“You ask four guys how it happened, you get four different versions.” This is how Tommy DeVito, the brusque patriarch, introduces the story of how a ramshackle group of guys from New Jersey became one of the top-selling pop groups of all time — The Four Seasons. It’s a sordid Read More…
The 13th Earl of Gurney and his servant Tucker are standing center stage, and a noose is swinging below the Earl’s head. Tucker and the Earl exchange pleasantries, and eventually Tucker leaves the room, leaving the Earl and the noose to themselves. While delivering a nonsensical monologue, the Earl (played Read More…
When you open your newspaper (if those things even still exist) and turn to Charles M. Schulz’s legendary “Peanuts” comic strip, you know what to expect. There will be some Snoopy hijinks, a “good grief,” maybe some “wah-wahs” and most certainly an effervescent feeling of warmth bubbling somewhere in the Read More…
The story itself is a simple tale: It reveals the healing power of nature and a triumph over misfortune and heartbreak. But the effort put into the visuals of the opera are astounding and sophisticated. Read More…
Impact Theatre’s latest contemporary revamp is William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” The play follows a familiar Shakespearean scenario. Everyone starts to fall in love with the wrong person. Chaos ensues. Read More…
Premiering at the Aurora Theatre this past week was local playwright Anthony Clarvoe’s “Our Practical Heaven” — a family dramedy consisting of a mere cast of six female characters differing greatly in terms of generations and personalities but strung together by the word “family”. Think “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Read More…
Hats have a long history in professional theater. In Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George,” the artist Georges Seurat sings an entire three-minute ode to “Finishing the Hat.” “Look, I made a hat,” he says, “where there never was a hat.” And, in SF Playhouse’s newest production, a Read More…
The look, plot, dialogue, jokes and even the orchestral accompaniment of “Anything Goes” could easily seem dated. In Cole Porter’s famed 1934 musical, there’s a bit about Arrow shirt collars, Garbo’s salary and Mae West — references that have since gone the way of the cat’s pajamas. But, when you Read More…
Since its premiere in 1994, there has been one sound that retains the power to both excite and empower. It’s a piercing, raw and wholly bewitching chant that can stir even the most ornery of curmudgeons out of their embittered stupor. Out of silence, the words come thundering in: “Nants Read More…
This year marks the 100th birthday of America’s traveling troubadour, a man literally born from dust and shaped by the land — a man named Woody Guthrie. In timely fashion, UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies premiered “Woody Guthrie’s American Song” this past Friday in what was Read More…
