"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?"
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.
"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 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.
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.
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.
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.
