What Is A Woman to Do? by Clare Hedin "The Village Bike," the provocative and insightful play by Penelope Skinner, performed at Shotgun Players, Berkeley, hosts five characters who manage to…
Young and Old Thrill to Sparkling African Folklore by Sysamone Phaphon Last weekend I went to a live theatrical musical for the first time. I attended "The Lion King" on Sunday evening with …
In her show "The Madwoman in the Volvo" at the Berkeley Rep, Sandra Tsing Loh tells a story that needs to be told. Accompanied by only two other cast members"the remarkably fluid Caroline Aa…
"Christmas at Pemberley": A Comedy of Romantic Rights  by Barry David Horwitz Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy (the winning Cindy Im), always the groundbreaker, has run away with Christmas. She knows…
Intimate Blackout Show Thrills at Ashby Stage by Daniel Joseph Lilly Fifteen minutes before Christopher Chen's sidesplitting and cerebral play "Caught" at Shotgun Players was about to begin,…
British Genius for Swing & Story on Parade  by Barry David Horwitz How about a D-Day landing story from a little village, called Slapton, on the south coast of England, where thousand…
Seasonal Classic Inspires Good Will and Good Ideas by Alice Cheng In Amercian Conservatory Theater's "A Christmas Carol," abundance and poverty bump up against each other, starkly. On th…
Millennial Notes Albee's Cold War Couple Turns Hot by Benjamin K. Sloan    "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1962)"in the Shotgun Players wonderful new Repertory Season"takes us o…
Leading Ladies Give New Meaning to 'Summer Fling' by Alice Cheng What women want wavers between our practical minds, passionate hearts, and reproductive needs. In order to "have it all," we …
Shop Clerks Sing Their Hearts Out in Pre-War Hungary by Alice Cheng "She Loves Me," the 1963 musical hit, proves that we are all hopeless romantics. Set in Budapest in 1937, two secret pen p…
Erotic, Engaging Psycho-Social Struggle by Daniel Joseph Lilly The evening with Theatre Rhinoceros, at the Eureka Theater, begins with the silhouette of Artistic Director John Fisher as Dr. …
"All Aunt Hagar's Children" Proves Black Lives Matter by Daniel Joseph Lilly Word for Word's creative staging of the short story "All Aunt Hagar's Children" by Pulitzer Prize winning author …
Millennial Notes Black Lives, White Rules by Benjamin K. Sloan Before the Civil War, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were living in the South as "free" people"a status that consti…
Cirque du Soleil Makes Imagination Happen by Alice Cheng Cirque du Soleil unleashes a torrential downpour of physical feats and Latin delights with the U.S. Premiere of "Luzia: A Waking Drea…
Verdi Shows State Commanding Love and Death by Alice Cheng San Francisco Opera's new production of Giuseppe Verdi's "Aida" poignantly portrays the love, jealousy, and suffering of two women …
Geeks, Nerds, Brains, and Odd-Balls Surpass Themselves by Alice Cheng "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" (2005) remains a side-splitting, fresh, and endearing comedy about what win…
American Arrogance Pins Lyrical Butterfly by Alice Cheng Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" examines the consequences of opposing and unequal cultures clashing. The opera is set in early 2…
Hip-Hop Darling Spawns "1776" Revivals by Susan Dunn "Hamilton: An American Musical," with its 16 Tony nominations and 11 Tony Awards, has rolled out a revolution across the theater world by…
Shaw's Comedy: Millionaire or Missionary? by Alice Cheng & Barry David Horwitz Can a highly competitive, profit-oriented country also practice altriusm and empathy? Why do we have extrem…
A Classical, Classy Musical Ode to Mystery by Alice Cheng "Baker Street," the musical at 42nd Street Moon, brings alive the mystery and nostalgia of Sherlock Holmes, still charming audiences…
Durang's Doctors Multiply Our Manias by Alice Cheng "Beyond Therapy" (1981) by Tony Award winning playwright Christopher Durang explores, violates, and molests gender roles, destroying the t…
Millennial Notes Heroes of Spanish Civil War Celebrated in Song by Tyler Jeffreys Seriously, there should be a soundtrack of "Heart of Spain: A Musical of the Spanish Civil War" on sale righ…
Searching for Soul in the Seventies by Alice Cheng Set in 1978, soon after the Jonestown massacre and the death of The Who drummer, Keith Moon, "Black River Falls" by Bryn Magnus takes a har…
Millennial Notes Tom Stoppard's Battle Royale: Faith vs. Science by Benjamin K. Sloan Many millennials have a tendency to  assert  their "truth," impatiently, like angsty preachers who…
Al Letson Learns Lessons in His Classroom by Alice Cheng "Be all you can be, but not what you can dream." Such is the message reverberating in the young and pliable minds of children growing…