A campy family drama, a play about sexuality and violence, a witty trio of drag queens on a road trip in the vast Australian interior, a compulsively singable musical and an extravagant pageant of costumes. The story follows them through love and heartbreak, gay-bashing and the mercurial nature of show Read More…
“There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true or false,” wrote Nobel Prize-winning English playwright Harold Pinter in 1958. “A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.” Last Sunday saw the opening Read More…
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…
In the heart of downtown San Francisco, at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre, you can hear a pouty, rotund Asian man rhyme “jizz on your belly” with “Ghirardelli.” Wait a few moments, and you can hear him sing — in a ’70s soul style — the geographically and anatomically explicit line, Read More…
It’s hard to think of any story that would lend itself to a theater or film adaptation better than the story told in L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Its stirring adventure, fantastical environments and dynamic characters seem to demand visual representation. Indeed, several successful screen and stage 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…
When’s the last time you saw an award-winning play about gay chinstrap penguins? Luckily for you, “Birds of a Feather” is playing in San Francisco and can help you cross that one off your list — and it’s delightful. Written by Marc Acito, the play examines issues surrounding same-sex marriage, Read More…
Coming to the Orpheum Theater in August, the Broadway spectacle “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” follows three drag performers driving a bus through the Australian Outback to a gig in Alice Springs. Wade McCollum plays Tick — known onstage as Mitzi — the lead character who has secretly arranged the Read More…
Somehow, nuns are always funny. Despite their integral place in religious orders and their work in many communities, most of our associations with women in wimples come from movies and television like “Sister Act,” “The Sound of Music” or the classic “The Singing Nun.” With all of these penguin-dressed comedies Read More…