Have you ever confused a rabbi with a rabbit? Me, neither, but it seems like a plausible mistake in Daniel Handler’s new play Imaginary Comforts, or The Story of the Ghost of the Dead Rabbit, at Berkeley Rep. Daniel Handler (best known by his young adult fiction pen name,...

The Mineola Twins at Cutting Ball Theater opens with thunder and lightning. The intensity continues unabated throughout the show. Paula Vogel’s play follows a pair of small-town twins as they navigate the trials of sex, potential nuclear war, marriage, electroshock therapy, parenthood, and violent crime. Myra and Myrna have...

The American Conservatory Theater’s Hamlet marks the debut of two greats who somehow (strangely) have never tackled this great play. John Douglas Thompson premieres his Hamlet, direct by A.C.T. artistic director Carey Perloff. The results make me thank whatever theater gods brought these two together to work on Shakespeare’s...

Playwright Paula Vogel has been in the news a lot recently. She made her (shamefully overdue) Broadway debut with Indecent, which was nominated for the 2017 Best Play Tony. She started a national conversation around producers’ and critics’ biases when it comes to financing and reviewing plays by women...

Stark Insider presents a backstage look at Cirque Du Soleil's newest artistic creation, Luzia. LUZIA is now in Atlanta. Cirque's "waking dream of Mexico" features everything we've come to expect from the spectacle: beautiful costumes, astonishing acrobatics, dancing, singing, audience engagement, and, overall, fine entertainment. But LUZIA has a unique...

Comedian and SNL alum Bill Hader is the latest to be added to the Festival of Disruption. You know, the guy with this kind of headshot: Now in its second year and curated by founder David Lynch the Festival of Disruption is certainly evolving into one of the more interesting...

In the words of a character from Luna Gale, deciding a child’s future is an “awesome responsibility.” In this absorbing play, receiving its Bay Area premiere at Aurora Theatre, social worker Caroline must determine what to do about the case of baby Luna. Her meth-addicted parents are trying to...

Kirsten Greenidge’s new play Zenith asks a difficult question: why do ordinary people commit horrifying crimes? Specifically (in a scenario loosely inspired by a true event), how could a seemingly well-adjusted mother drive a car the wrong way on the highway, causing a deadly crash? The premise is well...

There’s nothing serious or meaningful about Something Rotten!. Still, if you know the lullaby of Broadway and brush up your Shakespeare, it’s sure to make you laugh.

"Summer with the Symphony" runs July 4-29. Highlights include Pixar in Concert, Ben Folds with the SFS, A Night at the Moulin Rouge with Storm Large, and an all-American program with music of Bernstein and Gershwin with Rhiannon Giddens.