Stacy Levin | A Good Reed Review

By Ande Jacobson

Sunnyvale Community Players opens their production of Next to Normal on Saturday, 22 April 2023. Performances run Fridays – Sundays through 14 May 2023. This rock musical with book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010. The show is notable for being one of the first to deal with the serious issues surrounding mental health in American society and in particular in suburbia. Awareness through art can be powerful, enlightening, and healing, and this show makes a strong statement. The plot surrounds a family dealing with mental illness and the effects that it has on all of them through looks inside their hearts and minds. Despite outward appearances, they are all deeply affected in some unexpected ways. The characters are genuine and sympathetic, and the challenges they face from society at large and the medical community come vividly to life on stage through the music and stories told through song. Continue reading →

By Ande Jacobson

Sunnyvale Community Players (SCP) is bringing a diverse and timely show to their stage on 10 September 2022 with its production of Working a Musical. The show runs for four weeks through 2 October 2022. Working has been rejiggered for our current times. It celebrates the lives of the essential workers we all rely on every day and has added some new songs mixed in with the old in this broad collaboration. The show was adapted from Studs Terkel’s book by Nina Faso, Stephen Schwartz, and Gordon Greenberg with songs by Craig Carnelia, James Taylor, Mary Rodgers, Micki Grant, Stephen Schwartz, Susan Birkenhead, and Lin-Manual Miranda expanding it from the original show. Terkel’s book grew out of interviews of real people talking about their jobs and the struggles they faced while so often being forgotten by the world around them. Continue reading →