In “Somewhere,” making its regional premiere at TheatreWorks, some talented Puerto Rican children want to try out for “West Side Story,” but they’re hampered, because they are losing their family’s home.
In 1959 — when ground broke to begin building New York’s Lincoln Center — 7,000 families, many Puerto Rican, were displaced. The little-known issue provides the crux of the plot of the dance-filled play by Matthew Lopez, which begins previews Wednesday in Mountain View.
Read More
Anything Goes" has everything going for it: fabulous music, boffo production numbers, clever lyrics and nonstop charm.
Roundabout Theatre Company’s Tony Award-winning, snazzy revival of Cole Porter’s evergreen 1934 musical, which opened Wednesday at the Golden Gate Theatre, serves up nearly three hours of toe-tapping fun.
Read More
Food gets a savage yet playful skewering in writer-director Morris Bobrow’s revue “Foodies! The Musical,” now playing at the Shelton Theater.
Yet locals expect nothing less from Bobrow. The longtime playwright is the genius behind simliarly formatted hit shows in The City: “Shopping: The Musical” and “Party of 1” (and “2”) among them.
Read More
Of course, Alex Finke is thrilled to be in the touring company of a big Broadway revival in her first big role out of college.
But the 22-year-old Dayton, Ohio, native, who plays Hope Harcourt in Roundabout Theatre Company’s Tony Award-winning “Anything Goes,” is equally excited to be out on the road.
Read More
San Francisco Ballet music director and principal conductor Martin West is pleased to be preparing a “huge range of music” for the troupe’s upcoming 80th season, opening Jan. 29.
"From the Baroque music of Scarlatti to contemporary, such as John Adam’s ‘Guide to Strange Places,’ it’s never a dull day,” says West, who presides over the company’s integral, expansive and expensive orchestral program — a rare thing in today’s climate of tight budgets for the arts.
Read More
It may be an old chestnut, but playwright John Van Druten’s romantic comedy “Bell, Book and Candle,” adapted for a 1958 film starring Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart, comes to surprisingly luminous life in San Francisco Playhouse’s current staging.
Bored and restless witch Gillian is attracted to a neighbor, Shep, in her Manhattan, N.Y., high-rise. When she discovers he’s engaged to her college nemesis, she can’t resist using her magical powers to seduce him.
Read More
At its core, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” is really a love story — several love stories, in fact — and the muscular, vibrant revival now at Boxcar Theatre wears its rock ’n’ roll heart on its sleeve.
Director Nick Olivero has restaged his sold-out summer production with a 33 percent reduction in the number of Hedwigs, but almost no loss of high-spirited, ass-kicking, octave-twisting energy.
Read More
San Francisco Ballet’s current "Nutcracker" uses 173 costumes, 42 pairs of pointe shoes, more than 59 pairs of tights and 18 wigs per show. It’s a contrast to 1944, when it made do with rhinestones from Goodwill and rationed fabric in what was the first production of the ballet in America.
Today, the show garners about 40 percent of the company’s ticket revenue each year, for good reason: "Nutcracker" is a crowd-pleasing romp, albeit with some room for improvement.
Read More
The rousing new production of “Big River” at TheatreWorks is a smooth-sailing evening of musical theater and classic American storytelling. The 1985 Tony winner for best musical, adapted from Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” serves up a toe-tapping score and engaging book by the lauded singer-songwriter Roger Miller and librettist William Hauptman.The highlight and the heart of the show is the relationship between Huck and Jim.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/archive/17546/17546?page=8&type[story]=story&quicktabs_6=0
