theater

There are some great shows, exhibits and squawking movies to see this weekend in the Bay Area, from Alex Edelman’s solo show about the nature of compassion to the return to Sheila E. to the lovable “Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.” Here are a partial roundup. Edelman brings ‘Us’ back to Bay Area Comedian Alex Edelman was one of many popular performers in the crowded L.A. stand-up scene when he decided to piece together various bits of his routine into a solo theater show and take it on the road. The result was the touring…

Is this the year we can finally stop talking about the “post-Covid landscape?” Actually, no, but the arts and entertainment world in 2024 nonetheless seems determined to return to something at least approximating normalcy, with full schedules and ambitious programming. Hollywood is releasing a full slate of theatrical films this year, after recording an impressive $9 billion for 2023, even if thousands of theaters around the country have shuttered since Covid. The concert world roared to record attendance/box-office…

LG is one of many companies that usually shows off new soundbars in Las Vegas, and at CES 2024, that trend continues. While the new models are designed to compliment LG TVs, they offer something different in terms of audio, design and features. The most robust option, the S95TR, is a 9.1.5-channel setup that comes bundled with a subwoofer and rear speakers.The flagship S95TR musters an output of 810 watts and is what the company calls the first Atmos-equipped soundbar with triple up-firing channels. Those include what LG…

To go along with its new TVs and soundbars in Las Vegas, Samsung also announced new projectors to fill out its home theater lineup. At CES 2024, the company has four new Premiere models to choose from, and while the Premiere 8K and Premiere 5 are the two most interesting, the entire lineup for this year is getting a feature called Lightwarp that turns any object or surface into an interactive display.Samsung says this is the first time that projection mapping has been available outside of a professional environment and in…

By Mark Kennedy | Associated Press NEW YORK — Glynis Johns, a Tony Award-winning stage and screen star who played the mother opposite Julie Andrews in the classic movie “Mary Poppins” and introduced the world to the bittersweet standard-to-be “Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim, has died. She was 100. Mitch Clem, her manager, said she died Thursday at an assisted living home in Los Angeles of natural causes. “Today’s a sad day for Hollywood,” Clem said. “She is the last of the last of old Hollywood.” Johns was known…

Whatever else you can say about X, previously known as Twitter, it’s never really boring. The 17-year-old social media site that we’ve stuck around with always has something going on; in the best cases, it can be either funny or so odd that you can’t help but laugh.Even Twitter Can’t Kill Twitter | Letter From the EditorCase in point: throughout 2023, Twitter users decided to post entire movies on the site. Sometimes they were split into multiple parts, other times it was an entire movie in a single post. This all started…

By Sophia Tareen | Associated Press CHICAGO — Mike Nussbaum, reputed as the oldest professional actor in America with a prolific stage career and roles in films including “Field of Dreams” and “Men in Black,” has died. He was 99. He died of old age at his Chicago home on Saturday, just days before his 100th birthday, his daughter, Karen Nussbaum, told The Associated Press. “He was a good father and a good man who raised us to care about other people and respect other people and care about justice,” she said. Mike Nussbaum…

“You know what you’re getting into when you come to one of our shows,” offers Joseph Martin, one half of queer British theater duo Awkward Productions. “But you’re still going to leave thinking: ‘I’ve never seen anything like that. What the hell was that?!’” We’re talking about Gwyneth Goes Skiing, the new musical play about one of the bizarre moments of 2023: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski Trial. In March, Paltrow found herself facing off with retired optometrist Terry Sanderson in a Utah courtroom. Sanderson initially…

It’s hard to believe that there’s anyone in a large portion of the world — let alone in the Bay Area — entirely unaware of Harry Potter. Even those who haven’t read the children’s novels by J.K. Rowling or seen the movie versions have probably heard of the wizard school Hogwarts, the broomstick sport Quidditch, and quite possibly the four “houses” into which the students are sorted. For any as yet uninitiated and for diehard Potter fans alike, there’s a madcap summary coming to town. A West End hit created and originally…

The state of the film industry has been in a unique place since the pandemic, where it was unclear if the business would even be able to survive. It did just that, although even MCU movies like The Marvels struggled at the box office. Most recently a number of exciting events have hit theaters, such as Taylor Swift’s Eras film and Beyonce’s Renaissance. And after seeing Renaissance as well as Broadway’s Waitress thanks to Fathom, I think special events are my new favorite movie theater outing.There’s something special…