Man of God. Shotgun Players.

East Bay Theatre Post-Pandemic Preview

Berkeley,
East Bay theaters are planning live productions starting late this summer after more than a year of valiantly entertaining and enlightening us through Zoom, podcasts, and film. They worked hard, with surprisingly good results, but it isn’t easy to  ...
Tovah Feldshuh as Dr. Ruth. Photo: Aaron Rumley.

Becoming Dr. Ruth

San Diego,
Among the hallmarks of 1980s culture were big hair, shoulder pads, yuppies, MTV and a middle-aged Jewish woman with a heavily accented raspy voice who achieved worldwide fame as a sex therapist.    In “Becoming Dr.  ...
Bibi Mama. Photo courtesy of MOXIE Theatre

The Mango Tree

San Diego,
A girl and her brother, a volatile river goddess, and a ripe mango tantalizing just out of reach on a branch high above the ground combine to deliver an evening of storytelling magic in the MOXIE Theatre streaming production  ...
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Magic Fruit

Berkeley,
TheatreFirst’s 2020-21 virtual season is presenting six world premiere plays and visual essays. Initially, the theater company aired online chapters of the offerings. Now TheatreFirst is showing full versions of each production. While the first chapter  ...
Manu Narayan (Manu/Louis) . Photo courtesy of Berkeley Repertory Theatre

The Waves in Quarantine

San Francisco,
“The Waves in Quarantine,” Berkeley Rep’s artistic and impressionistic, although somewhat puzzling, series of six linked documentary films, was shot during the pandemic. The project’s foundation is the 1990 musical adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1931 experimental novel, “The Waves.”  ...
Photo: Aaron Rumley

Trying

San Diego,
First-day-on-the-job jitters take on new meaning when your boss was a judge at the Nuremberg trials for Nazi war criminals. How a young woman, at the beginning of her life’s journey, finds common ground with a tormented man at  ...
Simon Winheld (Shlomo) and Jill Eickmann (Soreh).

God of Vengeance

San Francisco,
This remarkable English language presentation of the 1906 Yiddish play, "God of Vengeance" ("Got Fun Nekome")was written by Sholem Asch (1880–1957), the prolific and popular Polish-born fiction writer. Returning after a successful short run in  ...
The cast of [hieroglyph] (L-R): Safiya Fredericks, Khary L. Moye, Jamella Cross, and Anna Marie Sharpe. Presented by San Francisco Playhouse and Lorraine Hansberry Theatre,

[hieroglyph]

San Francisco,
The streaming production of “[hieroglyph]” is the story of a bright, artistic, but traumatized 13-year-old girl, Davis (outstandingly impressive work by Jamella Cross), who had to leave New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. While her mother remained in a FEMA  ...
Jennifer Wang

The Book of Magdalene

“Remind me again.” “About what.” “About it they say it feels like.” “Skin against skin.” In the opening scene of The Book of Magdalene, the exquisite new  ...