36th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival in Full Swing: Tuck & Patti (Review)
The repertoire of Tuck and Patti deftly illustrates the purpose of this venue — bring people together across the Americas to celebrate music, love and…
Theater and Stage
Reviews and coverage of theater and performing arts in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Berkeley, and beyond. Written by ATCA critic Clinton Stark.
Inside The Ring: Backstage at San Francisco Opera’s production of ‘Ring of the Nibelung’ (Video)
Power. Love. Destruction.
Tap and Tomfoolery: Me and My Girl
It’s funny how two people can discover the same thing at once. Calculus. Oxygen. A neglected musical. Me and My Girl, hardly a household name…
Star power makes The Color Purple bright
The women of The Color Purple have unimaginably hard lives. They’re subject to an unrelenting series of rape, abuse, and racism. The musical (currently on…
Searching for freedom with Father Comes Home from the Wars
Midway through Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3, at A.C.T.’s Geary Theater in San Francisco), a Confederate colonel sets his…
Shakespeare’s obscure ‘Timon’ sears at Cutting Ball
Shakespeare completionists surely took note when Cutting Ball Theater announced Timon of Athens as part of their 2017–18 season. It’s a difficult one to check…
Berkeley Rep Announces 2018-19 Season: Doll’s House Pt. 2, Fairview, Home, Good Book, more
Iconic theater celebrates 50th anniversary with 6 shows under Tonny Taccone's last year of artistic directorship.
The Effect‘s side effects: laughter and angst
How can we trust in love if it’s reducible to brain chemistry?
Romance, rap and a road trip for refugees of ‘Vietgone’
Ilana Walder-Biesanz reviews Vietgone, American Conservatory Theater’s (A.C.T.) latest production, now playing at The Strand in San Francisco. Humor is not what you’d expect from…
A nineteenth-century housing crisis at Aurora Theatre
Widowers’ Houses is, by Shaw’s own categorization, a “play unpleasant.” No one on the stage is remotely likeable. Certainly not Blanche (Megan Trout), the spoiled…