1,374 stories from Chad Jones' Theater Dogs
John Douglas Thompson is tall and handsome, which is to say, he looks nothing like Louis Armstrong. But so deft is Thompson's performance as the legendary trumpeter in Terry Teachout's capti…
One of the best things about the year-end exercise to round up favorite theatergoing memories of the preceding year is that it can be such a powerful reminder of how much good theater we hav…
Even though Agatha Christie's most famous, play The Mousetrap, is the longest-running show of any kind in the world (the London production is in its 64th year, with more than 25,000 performa…
I remember seeing A Christmas Story in the movie theater in 1983 (I was in high school), and since then, I've probably seen it 50 times or so (in whole or in part) on TV. It helps that TBS h…
Just when you thought there was not a breath of life left in the seasonal cash cow known as A Christmas Carol, along comes Scrooge in Love! to remind us that there's still a lot of life and …
Essentially, Notes of a Native Son is a rock show with a literary degree. Ini the words of Stew, the composer (with Heidi Rodewald), this 90-minute show is "not a musical nor a play with mus…
You really do root for the murderer in the delightful A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder. That may seem an insensitive scene in these brutal, terrifying days we're living in, but the r…
San Francisco Playhouse puckers up and offers a nice juicy kiss for the holidays in Stage Kiss a delightfully daffy theatrical spin with a touch of real-life melancholy.
This is the first t…
My knowledge of Lenny Bruce is sorely limited (I've seen the Dustin Hoffman movie and heard other comics express their reverence), but I'd like that to change. After seeing Steve Cuiffo Is L…
If Bojack Horseman and Mr. Ed count, I can say I'm a horse person. I fell off the back of a running stallion as a child while visiting relatives on a farm in Idaho (that horse really wanted …
When salsa splatters across the unsealed Carrara marble, the horror of the architect played by Danny Scheie resounds through the intimate Aurora Theatre Company. An hors d'oeuvre has fallen …
On a day when terrible things were happening in the world, being immersed in William Shakespeare's The Tempest was sweet balm, especially as performed by the fine actors of California Shakes…
If/Then is not a musical I like much. I saw it on Broadway because I was enthusiastic about creators Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey after their powerhouse effort on Next to Normal (a show that I …
Elizabeth Irwin's My Mañana Comes cuts through any pretense and gets right to the heart of real life in these United States. In so much of the entertainment we consume (and, truth be told…
Sail Away, the last musical for which the great Noël Coward wrote the whole shebang (book, music, lyrics), had two things going for it when it premiered on Broadway in 1961. First was the…
Any prospect of a live Rocky Horror Show makes us shiver with antici................pation, And the good news is this Rocky is a rollicking ride through one of the most beloved cult musicals…
A very personal play, BootStrap Theater Foundation's Arctic Requiem: The Story of Luke Cole and Kivalina is both educational and emotional. You'll learn more about Native Alaskan Inupiat peo…
Before I rhapsodize about the incredible Ghost Quartet now at the Curran Theatre as part of the Curran: Under Construction series, can I just say how extraordinary this series has been so fa…
The Hypocrites' Pirates of Penzance is one part Yo ho! and one part Yo, ho! Which is to say, this is not your great-grandparents' Gilbert and Sullivan, and what a blessed relief that is. No …
Can we agree that Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! is warm and wonderful...and weird? The sepia-tinted 1933 play is a rare light work from tragedian O'Neill, though its fantasy elements " th…
You'd think, from the piles and walls of boxes that fill the stage of the Curran Theatre, that Geoff Sobelle's would involve shame " shame that we're so attached to our stuff and that we acc…
What a rare treat to have had two productions of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life Is a Dream on local stages this year. First there was California Shakespeare Theater's production (read …
The whole time I was watching Lachlan Philpott's Truck Stop, a Crowded Fire Theater production at Thick House, I was working myself into a state of anxiety imagining being the parent of a te…
Two of the Bay Area's most interesting theater artists, Philip Kan Gotanda and Sean San José, were asked to adapt a short story from Lysley Tenorio's 2012 collection Monstress for American …
There are two very good reasons to see the musical Dogfight at San Francisco Playhouse. The 2012 stage adaptation of the 1991 movie starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor has its moments (mo…
