Arts & Culture » Theater
Turn these beats around
Last week Out There was in the house when "On Your Feet!," the touring Emilio & Gloria Estefan Broadway musical, opened at the newly remodeled SHN Golden Gate Theatre.
Berkeley Rep's new season blew in on a chilly Norwegian breeze with last Thursday night's opening of "A Doll's House, Part 2."
I felt jealous of the gentleman sitting in front of me at a performance of Theater Rhinoceros' "Dead and Breathing" last week. For 10 of the show's 90 minutes, he escaped, drifting off to sleep.
David Pavlovsky's new 30-minute documentary, "Stand Up, Stand Out," tells the story of three gay teachers' fight for equal rights during the 1970s gay liberation movement, which led to the founding of the Valencia Rose Cabaret.
The incomparable Lily Tomlin returns to the Bay Area stage for a benefit performance of her one-woman show "An Evening of the Classic Lily Tomlin." The award-winning actress will perform a two-hour show on Thurs., Sept. 20, 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall.
It's been almost a year since Jackie Hoffman turned in what may be the most widely seen performance of her career.
Catch him if you can: Broadway heartthrob Aaron Tveit.
On the first page of the program for Shotgun Players' production of Guillermo Calderón's "Kiss," "A Note from the Director" is subtitled, "Spoiler Alert: Please read after the show!"
Bay Area theater companies are putting a smorgasbord on the boards this fall. Unfortunately, with dozens of productions on offer, it's not an all-you-can-eat affair. Here's a selection of quirky canapés and dramatic dishes that have my mouth watering.
This fall, San Francisco's venerable American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) raises the curtain not only on a new season of productions, but also on its new leadership team, artistic director Pam MacKinnon and executive director Jennifer Bielstein.
The New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) will honor actor, playwright, director and cabaret performer Charles Busch at the theatre's annual gala on Saturday, August 25, and will open their 2018 season with his play "Red Scare at Sunset."
Playwright Lynn Rosen slices, dices and juliennes the banal chit-chat of unmotivated office workers in "Washed Up on the Potomac."
Carole Cook, still quite active in cabaret, is one of more than a dozen performers who will be taking to the stage of the Herbst Theatre on Sun., Aug. 19 for "Help Is on the Way 24," the latest fundraising variety show for Richmond/Ermet Aid Foundation.
"#GetGandhi: A Seriously Radical Feminist Comedy" opens this Saturday, August 11, at the Mission District's Z Space Below performance space.
"There's a standard criticism that people make about us," says Joan Holden, a member and leader of the San Francisco Mime Troupe since 1967. "They say we're preaching to the converted. Well, don't the converted need to be inspired and animated?"
Shotgun Players' "White" is emotionally hot and utterly of the moment.
My favorite moment in "Sunday in the Park with George" is when the titular artist, George Seurat, describes the inventiveness of the pointillist brushwork in "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte."
"Oedipus at Palm Springs," written and originally performed by the Five Lesbian Brothers collaborative, is particularly reliant on the performers' delivery rather than the plot.
Raise your curtains of preconception and imagine a musical: There's a spunky, sexually adventurous gay boy pursued by a hardworking man, a few years older, who wants to tame the young-un's wandering eye and get domestic.
"Oedipus in Palm Springs," a play by The Five Lesbian Brothers, a writing collaborative that includes Lisa Kron, was in rehearsals for a rare revival at Theater Rhinoceros (opening July 12 at the Gateway Theatre, with a local cast).
Beginning on July 10, the Fury Factory Festival of performer-creators from around the country will take over spaces throughout the Mission District and in Oakland to present an eclectic, boundary-pushing series of theatrical events.
The touring production of "School of Rock" now playing the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco through July 22 is the perfect opportunity to bring your secret air-guitar moves out of the closet.
"Excuse me," says Alan Cumming, through the jangle of Manhattan traffic noise. "I'm hailing a taxi. It's a bit frantic right now." When, one wonders, is it not?
The world premiere of Oakland resident Jonathan Spector's "Good. Better. Best. Bested." - a co-production of Custom Made Theatre and Just Theater - is messy and black-humored, repulsive yet compelling.
A provocative popcorn machine of intellectual entertainment, "Soft Power," playing the Curran Theater through July 8, delivers a rat-a-tat fusillade of sociopolitical satire, musical parody, and autobiographical angst.
No San Francisco queen worth his salt would turn down a salty sit-down with Patti LuPone. So we were out in full force last Wednesday night at the Curran Theatre.
In the American Conservatory Theater's guileless, bighearted new musical "A Walk on the Moon," at the Geary Theater through July 1, there are sweet, small elements that achieve liftoff.
Countess Luann brings her nightclub act to Feinstein's at the Nikko on Fri. & Sat., June 22 & 23.
Following the inspirational lead of Jeff Sessions - who bears a striking resemblance to Leslie Jordan - I feel a duty to recuse myself from future reviews of the Del Shores oeuvre.
Kathy Griffin is killing it at the box office again, after a yearlong boycott by the entertainment industry after the celebrity gossip website TMZ leaked a picture of Griffin with a fake severed head of Donald Trump.
Stephen Karam carves deep into the dark meat of middle-class America in "The Humans," his Tony Award-winning hybrid of kitchen-sink drama and dream-logic creep show.