Spring is the season of renewal, except if you are a theater company, when season renewals are targeted for the fall. Some folks like to buy into a particular theater's full package, while many prefer to go wherever the theatrical flow takes them. This column favors the latter category, as the spotlight swerves among theaters with highlighted selections grouped into various categories �" such as world premieres, which is how we will now begin.
Making their debuts
Berkeley Rep describes singer/comedienne Meow Meow as "an international superstar." If her fame hasn't yet pierced the Bay Area, perhaps that will change with the premiere of An Audience with Meow Meow. The post-modern diva, better known to her parents as Melissa Madden Gray back in Australia, promisingly has Emma Rice of UK's Kneehigh Theatre (Brief Encounter, The Wild Bride ) as her director. Runs Sept. 5-Oct. 19. berkeleyrep.org.
Small but intrepid, Wily West Productions will offer two world premieres running in repertory at Exit Theatre. Krista Knight's Un-Hinged focuses on a house that got away, as a man who once played there as a child now obsessively tries to regain entry. Morgan Ludlow's Drowning Kate is about a different obsession, that of a doctor for his late wife who believes he has the skills to revive her. Runs Oct. 2-25. wilywestproductions.com.
With complacency rattled by the Napa quake, Angela Santillo's Faulted gains extra relevance. The foolsFURY premiere concerns an earthquake empath, someone who can sense a coming temblor before any technology gets its first hints. Her skills collide with a Caltech seismic emissary's traditional views, as a chorus of godlike figures embodies California's fault lines. Runs Nov. 14-Dec. 7 at Thick House. foolsfury.org.
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb is a gay local playwright whose works don't necessarily have direct connections with any particular orientation. But among various political dirty tricks and mud-slinging in The Totalitarians, there are at least intimations of husbands in closets. Z Space is presenting Nachtrieb's joke-laden take on contemporary politics, as a savvy speechwriter with a milquetoast husband moves her passion to a clueless political candidate (who may or may not have been inspired by Sarah Palin) in a comedy about ambitions run amok. Runs Nov. 22-Dec. 21. zspace.org.
Celebrity sightings
Having had goes at Edward Albee and Tallulah Bankhead on local stages, Kathleen Turner returns in a one-woman show unequivocally titled Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins. The much-revered late political columnist and humorist's words have been adapted into a solo show that comes to Berkeley Rep after several other big-city stops. Ivins is the one who came up with the nickname "Shrub" for George W. Bush. Runs Nov. 21-Jan. 4.
The Old Woman offers the somewhat unexpected pairing of Willem Dafoe and Mikhail Baryshnikov, not to mention direction and design by the iconoclastic Robert Wilson, in a Cal Performances offering at UC Berkeley. Daniil Kharms' piece has been variously described as abstract, surreal, vaudevillian, and laugh-out funny as two inhabitants of a disorienting world try to cope with an unwanted houseguest. Runs Nov. 21-23. calperformances.org.
Broadway luminary and Tony nominee Emily Skinner helps 42nd Street Moon get its season off to a starry start with Do I Hear a Waltz? at the Eureka Theatre. In this 1965 collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim, Skinner plays a lonely woman, worried that love has passed her by, who finds stirrings of romance during a Venice vacation. Runs Oct. 1-19. 42ndstmoon.org.
While we're in celebrity mode, mention should be made of Celebrity Autobiography, coming to Feinstein's at the Nikko. A team of six performers, including Laraine Newman, Fred Willard, and Roger Bart, offer verbatim readings from autobiographies by, to name a few, Vanna White, Tiger Woods, Sylvester Stallone, Diana Ross, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, and Cher. It all falls into the we-couldn't-make-this-stuff-up brand of humor. Runs Sept. 20-21. hotelnikkosf.com/feinsteins.
Emergent playwrights
British playwright Mike Bartlett had made a minor name for himself as a radio playwright when Cock cracked open his career with a 2010 production at the National Theatre. New Conservatory Theatre Center is opening its season with the area premiere of this unusually constructed tale of a love triangle among two men and a woman. If you're Googling it, the play was demurely advertised and reviewed in New York as The Cockfight Play. Runs Sept. 5-Oct. 12. nctcsf.org.
Local audiences were first introduced to gay playwright Samuel D. Hunter last year with A Bright New Boise at Aurora Theatre, and he followed up with The Whale, which is having its Bay Area debut at Marin Theatre Company. The funny/poignant play is the story of a 600-lb. man eating himself into oblivion following the death of his gay partner. When death becomes a real fear, he reaches out to his long-estranged daughter with her own collection of heavy personal baggage. Runs Oct. 2-26. marintheatre.org.
Musical worlds
The composer of Wicked, Godspell, and Pippin will be on hand and performing in Celebrating Stephen Schwartz, a musical revue that opens Bay Area Cabaret's season in the Venetian Room on Sept. 27. Ana Gasteyer of Saturday Night Live and Broadway's Liz Callaway will help offer up the evening of Schwartz's Broadway melodies. bayareacabaret.org.
TheatreWorks has had a long love affair with the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, and it continues with its return to the formidable Sweeney Todd at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. Runs Oct. 8-Nov. 2. theatreworks.org.
The Top 40 song factory known as Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote one Broadway musical together, Promises, Promises, and even though it was a big hit of the late 1960s, it has largely been revival-deficient. San Francisco Playhouse is taking on this musical adaptation of the 60s movie The Apartment, which, with its Mad Men sensibilities, has gained a renewed nostalgic resonance. Runs Nov. 11-Jan. 10. sfplayhouse.org.
Before Kinky Boots came along, one might not have predicted that Cyndi Lauper would become a Tony Award-winning songwriter. Her collaborator, Harvey Fierstein, arrived at the table with an armful of Tonys, and together they created the show (itself a Tony winner for Best Musical) coming to the Orpheum Theatre as part of the SHN series. Based on a semi-obscure 2005 British comedy, it tells the story of a struggling shoe factory that reinvents itself as cobbler to drag queens. And as they say, it was inspired by a true story. Runs Dec. 2-28. shnsf.com.
Two in the Busch
Drag performer extraordinaire Charles Busch will be in the spotlight twice this fall, both in person and as the author of one of his most popular comedies. His in-person turn happens Sept. 25-26 at Feinstein's at the Nikko, as he plays out scenes as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and his long-running alter ego of cabaret wannabe Miriam Passman. In Die Mommie Die!, Busch played has-been star Angela Arden on stage and screen, a role that will pass to J. Conrad Frank (aka Katya Smirnoff-Skyy) in New Conservatory Theatre Center's production running Oct. 13-Nov. 2.
The curiosity shop
Not everything falls into a neatly defined category, and that is certainly the case with I Love Lucy Live on Stage at the Curran Theatre. Theater audiences are asked to imagine they are studio audiences in 1952, as two episodes from the classic TV series are being filmed. Comes complete with period commercials and the sounds of the Ricky Ricardo Orchestra (and it's in color!). Runs Nov. 11-23.
There are always curiosities and undiscovered treasures to be found at the SF Fringe Festival that returns to the Exit Theatre with 35 shows performed over 14 days. Three shows with particular LGBTQ relevance are Mary Matoula Webb's Love at Home, focusing on two sisters, one a lesbian and the other a Mormon; Harry Cronin's Matthew Shepard Meets Coyote, a solo piece performed by Christopher P. Kelly about a Native American spirit who visits the gay-bashed Laramie resident in his final moments; and Dominika Bednarska's solo piece about being queer and disabled and finding joy in her body. The festival runs Sept. 5-20. sffringe.org.
Is this the right category for Old Hats, the new-age vaudeville show that opens ACT's season? Wherever it belongs, the show heralds a welcome reunion of Bill Irwin and David Shiner, who brought abundant merriment to the Geary Theatre in Fool Moon nearly 15 years ago. Runs Sept. 10-Oct. 5. act-sf.org.
A steam-punk essence hangs over Kurios �" Cabinet of Curiosities, the latest big-top show from Cirque du Soleil to pitch its tent near AT&T Park. In the well-received show, a turn-of-the-century inventor uses all the technological wonders of his age to play with reality and introduce world-class circus acts. Runs Nov. 14-Dec. 31. cirquedusoleil.com.