1,373 stories by "Chad Jones"
There are multiple points in human history when Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros would make for funny/terrifying entertainment. Unfortunately, this is one of them.
In Ionesco's 1959 play, a sma…
Almost six years ago, a Broadway-bound musical had its world premiere at San Francisco's Curran Theatre, and though there were a few issues, the show looked like a bona fide hit. Sure enough…
Let's just admit it. The Bible is a clusterf**k. How in the world did such a literary hodgepodge, political football, myth collection become one of the most influential " if not the most inf…
Last year I fell in love with Weightless, the rock musical by The Kilbanes, when it had a triumphant world premiere at Z Space. The show had muscle and heart and passion and staggering beaut…
For their adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1848 novel Vanity Fair, writer Kate Hamill and director Jessica Stone do a little bit of cheating. Hamill has decided to liven things up…
A golden ticket doesn't buy you much these days " a cut-rate touring musical with chintzy sets, a mediocre score and about as much joy as you'd find in a board meeting about turning wacky mo…
You may enter The Jungle at the beautiful Curran theater in downtown San Francisco, but you exit in an entirely different place " mentally and emotionally speaking, that is.
The idea of imm…
What Dorothy Gale said is true: there's no place like home. But in this particular instance, there is no place and no show quite like HOME, the creation of the marvelous Geoff Sobelle, whom …
If anything, the current company " known as the #AndPeggy company " of Hamilton now at the SHN Orpheum Theatre through Sept. 8, is even better than the one we saw at the same theater in 2017…
The Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! has spawned a national tour with the marvelous Betty Buckley as Dolly, and while the erstwhile star of Cats, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Sunset Boule…
Nearly 20 years later, Metamorphoses returns to Berkeley Rep, this time to the Peet's Theatre. The show remains stunning " still gorgeous, still moving, still an example of theater at its su…
As directing debuts go, Pam MacKinnon's for American Conservatory Theater is pretty auspicious. Her production of Seascape by Edward Albee is her first on the Geary Theater stage since takin…
It was with trepidation that I went to opening night of the world premiere drama Candlestick by Bennett Fisher and produced by Campo Santo, long one of the Bay Area's best incubators of new …
There are actually two competing musicals in Paradise Square: A New Musical now having its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. One of them is much better than the other.
Incredibl…
Already a long-running hit on Broadway, Come From Away is now making its way around the country. The touring company at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre is extraordinary. A dozen performers play …
It's absolutely astonishing that a musical about pain, that is in itself a painful experience, can be so enjoyable. But that's what Dear Evan Hansen is: a deeply felt show that wrings tears …
If it feels like we've seen it all before, well, we have. The gangsters, the tormented teens, the tough streets of New York's deeze, dem, dose borough " it's all the same old stuff in the mu…
Taylor Mac is back with a two-hour show called Taylor Mac's Holiday Sauce, and while two hours is far better than no hours, by the time the show ended, I felt like we were just getting warme…
Not being an opera aficionado, I was interested in San Francisco Opera's adaptation of It's a Wonderful Life for a number of reasons. First and foremost is the power of the original 1946 Fra…
The new touring spectacle, Volta, opened Thursday night under a gray-and-white-striped tent in the AT&T Park for a nearly three-month run before heading down to San Jose. It's a high ene…
Oars up! Oars out! We're going adventuring.
The first thrill of our adventure is the sheer delight of seeing 10 women on stage " 10! " in the American Conservatory Theater production of Men…
Waitress is very much like one of the wacky pies its title character concocts " an odd combination of ingredients that come together in a surprisingly delightful way. As a musical, it's abou…
Playwright Lucas Hnath imagines what happened to Nora after she stepped through that door in the audaciously titled A Doll's House, Part 2, which opens the Berkeley Repertory Theatre season …
On Your Feet! The Emilio & Gloria Estefan Broadway Musical is exactly what you think it's going to be, and that's not a bad thing. Nor is it a great thing, but this amiable show lands sq…
p>What's the primary reason to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's School of Rock? It's elementary: the kids.
This grand-scale musical adaptation of the 2003 movie hit (screenplay by Mike White, d…
