Cathleen Riddley, Gendell Hernández, Giulio Cesare Perrone, Joan McMillen, Lawrence Radecker, local theater, Lynne Soffer, Michael Torres, plays, San Francisco Chronicle, Sharmon J- Hilfinger, theater review, Tracy Ward, World premiere, Z Space Cathleen Riddley, Gendell Hernández, Giulio Cesare Perrone, Joan McMillen, Lawrence Radecker, local theater, Lynne Soffer, Michael Torres, plays, San Francisco Chronicle, Sharmon J- Hilfinger, theater review, Tracy Ward, World premiere, Z Space

Arctic Requiem celebrates work, spirit of local hero

A very personal play, BootStrap Theater Foundation's Arctic Requiem: The Story of Luke Cole and Kivalina is both educational and emotional. You'll learn more about Native Alaskan Inupiat people than you ever knew, and you'll come to care about and feel the tragic loss of Luke Cole the San Francisco environmental lawyer whose good work in the world was ended by a tragic auto accident in Uganda in 2009.

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Impact Theatre, local theater, plays, theater review, Tracy Ward Impact Theatre, local theater, plays, theater review, Tracy Ward

Here be dragons: Impact fires up fantastical drama

Impact Theatre's The Dragon Play breathes fire into what, at first glance, appears to be a fairly standard issue drama. Playwright Jenny Connell Davis blends the worlds of sci-fi/fantasy with Sam Shepard with surprising and wonderful results.

In only 80 minutes, director Tracy Ward creates two powerful worlds in which stories begin to bleed into one another. That's no mean feat in the cramped quarters of La Val's Subterranean, which offers set and lighting designers the ultimate challenge to turn a basement into a compelling performance space. Catalina Niño (sets) and Jax Steager rise to that challenge, even when the action spills off the stage and into the nether parts of the theater.

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Erica Chong Shuch, Impact Theatre, local theater, Monica Byrne, plays, theater review, Tracy Ward Erica Chong Shuch, Impact Theatre, local theater, Monica Byrne, plays, theater review, Tracy Ward

What you should know about Impact’s What Every Girl Should Know

The first thing to know about Impact Theatre's What Every Girl Should Know, a one-act play by Monica Byrne, is that it's a gripping play about matters physical and spiritual. It's also very well produced by director Tracy Ward and an excellent cast of four. This is a play set in 1914 but feels, rather sadly, of the moment because, it seems, there will always be people (old, white men mostly) who want to keep other people (women, mostly) as ignorant as possible, especially when it comes to their own bodies and – heavens forfend – sex.

Byrne's drama is set in the tight confines of Room 14, a four-bed dorm room at St. Mary's, a Catholic girl's reformatory on New York's Lower East Side. The year is 1914, and the church is the ultimate power for the occupants of Room 14.

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