While the horror spoof has become its own successful movie genre, it’s really a treat to see similar antics onstage at the theater. There’s nothing like live actors, gushing, gloriously red fake blood and real laughs to make for an evening of exhilarating entertainment.Such is the case with "Chemical Imbalance," an inventive, original comedy of horrors by Lauren Wilson presented by Precarious Theatre. Directed with panache by Matthew Graham Smith, the show is at the cozy Exit Theatre on Eddy Street through April 7.
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There’s nothing not to like about "Altar Boyz." They have a much better sense of humor than their real-life counterparts (’NSync or the Backstreet Boys) and sing just as harmoniously. They’re just as cute, too.
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Stage producer Ken Davenport has come up with a winning formula: cute guys in tight clothes singing tight harmonies.He admits it’s not really his idea. His hit off-Broadway show, "Altar Boyz," which opens at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre this week, is just a new variation on an old theme."The boy band craze started with the Beatles," he said in a recent phone interview from his New York office. "The ‘Altar Boyz’ story is similar to ‘Jersey Boys.’"
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The revue "Shopping! The Musical" is about to celebrate a year running in the cozy Shelton Theater off Union Square, and it’s not a surprise. Billed as the "the show for everyone who has ever shopped," the fun, minimalist production is the perfect salve for a tourist tired after a busy day on his or her feet, or even for an office worker easing into the weekend.
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Petula Clark is coming to San Francisco this weekend to sing her big hit songs, and it’s a pretty big deal."This will be the first time, as far as I can remember," she said in a recent phone interview from Wales, a stop on her current concert tour.Although she clearly remembers being in the Bay Area, appearing in productions of the musicals "Blood Brothers" and "Sunset Boulevard," she admits she doesn’t always recall where she has performed.
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Who is Paula West going to cover next — Kurt Cobain? George Clinton? Prince? Enya?She could, and she’d be good. And it wouldn’t come as a total surprise from the sultry, inimitable San Francisco jazz-cabaret singer known for her eclectic taste in song selection.In concert Wednesday on the second night of her annual residency at the Plush Room, West was only half-joking when she admitted she had attention deficit disorder when it comes to music.
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"Legally Blonde," the new musical, begins with a song called "Omigod You Guys" — and it’s one of the two best tunes in the show. Rodgers and Hammerstein (or their estates) don’t have much to worry about. Still, the joie de vivre spirit of that tune remains throughout the show’s two and a half hours, and it’s that tone that makes this lightweight story of a not-so-dumb sorority girl who "finds herself," by way of Harvard Law School, so appealing.
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About midway through her performance Friday night at San Francisco’s Plush Room, singer Wesla Whitfield jauntily pulled out a bottle of Robitussin and set it on the piano.Not too long afterward, between tunes, she took a swig, and later, another, remarking that it was the kind without alcohol, which "makes you feel even weirder" than the kind with alcohol.But what’s weird for Whitfield wasn’t for the audience.
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Dionne Warwick is celebrating her 46th year in show business in fine manner.Looking radiant Saturday night at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, the singer at the top of the show warmly told the audience "welcome to your concert." Sounding more mature, but every bit as smooth and sultry as in her chart-hitting days of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, the vocalist indeed took her fans on trip down memory lane in a succinct 85-minute show.
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Singer Wesla Whitfield always likes returning to San Francisco’s Plush Room.This year’s engagement, which began Tuesday and runs through Feb. 4, marks the 26th year she’s appeared in the cozy cabaret in the York Hotel. "It’s still the most wonderful room to work in," says Whitfield, who has noticed many changes over time, including the audiences."They’ve gotten younger," she said during a recent phone interview from the hotel. They’re also no longer filled mostly with gay men interested in hearing show tunes.
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Comic cowgirl Karen Quest wisecracked — and cracked her whip — to highlight the opening of the Women on the Way Festival, a three-week Mission district event putting the spotlight on a wide of variety female performers. The seventh annual event began over the weekend with circus arts as the theme for the first four shows; this week’s upcoming performances are dedicated to dance, theater and music, while the closing weekend, from Jan. 25 to Jan. 28, focuses on "guided" installations.
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Dan Hoyle’s work as a Fulbright scholar took him to Nigeria, and he came back to his home in San Francisco to put on a show about his wild experiences there."Tings Dey Happen," Hoyle’s dynamic one-man show, is continuing an extended run at The Marsh in San Francisco, the site of two of his previous pieces, "Circumnavigator," about his trip around the world, and "Florida 2004: The Big Bummer," about campaigning for John Kerry.
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Sculpturesite Gallery presents "Markings," a solo exhibition by Mary Shaffer, who is recognized internationally for her work in the American studio glass movement.Shaffer uses a process she calls "mid-air slumping," in which glass forms itself as it becomes malleable, and gravity pulls it through a structural form she has placed in a kiln. "It’s like playing with the wind," she says. The show runs through Feb. 27; Sculpturesite Gallery is at the Convention Center Plaza, 201 Third St., Suite 102, San Francisco.
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Photographs on display at the Contemporary Jewish Museum ask the question, "What is Jewish?"The answer is wider and more varied than one might expect in "The Jewish Identity Project: New American Photography," extended through April 29 at the San Francisco museum.New York photographer Nikki S. Lee, who is of South Korean descent, dresses herself as a bride at what appears to be a Jewish wedding in a series of provocative images called "The Wedding" at the front of the exhibit. (The image of Lee is also around town on billboards advertising the show.)
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Bay Area harmonica/bluesman Phil Berkowitz has got a jumpin’ project going: the music of Louis Jordan. He spent about three years working on a tribute album to the great sax man and bandleader, a real pioneer in the world of swinging rhythm and blues. Among the personnel on the album are guitarist Danny Caron, former bandleader for the late Charles Brown, along with local musicians from the swing sextet Stompy Jones. Including Jordan staples such as "Caledonia," "Saturday Night Fish Fry" and "Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie" as well as some lesser-known songs, the album has been a hit.
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