San Jose Stage Company Announces 2023-2024 Season

‘Bald Sisters’ leads San Jose Stage Company’s 2023-2024 season

Vichet Chum's Bald Sisters is set to kick off San Jose Stage Company's 2023-2024 season. The play revolves around two sisters who have been at odds since birth and marks its West Coast premiere. Jeffrey Lo directs. In total, five productions are featured in the theater's 41st season including three...
With his latest monologue, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at Berkeley Rep, master storyteller Mike Daisey investigates our culture’s love affair with technology. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com
Luzia by Cirque du Soleil first look

First Look: ‘Luzia’ a waking dream in Mexico (Video)

In Spanish Luzia means light ("luz") rain ("lluvia"). If you're Cirque du Soleil, it means intricate, poetic, acrobatic art. In this "waking dream" light quenches the spirit and rain soothes the soul. According to organizers Cirque's new, visually stunning show will feature "a cast of 44 performers from diverse artistic backgrounds, Luzia...
Frank Langella's Cyrano, City Lights Theater Company

Theater Review: ‘Frank Langella’s Cyrano’ at City Lights Theater

I know all about enormous noses, but unfortunately as Loni can attest I'm not quite the poet. Fortunately though Cyrano does have a way with words and it proves to be a formidable ally in all things love and war. City Lights Theater again does yeoman's work, this time with a...

A West Side Story for the cheap seats

This experience triggered new insights into the choreography and the blocking. Ensemble characters related in ways that I’d never seen before. Dance scenes could have been drawn out with arrows across the stage as if it were a football play.
Blithe Spirit

Review: Noël Coward meets Benny Hill

Scenic designer Patrick Klein must have worked over time creating a lush, well-appointed set.
Bad Dates - Dragon Theatre - Palo Alto

Chanel pumps and Jimmy Choo shoes: ‘Bad Dates’ opens at the Dragon

Details like these can give a middle aged woman in frumpy, grey sweats with hair that’s gone seven ways since Sunday a modicum of credibility that would otherwise be lacking.
In The Heights San Francisco SHN Broadway

Theater Review: ‘In the Heights’ an inspired celebration

The Curran Theatre in San Francisco was one heck of a fun place to be last night. Touring Broadway show (by SHN) In the Heights opened here to an enthusiastic crowd and did not disappoint, demonstrating why it nabbed a 2008 Tony for best musical, and a Grammy for best...
San Francisco Opera: A Centennial Celebration

New exhibition at SFO showcases history of San Francisco Opera’s costumes, artifacts from past 100 years

On your next journey through San Francisco airport (SFO) you may want to take a moment to enjoy a special exhibit that could make your travels enlightening. Titled San Francisco Opera: A Centennial Celebration, the new curated installation in located in the Harvey Milk Terminal 1 and showcases the company's...
The Hard Problem Review - San Francisco A.C.T.

Stoppard’s ‘The Hard Problem’ has problems

Tom Stoppard, one of the most acclaimed living playwrights, jokes about being “the house playwright” for the American Conservatory Theater. Program notes inform me that he is second only to Shakespeare in number of productions mounted here (17 to Shakespeare’s 21). Stoppard’s fame is rightly deserved, and we’re lucky...