No humorless left wing hacks, the SFMT laughs at themselves, with characters like “Working Class Man,” and ups the ante by confronting the two-dimensionality of their subject material with a commedia dell'arte approach.

The national tour of Wicked couldn’t possibly be less than fabulous. Stephen Schwartz’s score combines the infuriatingly catchy with the beautifully lyrical. His clever lyrics provoke laughs with their well-rhymed mix of real SAT vocabulary words and made-up imitations (confusifying, disgusticified). The whole plot—based on Gregory Maguire’s novel of...

And you thought The Godfather was long? Berkeley Rep has announced that its production of Obie-winning Gatz will run 6 hours long when it hits the stage next month. Fortunately there'll be plenty of breathers for the audience, including a 2-hour break for dinner. The production does take place in a...

Even before I stepped into the theater, the premise of this piece intrigued me. The entire play is set in purgatory, the place between heaven and hell where, according to the production's playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, a Judge Littlefield (Bill Davidovich) has presided for over 140 years providing the last...

It's back -- for the first time since 2019. If you noticed something different about the San Francisco skyline this week it might just be because of something called the Big Top. The massive outdoor tent that can sit over 2,500 people will host the new Cirque du Soleil production Kooza. Running...

The San Francisco Symphony will launch its bold new 2018-2019 season with an opening night gala on September 5th, featuring violinist Itzhak Perlman. Proceeds from that gala will benefit the Symphony’s many artistic, education and community programs. The first week of September also will include the “All San Francisco...

Theatre that stays with you invariably has at least one actor with such compassion and understanding of his character that he completely inhabits it.

The show begins with the theatre equivalent of a palate-chaser, as the lights plunge you into a darkness so deep that the stage lights sear your eyes when they come up. Whatever you leave behind is exactly that – left behind.

I have a confession to make: I don’t know anything about Argentine Tango. So when I write about Luis Bravo’s Forever Tango, I can say whether the music was exciting, whether the show was theatrical, and whether the dancing was impressive, but I can’t say whether the tango was...

One fascinating bit of Messiah trivia is that Benjamin Franklin attended a “Messiah’’ performance in Dublin in 1759.