Emily S. MendelTheaterBerkeley,
It’s difficult to see Berkeley Rep’s impressive and astute new production of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning two-part epic, “Angels in America: a Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” without revisiting the early days of AIDS in the San Francisco Area, ...
Emily S. MendelTheaterBerkeley,
Talented playwright Jonathan Spector has achieved the almost impossible. He’s created an exceptional play that is laugh-out-loud funny, yet with an intelligent and introspective perspective. On an external level, “Eureka Day” is a hilarious send-up ...
David E. MorenoDanceBerkeley,
This season marks the 50th Anniversary of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s return to Cal Performances. This sustained and mutually beneficial relationship with Cal Performances represents the very best between arts organizations and is truly reason for ...
Emily S. MendelTheaterBerkeley,
“We’ve got thirty per cent the same [genes] as a lettuce…”
The successful birth of Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was a startling event in 1996. Now the news of Barbra Streisand’s cloned puppies has shown ...
Emily S. MendelTheaterBerkeley,
I didn’t sleep well the night I saw “Office Hour,” and to my mind that’s a good thing, because my restlessness meant that I was deeply affected by playwright Julia Cho’s tension-ridden, creative exploration of the complex natures of mass ...
David E. MorenoDanceBerkeley,
Company Wang Ramirez leaped across Berkeley Saturday evening with their in-the-buzz style of dance and livewire troupe. Its choreographers, Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez have risen to prominence for their unique approach to dance theater and because ...
Emily S. MendelTheaterBerkeley,
It's a pleasure to see a fine production of any play by George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), but especially one of his infrequently produced first three "Plays Unpleasant," as Shaw called them. He explained that he called the theatricals unpleasant because, ...
Emily S. MendelArt & ArchitectureBerkeley,
Curators of The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) explored their storage facilities and put together the first half of a fascinating exposition of diverse works of Bay Area art, film and poetry spanning ...
A 77-year-old Lillian Hellman play sounds the alarm (again).
Emily S. MendelTheaterBerkeley,
Lillian Hellman (1905 –1984), celebrated author and left-wing political activist, would be both pleased and saddened that her 1940 play is being applauded across the country 77 years after it was written — pleased, of course, that her ...
Emily S. MendelTheaterBerkeley,
TheatreFirst has commissioned 12 enlivening and exhilarating short plays by outstanding playwrights that are designed to provoke thought, discussion and action. All the pieces in “Participants” share the didactic theme of exploring society’s reaction to our current social and political ...
