Theatre Rhinoceros adopts an uneven play
Tanya Barfield’s The Call is nominally a play about adoption. As such, the premise (an exploration of a couple’s excitement and doubts about adopting a…
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.
Poised between two worlds in ‘She Loves Me’
This Jerry Bock (music) and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics) 1963 musical looks forward as well. The new energy is palpable, but it’s not all there yet.
Bold and Bizarre: The Unfortunates at ACT
Three a cappella group members walk into the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It’s not the start of a joke; it’s the birth of a musical. Or…
At the Orpheum: The Illusionists (Review)
The Orpheum has a history of big lunacy, undoubtedly bearing psychedelic traces that permanently alter the chemistry of the ceiling ornaments so that 'The Illusionists'…
Valley of the Heart: What is this Promised Land, this California? (Review)
Valley of the Heart is that big: an epic multi-generational story, larger in scope than the Grapes of Wrath, and worth every one of the…
A mesmerizing mermaid tale at Cutting Ball Theater
Ilana Walder-Biesanz reviews the World Premiere of a new play by Katharine Sherman about Ondine, a water sprite.
Phantom of the Opera tops Broadway San Jose’s new season (Video)
Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Andrew Llyod Webber’s famed The Phantom of the Opera leads the upcoming Broadway San Jose season. Revealed today, the eight…
The Nether is a 90 minute heart-in-mouth experience
Instead of a futuristic netherland, this Jennifer Haley play feels like a virtual Second Life crossed with regions of the dark web, with forays down…
Lions, tigers, bears, and men lurking behind curtains
Not only does the script retain dialogue essential to the spirit of the thing, it's iconic moments give you the same hit as the original,…
‘Jersey Boys’ and those Jersey contradictions
“Jersey Boys” gets that part right – gets part of that whole New Jersey thing - in a way that seems unimaginable. Wow… New Jersey.…