Slice of life served up sweet and tuneful in Waitress
Waitress is very much like one of the wacky pies its title character concocts – an odd combination of ingredients that come together in a surprisingly delightful way. As a musical, it's about ordinary life – low-paying jobs, abusive relationships, childhood trauma, the families we make as opposed to the ones we're born into – but it sings, often beautifully, about the deep pain and the little joys of everyday living, and it finds ways to make the ordinary soar with lyricism and expressive movement.
Rhythm almost gets you in On Your Feet
On Your Feet! The Emilio & Gloria Estefan Broadway Musical is exactly what you think it's going to be, and that's not a bad thing. Nor is it a great thing, but this amiable show lands squarely in the middle lane of enjoyable live musical entertainment. Is it a musical? Well, it's a jukebox musical, meaning it mixes pop songs into a narrative, and some of it lands very well and some of it not so much.
Kids rock in Lloyd Webber's middling School
p>What's the primary reason to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's School of Rock? It's elementary: the kids.
This grand-scale musical adaptation of the 2003 movie hit (screenplay by Mike White, direction by Richard Linklater) makes a lot of sense as far as movie-to-musical projects go because music – and a lot of it – is built right into the story of a baby-man who fakes being a substitute teacher at a private school and turns around the lives of his students by helping them form a rock band.
Soft Power electrifies at the Curran
Remarkable. Inspiring. Hilarious. Moving. There aren't enough descriptive words to fully express just how wonderful and fascinating and exhilarating it is to experience Soft Power the new musical by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori now at the Curran Theatre.
ACT's musical Moon never quite achieves lift off
There's a better musical struggling to emerge from the overgrown but amiable mess that is A Walk on the Moon, the world premiere that American Conservatory Theater is launching on the Geary Theater stage.
Based on the 1999 movie of the same name and featuring a book by Pamela Gray, who also wrote the screenplay, the musical is...
Purple reigns at SHN's Orpheum
When I originally reviewed the musical version of The Color Purple based on Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and the Steven Spielberg's 1985 movie version, I felt the production was too Broadway slick and the score was too bland. The only thing that worked – and indeed the thing that saved that October 2007 touring production – was Walker's story and her powerful characters. (Read the review here.)
That was only 11 years ago, but The Color Purple is back.
Ga-ga for Go-Go's in giddy Head Over Heels
How thrilling to find the songs of the Go-Go's fashioned into a fizzy new jukebox musical, Head Over Heels with the inventive concept of folding the punky-poppy '80s tunes folded into a (greatly) adapted version of Sir Philip Sidney's late 16th-century Arcadia. You've got song and text separated by more than four centuries, so it's a mash-up of sensibilities with lots of room for cheeky humor and the exploding of gender norms.
Floating on air in rock musical Weightless
In this version of the story, adapted by Dan Moses and Kate Kilbane, the horrible things aren't quite as godawful as they are in Ovid (the cannibalism, for instance, is absent), but they're still pretty bad, and they (surprise surprise) fit right into our collective #MeToo moment.
Galaxy of emotions surround Bright Star at the Curran
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's Bright Star is a beautiful musical, especially if you have a penchant for bluegrass music and florid stories with twists, turns and not-so-surprising surprises.
It feels like a quintessentially American musical in several ways, the first being that glorious, banjo-heavy bluegrass, which brings to life a story that stretches from the 1920s to the 1940s in North Carolina.
Shotgun's Black Rider dances with the devil
Thirteen years ago – such an appropriate number of years – American Conservatory Theater made some sort of deal with the devil to get The Black Rider onto the stage of the Geary Theater. Now Berkeley's Shotgun Players revive this decidedly adult fairy tale under the guidance of director Mark Jackson, and the results are heartily satisfying.
Disney's Aladdin flies high at the Orpheum
There is no question in my mind, that of all Disney's animated film to Broadway adaptations, Aladdin is the most thoroughly successful. For The Lion King stage adaptation, Julie Taymor offered eye-popping spectacle and stagecraft in service to a flimsy story and even flimsier characters. Beauty and the Beast, Disney’s first Broadway venture, was fun and dazzling but only a ride vehicle away from being a theme park attraction. The less said about the misguided Tarzan and missed opportunities of The Little Mermaid the better.
Succumb to temptation and see Ain't Too Proud at Berkeley Rep
When Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations is in its groove, this world-premiere musical at Berkeley Repertory Theatre is absolutely electrifying. Featuring all or part of 30 songs from the '60s and '70s Motown era, the music alone is alone is enough to make this a must-see theatrical event, but it's clear that this musical biography is going places (namely Broadway).
S'Just All Right: Gershwin score saves American in Paris
An American in Paris, adapted by writer Craig Lucas and directed and choreographed by a member of ballet world royalty, Christopher Wheeldon, is a decidedly uneven affair. It wants to be part serious musical (the darkness of Paris after World War II and the Nazi occupation), part musical comedy (three guys in love with one girl!) and part contemporary and ballet dance show. Call it a ballet-sical (mullet doesn't quite work). Whatever it is, it doesn't quite work.
Something wickedly delightful in Something Rotten
Thank you, Something Rotten!. I need that.
Sometimes you ned light and froth and delectable show tunes to lift you out of the quagmire of our something-more-than-rotten times, and this musical, now at the Orpheum Theatre as part of the SHN season, is just the ticket.
SF Playhouse La Cage celebrates Herman show tunes
Let us all take a moment to praise the national treasure that is Jerry Herman, the musical theater maestro behind three massive hits: Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles. It's an opportune time to toast Mr. Herman: his Dolly is back on Broadway in a ravishing production starring the divine (and Tony-winning) Bette Midler, and closer to home, San Francisco Playhouse just opened a sweet and funny production of La Cage.
Grit, exuberance mark TheatreWorks' Immigrants
Think about how often you've seen the Asian-American experience represented in a piece of musical theater. Perhaps Flower Drum Song comes to mind or a sliver of Miss Saigon. A more serious recent work is Allegiance about the World War II Japanese internment camps. And now we have TheatreWorks of Silicon Valley's world premiere, The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga with book, music and lyrics by the enormously talented Bay Area writer Min Kahng.
Show tune nirvana: Transcendence under the stars
Transcendence Theatre Company has a lock on the show tune market. Sure, other companies might be doing musicals, but only Transcendence offers multiple musical revues each summer performed in a spectacular outdoor setting amid a festival-like setting of food, wine and abundant merriment. Now in its sixth season at Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen (Sonoma County), Transcendence more often than not lives up to its name with expertly assembled revues performed under the stars (at least by Act 2 when the sun has set and the first stars begin to appear) in the ruins of an old winery, with vines creeping up the hills in the background.
Musical Monsoon Wedding debuts at Berkeley Rep
Beauty, heart and fun flood the stage of Berkeley Repertory Theatre's world premiere of Monsoon Wedding, the musical adaptation of the 2001 film of the same name. There's clearly a lot of love invested in the making of this show, from the original film's director, Mira Nair, who returns to helm this ambitious stage version, to the ebullient cast.
But is it a good musical? Well, it's a new musical, and it still needs a lot of work.
Hamilton in SF: Re-creating America
If you love Hamilton, and let me say for the record that I love Hamilton, there's a whole lot to love, including, now, a new company in my hometown. After the Chicago company, which began performances last fall, this new one is what would be considered the national touring company. It's here until August as part of the SHN season before heading to Los Angeles. The full Broadway creative team is represented here, and at Thursday's opening-night production, the show shone through the hype with clarity, excitement and emotional heft.
Fractured fairy tales shine in stripped-down Woods
You've journeyed Into the Woods, but you haven't ever been into these woods.
When great musicals are revived, the first question has to be: why? Is it going to be another retread of a successful prior production? Or will it be a reinvention, a new take for a new time? Happily the latter is the case with the glorious Fiasco Theater re-imagining of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods.