Andrew Hurteau, Andy Murray, California Shakespeare..., Dan Hiatt, Daniel Ostling, Danny Scheie, Domenique Lozano, Jonathan Moscone, local theater, Nicholas Pelczar, plays, Shakespeare Andrew Hurteau, Andy Murray, California Shakespeare..., Dan Hiatt, Daniel Ostling, Danny Scheie, Domenique Lozano, Jonathan Moscone, local theater, Nicholas Pelczar, plays, Shakespeare

Marvelous Much Ado closes Cal Shakes season

Much Ado About Nothing can be one of Shakespeare’s trickier romantic comedies. It’s full of sparring lovers, great lines and thoroughly entertaining comic bits. But it also contains some harsh drama, faked death and edgy mischief making. Capturing just the right tone can help ease the audience through all those shifts, and that’s what eludes so many directors of the play.

Thankfully, California Shakespeare Theater Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone finds fresh ways to meld all of Shakespeare’s fragments into a seamless and captivating whole.

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Andy Murray, California Shakespeare..., Catherine Castellanos, Charles Shaw Robinson, Dan Hiatt, John Steinbeck, Jonathan Moscone, Julie Eccles, local theater, Octavio Solis, plays, Rod Gnapp, Word for Word Andy Murray, California Shakespeare..., Catherine Castellanos, Charles Shaw Robinson, Dan Hiatt, John Steinbeck, Jonathan Moscone, Julie Eccles, local theater, Octavio Solis, plays, Rod Gnapp, Word for Word

Entering heavenly Pastures

Spectacular things are happening at the Bruns Amphitheater – on stage and off.

At long last, California Shakespeare Theater is getting a performance venue worthy of its status as one of the Bay Area's foremost theater companies. Improvements to the Bruns include a new box office, new landscaping and, most importantly, a beautiful new 7,850-square-foot building to house its food operations and some spectacular bathrooms (if you ever used the bathrooms in the old endlessly "temporary" facility, you'll appreciate just how spectacular these new facilities really are).

The improvements aren't quite done yet, but they're already upping the ante on the Cal Shakes experience – and just in time for Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone's 10-year anniversary with the company.

So many things to celebrate ̶ not the least of which is the world-premiere production on the Bruns stage.

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Andrew Hurteau, Andy Murray, Charles Shaw Robinson, Craig Marker, Jasson Minadakis, local theater, Marin Theatre Company, plays Andrew Hurteau, Andy Murray, Charles Shaw Robinson, Craig Marker, Jasson Minadakis, local theater, Marin Theatre Company, plays

No equivocating: this is good theater

Marin Theatre Company's Equivocation is enormously enjoyable theater.

I liked Bill Cain's play last summer when I saw it at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, and I still like its muscular, hugely entertaining theatricality. The Marin production, directed by Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis, is more intimate but just as rewarding.

The cast boasts some of the Bay Area's finest – Anna Bullard (the lone woman in the cast), Lance Gardner, Andrew Hurteau, Craig Marker, Andy Murray, and Charles Shaw Robinson – as they crawl around J.B. Wilson's scaffolding set that reminds of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Where else would you want to set a story of William Shakespeare, or Shagspeare as he's called in the play?

As Cain's play imagines Will attempting to write a piece of propaganda theater for bonny King James (and his henchman, Sir Robert Cecil) and discovering that what he writes has to be the truth or nothing, something very interesting happens. Cain's immense knowledge of Shakespeare's plays and British history coalesce into a drama that feels recognizably human yet epic in its scope and more than just a little bit contemporary.

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