The Devil is in the details

July 28, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review Catherine Snider, Damn Yankees review, Daniel Mitchell, FMT, Foothill Music Theatre, Jeff Clarke, Jen Wheatonfox, Katie O'Bryon, Mary Melnick, Matt Tipton, reader, Tom Gough, WPLongform

By Ande Jacobson

The boys of summer keep the balls flying and the bats swinging, and Foothill Music Theatre combines with Foothill College Theatre Arts to capture the spirit of baseball in their energetic production of a longtime Broadway favorite, Damn Yankees. Director Tom Gough has large shoes to fill as he grabs the reins after Foothill Music Theatre thrived under its originator, Jay Manley, for over 30 years. This year for the first summer production under his guidance, Gough states in his program notes that he gravitated toward a show that combined three of his favorite things: baseball, live theatre, and the Faust legend. Gough’s drive and love of the theatre program have kept the FMT summer tradition alive for audiences to enjoy. Continue reading →

Dragon finds the right car

July 15, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review Becky's New Car review, Ben Ortega, Dragon Productions Theatre Company, Helena G. Clarkson, James Nelson, Jim Johnson, Julia Sussner, Kevin Copps, Lance Huntley, Mary Lou Torre, reader, Roneet Aliza Rahamim, Sam Bertken, Steven Dietz, Will Poulin

By Ande Jacobson

Life can be a very windy road, and in Dragon’s current production of Steven Dietz’s play, Becky’s New Car, we travel some of that road with our protagonist Becky Foster (Mary Lou Torre). In her opening monologue Becky tells us that when a woman “says she wants a new car, she wants a new life,” and she takes some very interesting turns. Continue reading →

“Superior Donuts” serves up more than “dessert cakes”

June 30, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review Alonzo Cook, Ann Kuchins, Brandon Jackson, Chase Kinsey, Christopher Carter, Doug Brook, Durand Garcia, Gordon and Jeanie Smith, Patricia Tyler, Ray Renati, reader, Richard Branden, Ron Gasparinetti, Stephanie Crowley, Superior Donuts review, The Pear review, Tracy Letts, Valerie Clear, WPLongform

By Ande Jacobson

Playwright and actor Tracy Letts describes Superior Donuts as involving a “clash of cultures”. Letts intersperses some light moments and witty exchanges between several colorful and diverse characters with some darker, more serious situations. Much of the story provides background on unseen family members and circumstances that encumber, or scar the visible characters. The play is well written, and right from the start, the action turns the quaint little donut shop on its head. In the first blackout at the top of the show, the shop is transformed from a neatly kept eatery into a disheveled establishment with chairs overturned, rubbish strewn everywhere, and graffiti on the wall. Continue reading →

Flights of fancy land on the Lucie Stern Stage

June 17, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review Boeing Boeing, Damiaris Divito, Evan Michael Schumacher, Jeanie K. Smith director, Mary Moore, Michael Rhone, Nicole Martin, Palo Alto Players review, Pat Tyler, Patrick Klein, reader, Robyn Winslow, Shannon Maxham

By Ande Jacobson

It can be hard to keep up with the hubbub of juggling work and one’s personal life, though keeping to a predictable schedule can help. Now imagine how one might use airline timetables to arrange liaisons with multiple fiancées, carefully ensuring their visits don’t overlap. Imagine further how such a plan might go awry, and you have the foundation for Palo Alto Players’ current show, Boeing Boeing, written by Marc Camoletti (originally in French), and translated by Beverley Cross and Francis Evans. Continue reading →

Happiness is remembering a mother’s love

June 10, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review Colman Domingo, Danny Scheie, Duane Boutte, reader, Richard Prioleau, Sharon Washington, TheatreWorks, West Coast Premiere, Wild With Happy review, WPLongform

By Ande Jacobson

Losing your mother is tough. Things can sometimes be a bit surreal as you try to deal with that loss while fanciful memories flood your mind at the most inopportune times – like when you’re at the funeral home trying to make final arrangements. Mix all that with a sideways Cinderella story, and you have actor and playwright Colman Domingo’s Wild With Happy which just opened at TheatreWorks in its West Coast Premiere. Continue reading →

“Dear Broadway…my play is named Spacebar”

June 3, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review Adrienne Walters, City Lights Theater Company, CLTC, George Psarras, Jeff Kramer, Jeremy Helgeson, Keith C. Marshall, Lisa Mallette, Michael Mitnick, Morgan Voelleger, reader, Ron Gasparinetti, Spacebar

By Ande Jacobson

Motivated by myriad reasons, many a playwright dreams of having his magnum opus performed on a Broadway stage, but how does he achieve that goal? Enter Kyle Sugarman, a 16-year-old high school sophomore from Fort Collins, Colorado. His manuscript looks more like a telephone book than a script for a play, but he writes letters to “Broadway” (as though it were a person) asking him to please produce his play entitled, Spacebar. We soon find out that his title refers to a bar in outer space in the distant future, not part of a computer’s keyboard. Such is the premise of Spacebar: A Broadway Play by Kyle Sugarman by Michael Mitnick. Continue reading →

The night smiles three times

May 12, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review A Little Night Music review, Alicia Teeter, Cameron Weston, Christine Macomber, Dennis Lickteig, Gregory Van Sudmeier, Hillbarn Theatre review, Jack Mosbacher, Leah Kalish, Lee Ann Payne, Nicolette Norgaard, reader, Sarah Griner, Sondheim review, William Gianmmona, WPLongform

By Ande Jacobson

Hillbarn Theatre Company’s latest offering is A Little Night Music which opened on Friday, 10 May. This highly acclaimed Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler musical, suggested by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, follows the lives and loves of several mismatched couples in early 20th Century Sweden. As Sondheim recalls in his memoir Finishing the Hat, director Harold Prince once described A Little Night Music as “whipped cream with knives.” An apt description as the plotline is both sweet and sharp. Sondheim claims he focused on the knives and spent his energy pursuing his dream of writing a “Theme and Variations,” in this case, using a metric theme, or more specifically a triple-meter theme exploring the myriad options available to him beyond the waltz. Continue reading →

East meets west in “Miss Saigon”

April 29, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review Adrien Gleason, Brian Palac, Broadway version of Madame Butterfly, Jennifer Gorgulho, Katherine Dela Cruz, Lindsay Stark, Matthew Mattei, Miss Saigon review, Palo Alto Players, Patrick Klein, WPLongform

By Ande Jacobson

Palo Alto Players (PAP) tackles a classic story with their production of Miss Saigon, by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Richard Maltby, Jr., which is based on Giacomo Puccini’s tragedy, Madama Butterfly, about a doomed romance between an Asian woman and her American GI lover. The modern version keeps the drama and concept on which Puccini’s opera was based but modernizes the story and brings it to Vietnam, and PAP makes a valiant effort to stay faithful to the script. Overall, it’s a production worth seeing in spite of a few shortcomings. Continue reading →

The Pear presents nine more “Slices”

April 7, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review

By Ande Jacobson

Spring is here, and that means it’s once again time for The Pear Avenue Theatre’s annual installment of slices in Pear Slices 2013. For the tenth time in its eleven year history The Pear welcomes audiences to enjoy a varied evening’s entertainment, this year with nine plays by nine different playwrights from the Pear Playwrights Guild spanning multiple generations and four dimensions. Continue reading →

Sister and brother, mother and son, and a journey through time

March 17, 2013September 11, 2015 A Good Reed Review Review Alicia Teeter, Andrew Lippa, Hillbarn Theatre review, Jay Manley, John & Jen review, theatre about siblings, Tom Greenwald, William Giammona, WPLongform

By Ande Jacobson

Hillbarn Theatre’s latest offering, John & Jen, is best described as a chamber musical. Written by Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald, the show calls for two actors and three musicians to bring the audience the winding story of Jen Tracy and the two Johns in her life. Alicia Teeter plays Jen, and William Giammona plays her baby brother and her son, both named John. The story covers almost 40 years from 1952 to 1990, and as the plot unfolds, we see humor, pathos, and drama, all in slightly less than 2 hours. In the beginning, Jen is 6 and her baby brother is a newborn. At the end, she’s 44 and her son is 18 and just getting ready to start college. Continue reading →

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