interview with The Chronicle.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 03:25PM
Thursday, May 4, 2023

This Bay Area theater started an emergency fundraising campaign, but not because of low attendance by Lily Janiak

The irony of Bay Area Children’s Theatre’s campaign is that demand for its work — in both performance venues and school classrooms — is as high as ever.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:02PM
Tuesday, May 2, 2023

‘Some Like It Hot’ leads 2023 Tony Award nominations with 13 nods by Mark Kennedy

Ariana DeBose will host the June 11 awards celebration from New York City’s United Palace theater live on CBS and on Paramount+. 

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:29PM
Friday, April 28, 2023

Review: ‘Adventures with Alice’ is theater as wonderful as its Golden Gate Park setting by Lily Janiak

We Players’ site-specific, immersive walk-through show adapting Lewis Carroll polishes an San Francisco jewel to a fresh gleam.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 03:20PM
Thursday, April 27, 2023

Review: BroadwaySF’s ‘Pretty Woman’ is the musical no one asked for by Lily Janiak

Book writers J. F. Lawton and Garry Marshall make some small updates to the Julia Roberts-Richard Gere film, but they can’t paper over the story’s core ickiness.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:19PM
Tuesday, April 25, 2023

New experiment in preventing theater industry toxicity: Term limits by Lily Janiak

“We don’t want to bleed for our art; we want to make art, and we want to be happy and compensated,” said Cutting Ball Theater Community and Education Director Cathryn Cooper.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Sunday, April 23, 2023

Review: We talk a lot about theater for the marginalized, but ‘Exhaustion Arroyo’ in S.F. is the real deal by Lily Janiak

Cutting Ball Theater and In the Margin’s world premiere is set partly in a late-capitalist pizza chain, partly during a shrooms trip in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:19PM
Saturday, April 22, 2023

Review: ‘Are You Goth Enough?’ is for the ‘90s mall rat in all of us by Lily Janiak

Awesome Theatre’s production proves that Hot Topic is a fertile setting for a gothic romance.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Tuesday, April 18, 2023

With ‘MJ’ and ‘Mrs. Doubtfire,’ BroadwaySF’s 2024 season courts controversy by Lily Janiak

Other highlights at the Orpheum and Golden Gate theatres include “Company” and “The Wiz.”

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:55PM

Shakespeare in Yosemite uses ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to present a hopeful environmental message by Lily Janiak

Uniformed park rangers are among the actors at the unique company, and Mother Nature is the set designer.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM
Saturday, April 15, 2023

I deleted my personality flaws with an immersive theater psych experiment on S.F.’s Haight Street by Lily Janiak

“Change Your Mind,” the first public offering from collective Say Nothing and Leave, gets right what much immersive theater gets wrong.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:27PM
Friday, April 14, 2023

Review: Aurora Theatre’s ‘Cyrano’ smells… off by Lily Janiak

In Josh Costello’s adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s classic, the title character comes off as an antagonist. Of the audience.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:10PM
Thursday, April 13, 2023

Review: ACT’s ‘Poor Yella Rednecks’ is a hormone-spewing love story about VIetnamese immigrants by Lily Janiak

Jaime Castañeda’s direction at the S.F. theater evinces that DNA-deep understanding of what makes a playwright special and important.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 01:59PM
Wednesday, April 12, 2023

California stories reign supreme in Berkeley Rep’s 2023-24 season by Lily Janiak

Michael Mayer, Octavio Solís, Lloyd Suh and Eric Ting will alight on the flagship Berkeley company next year.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 02:55PM

Heklina helped create a drag scene that reached beyond San Francisco by Tony Bravo

The late drag performer is remembered as a “Viking warrior” who lived fearlessly and challenged the conventions of drag to immeasurably change the S.F. scene.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM

How Heklina created a lonely theater critic’s saving pandemic moment by Lily Janiak

The beloved S.F. drag icon, who was found dead on Monday, April 3, triumphed during the pandemic in Meals on Heels.

SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle at 07:00AM

All that Chat

2022-2023 BROADWAY SEASON
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