As the play opens, Josh Kornbluth’s so-called personal trainer comes onstage to announce his entrance: “Josh has made a living telling stories about things he failed to do.” “Sea of Reeds,” the locally renowned monologuist’s latest work, was commissioned by Shotgun Players. Kornbluth, a Berkeley resident, has written and performed Read More…
Closing the San Francisco Playhouse’s latest season, in familiar custom, is Lerner and Loewe’s “Camelot.” Just as the theater’s previous season concluded with a reimagination of “My Fair Lady,” another Lerner and Loewe musical, the 10th anniversary season closes also with a similar theatrical reinvention. Most audience members will be Read More…
Neil LaBute is not your average storyteller, to say the least. There is nothing he loves more than making his audience feel uncomfortable — and rightfully so. With his plays, he seeks not to tell warm tales of the goodness of humanity but rather strives to dissect the flaws of Read More…
For its latest theatrical concoction, Shotgun Players has cooked up something like no other. Premiering this past weekend at The Ashby Stage was “By and By,” a new play written by San Francisco playwright Lauren Gunderson, a science fiction thriller that explores the realistic possibilities of cloning and the ethical Read More…
A theatrical production that takes its entire script from a 30-year correspondence of letters between two 20th-century poets may not sound like the most appealing of plays for the audiences of today. However, Pulitzer- and Tony-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl and director Les Waters have masterfully crafted together one of the Read More…
There’s no better way to mark the almost-end of a season than with a party. Premiering in late May and running through early July at SF Playhouse is Mike Leigh’s renowned “Abigail’s Party,” a British satire and black comedy of terrible manners. The disco music is playing, the cigarettes are Read More…
If you ask the average UC Berkeley student how many libraries there are on campus, you will most likely receive a perplexed gawk and an incorrect answer. Amid the majestic allure of the Doe Library — Gardner Main Stacks and the North Reading Room — it can be incredibly easy Read More…
In 2006, Impact Theatre debuted the very first edition of “Jukebox Stories” — a two-man show featuring stories and songs performed and written by playwright Prince Gomolvilas and singer-songwriter Brandon Patton, respectively. What began as an experiment in the basement theatre underneath La Val’s Pizza, which Impact calls home, is Read More…
Phoenix’s Bankrupt! Monday welcomes the arrival of the new Phoenix album, Bankrupt!, four years after the release of their 2009 breakout record Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. The 2013 Coachella headliners have since spent two years in both New York and Paris studios crafting this new record, which is sure to impress Read More…
Here’s how to put on a disturbingly hilarious and outrageously entertaining musical in a confined basement-slash-student-theater: Take six socially awkward and sensationally idiosyncratic elementary school students, give them each a Red Bull or two and have them battle it out in a local spelling bee put on by equally strange Read More…
