theater

From a new musical based on a classic ’80s movie to a tribute to Paul Robeson in Oakland and San Jose Jazz’s Winter Fest concert series, there is a lot to see and do in the Bay Area this week. Here’s a partial roundup. A slice of musical nostalgia When “Mystic Pizza” premiered in 1988, it might not have seemed like it would have much of a legacy. But with a stellar young cast — Julia Roberts, Annabeth Gish, Lili Taylor, Vincent D’Onofrio and Matt Damon in his very first film — the enjoyable romantic comedy/drama following…

From the return of Hershey Felder and Renee Fleming to a world premiere at Diablo Ballet, there is a lot to see and do this weekend in the Bay Area. Here’s a partial rundown. Felder returns to TheatreWorks Hershey Felder is well-known in the Bay Area and beyond for his terrific shows portraying classic composers, fueled by his phenomenal skills as a pianist and as a riveting storyteller. He returns to TheatreWorks Silicon Valley this week to present a short run of “Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone,” which is timed…

I t’s a chilly Sunday night in Manhattan’s West Village and somehow the hottest ticket in town involves a sexually repressed Abraham Lincoln, hoop skirts, and comedian Cole Escola in a wildly convincing nineteenth-century wig.  There’s a line down the block outside the Lucille Lortel Theatre, and inside, the energy builds as patrons make their way through packed halls and walkways to their seats. Queer isn’t just a vibe here, it’s built into the streets — just three blocks from the Stonewall Inn — etched…

Whether you’re looking for great theater or killer concerts, there is a lot to see and hear this weekend in the Bay Area. Here’s just a partial rundown. Home is where the chaos is The holiday season — and all of the family dissension, meltdowns and reckonings with abandoned value systems that can come with it — is over. Except at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The company this week opens “The Cult of Love,” a new family drama by acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Leslye Headland, which centers on the adult members of a…

It is fitting that a critical section of “August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned” delves into legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. In one particular moment, as the strains of Coltrane’s instantly recognizable horn work fill the theater, Wilson conducts the symphony. Both arms flutter in exultation as the angelic sound majestically rises, puncturing the heavens deeply until perfect silence lands at his hardened feet. Coltrane and Wilson’s parallels are uncanny. Both reached dizzying heights in their respective…

There are a lot of great shows and concerts top catch in the Bay Area this weekend, from perhaps MTT’s final appearance with S.F. Sympony to AI-inspired works and the world-famous Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Here’s a partial rundown. The classical music scene serves up three can’t-miss events: Michael Tilson Thomas at San Francisco Symphony; a Symphony San Jose concert featuring AI, and new works featuring Gabriel Kahane in SF Performances’ annual Pivot festival. MTT and SFS: Michael Tilson Thomas, music…

We’re not in Kansas anymore, my pretties. If you ease on down the road to the new Broadway-bound revival of “The Wiz,” be forewarned that there are no flying monkeys, no Toto and no ruby slippers. The land of Oz has undergone a glitzy makeover in this bubbly revival of the 1975 R&B trailblazer in a pre-Broadway tryout at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theater. Schele Williams’ glitzy style-over-substance production prefers vocal pyrotechnics over character development which makes the staging flashy but also draggy. To be…

In 2015, I directed the American premiere of an Israeli play that grapples with Gaza — a play I could never direct today.Gilad Evron’s “Ulysses on Bottles” centers on Izakov, a Jewish Israeli lawyer representing two clients: a Palestinian teacher, nicknamed Ulysses, arrested by Israel for trying to reach Gaza on a raft made of plastic bottles in hopes of bringing Russian literature to the strip, and an Israeli defense official, Seinfeld, seeking advice about whether Israel’s blockade of Gaza could implicate the country…

The film-makers Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson know their way around the peaks and valleys of the everyday. Their breakout 2019 feature Saint Frances, written and starring O’Sullivan, sublimated what could be big strokes of drama – abortion, postpartum depression, getting older, lost time – into the unremarkable (on the outside) relationship between an aimless 34-year-old and her six-year-old nannying charge. The daily humors and challenges in one woman’s life were not particularly dramatic or arresting, but rendered…

“The Wiz” changed everything, and it’s ready to do so again. An all-Black update of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” the 1974 “super soul musical” went on to win seven Tony Awards, including for best musical and for Charlie Smalls’ original score. It became a star-studded 1978 movie with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Lena Horne and Richard Pryor. Now a newly revamped and updated version of “The Wiz” is coming to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre as it eases on down the road toward its Broadway revival this spring. The tour…