Cartoons make good fodder for the Broadway musical mill; there have been lots of them. Li’l Abner springs immediately to mind along with Annie and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, all based on comic strips. But I know of no shows derived from a single panel cartoon other than “The Addams Family,” which was … Continue reading “The Addams Family” at San Jose Stage Company
Disneyland is a magnet. I went there for the first time when the park was new and I was nine. I remember thinking that working at Disneyland must be the greatest thing a person could do. Playwright Trevor Allen (Lolita Roadtrip, The Creature, Tenders in the Fog) was also enchanted by the lure of Disneyland, … Continue reading Trevor Allen’s “Working for the Mouse” at City Lights Theatre Company
The title of City Lights’ latest production is certainly evocative and provocative, a challenge and a lure to theatregoers to come on down and see what it’s about. This most famous of all stage directions, at least famous to those who read, see or participate in the plays of Shakespeare, can be found in the … Continue reading “Exit, Pursued by a Bear” at City Lights Theatre Company
When art imitates life imitating art, the results can be hilarious, moving and, in the case with PacRep’s production of the Christopher Durang’s award-winning Broadway hit Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, brilliantly, exuberantly theatrical. Named after characters from the plays of Anton Chekhov by academic, theatre-loving parents, Vanya (Michael D. Jacobs) and Sonia … Continue reading “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” at Pacific Repertory Theatre
A 1930s Alfred Hitchcock thriller is turned into comic, madcap mayhem in Limelight’s production of The 39 Steps. It’s a spoof, a sendup that uses four actors to play dozens of roles and even inanimate objects, sometimes for the blink of an eye. It is a concept that requires split second timing, quick changes and … Continue reading “The 39 Steps” at Limelight Actors Theater
In Opera San José’s splendid new production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” the lengthy overture is enlivened with a delightful kind of pre-show with children playing, dancing and acting out on a small raked stage in a theatre-within-a-theatre complete with a false proscenium, perhaps the private theatre of a high-ranking nobleman, much like the Royal … Continue reading “The Magic Flute” at Opera San José
Paul Myrvold's Theatre Notes 