Emily S. MendelCA,
The little lifeboat is swiftly sent down./ Too many men too greedily/ Hold on to it as they drown. — Bertolt Brecht When Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956, “Three Penny Opera”) wrote the light and lively fable of ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
Alas, sometimes a title gives away the plot. Maybe it is foolish to expect more from a play written by a committee, namely Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields. It is summer and once again theatrical producers are ...
Josh BaxtSan Diego,
On the page, there’s nothing overtly magical about As You Like It. Nobody conjures storms or misappropriates love potions or portends the future. Still, if you accept that falling in love is its own sleight of hand, then the ...
Departing Berkeley Repertory Theatre Artistic Director
Emily S. MendelBerkeley,
Tony Taccone, Berkeley Rep’s acclaimed Artistic Director for the last 21 years, is about to launch the last production of his last season, before turning over the reins to incoming artistic director Johanna Pfaelzer. During ...
Emily S. MendelBerkeley,
There’s nothing better than a bright and boisterous musical show to enhance one's mood — and boy, do we need a mood-changer these days. “Kiss My Aztec!,” with its book co-written by John Leguizamo (“Latin History for Morons”) and ...
A new musical at the Lantern Theater, Philadelphia
Lewis WhittingtonPhiladelphia,
The road to getting a new musical up and running is often a bumpy one, and composer Robert Kaplowitz and Kittson O’Neil’s new musical MINORS struggles to find a good balance between book and music. ...
Josh BaxtSan Diego,
There’s a point, around halfway through What You Are, when one character turns to another and asks: “You gonna make me beg?” It’s a stunning moment, both for the emotional content and the way it sums up the play. ...
Emily S. MendelSan Francisco,
"Humanism is dead, those who follow it are just old sentimentalists" — Eugène Ionesco In “Rhinoceros,” the celebrated absurdist play by Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994), we witness herd mentality gone amuck in its most literal form. ...
Emily S. MendelSan Francisco,
San Francisco’s current, and unfortunately too brief, special engagement of the Tony® and Grammy® Award-winning Broadway hit “Beautiful: The Carol King Musical” retains its magic in this, its fourth run in ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
How you react to “Happy Days” at the Taper may depend on how you feel about revisiting absurdist theater. If you were around in the ‘60’s you probably saw “Happy Days,” along with “Krapp’s Last Tape” and “Waiting for ...
