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Eric Ting, director of “Gloria” a play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, which runs at ACT’s Strand Theatre through April 12, 2020, is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. The play takes place in an office of cubicles at one of America’s leading magazines. Three editors and an intern talk about their life in the office. They are joined by a member of the fact-checking team, and at times, by Gloria, who also works for the magazine. The rest of the play is a surprise. ACT website.   Eric Ting discusses spoilers for the play “Gloria” https://kpfa.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Eric-Ting-Spoilers.mp3     The post Interview: Eric Ting, director, “Gloria” at ACT Strand appeared first on KPFA.

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Gloria” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at ACT’s Strand theatre through April 12, 2020. ACT website Text of review (minus actuality) Sitting in a cubicle in an office, no matter how great the job or its prospects, can be a debilitating experience. At last that’s the way playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins saw his brief time working at the fabled New Yorker magazine several years ago.   It’s also true that TV shows like The Office, in particular, or, of course, several dozen other sitcoms over the years, have covered cubicle life more fully than any two hour play ever could, which is why Jacobs-Jenkins goes so much deeper in the funny and shocking “Gloria,” a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2014, now a production at ACT’s Strand Theatre through April 12th.   Eric Ting, director of the production   Gloria is one of those plays takes a sudden turn at the end of Act One, an event for which there seems to be no foreshadowing, so it’s a little hard to talk about themes except in the

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Culture Clash (Still) in America” at Berkeley Rep through April 5, 2020.   Text of review: No words quite exist that define the performance troupe Culture Clash. On one hand, the trio are masters of sketch comedy; they’re also masters of political satire; and of cultural commentary; and of improve stand-up. All three members, Herbert Siguenza, Richard Montoya and Ric Salinas, also have worked over the past three decades as actors, and as writers.   From their origins in the Mission District in San Francisco, they bring a culturally sensitive and street-smart attitude with an underpinning of what we now call Latinx culture, to an examination of American society that, as it turns out, hasn’t changed all that much in thirty years.   That is hasn’t changed is evident in their new collection of sketches, Culture Clash, Still in America, based on their 2002 work, Culture Clash in AmeriCCa – which can be seen at Berkeley Rep’s Peets Theatre through April 5th, directed by

Anne Darragh, in conversation with KPFA associate theater critic C. S. Soong. Actor Anne Darragh plays a scientist on a forward-looking mission in “The Children,” a play by Lucy Kirkwood, now at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. In “The Children,” three nuclear engineers reunite in the aftermath of a Fukushima-like disaster on the east coast of England. The play is directed by Barbara Damashek. The Aurora Theatre is located at 2081 Addison Street in Berkeley. Aurora Theatre Company’s website The post Interview: Anne Darragh about “The Children” at Aurora Theatre appeared first on KPFA.

John Collins and Scott Shepherd, in conversation with KPFA associate theater critic C. S. Soong. John Collins directs and Scott Shepherd performs in “Gatz,” now on stage at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. In “Gatz,” an office worker comes across a copy of “The Great Gatsby” and begins reading it aloud; over time, his co-workers associate themselves with the novel’s characters. “Gatz” was created by Elevator Repair Service; Collins is the theatre ensemble’s artistic director and Shepherd has performed with ERS since 1994. “Gatz” runs through March 1. Berkeley Repertory Theatre is located at 2025 Addison Street in Berkeley. The post Interview: John Collins and Scott Shepherd about “Gatz” at Berkeley Rep appeared first on KPFA.

Will Eno (left) and Richard Wolinsky. Will Eno is the author of the play “Wakey Wakey” starring Tony Hale, directed by Anne Kauffman, at ACT’s Geary Theatre through February 16, 2019. He is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky. Will Eno has written several successful plays, including Thom Pain (based on nothing), which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005, The Realistic Joneses, which won a Drama Desk Special Award for its Broadway run in 2014, and Open House, which won an Off-Broadway Obie Award, also in 2014. Wakey, Wakey concerns a guy (named Guy) who is nearing death and looking back on all that life has to offer. In the interview, Will Eno discusses how he came to write the play, as well as highlights from his own career as a playwright. The post Interview: Will Eno, playwright “Wakey Wakey” appeared first on KPFA.

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Tiny Beautiful Things,” based on the book by Cheryl Strayed, at San Francisco Playhouse through March 7, 2020. Text of review: The writer Cheryl Strayed hit the best-seller charts in 2012 with her memoir, Wild, the story of a trek she took over the length of the Pacific Coast Trail in 1995. It was her second book. Her first, Torch, a novel had been published six years earlier to good reviews and little national notice. But it was in 2010, struggling as a free lance writer, that she was offered the job – not really a job because there was no pay involved – to take over an advice column, Dear Sugar, for the Rumpus on-line literary magazine, which she then wrote for two years. Those columns were collected in the book, Tiny Beautiful Things, which has been adapted by Nia Vardalos into a theatre piece now at San Francisco Playhouse through March 7th directed by Bill English. After a brief opening in which Cheryl gets the gig, the rest of the play consists of questions

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “How to Transcend a Happy Marriage” by Sarah Ruhl, at Custom Made Theatre through Feb. 16, 2020. Text of review (audio is slightly different) As we grow and get older, we notice that our friendships have their own sets of rules, areas that can be discussed and areas that are out of bounds. When they don’t, when lines are crossed, particularly sexual lines, then those relationships must deal with the changes or fall apart completely. Playwright Sarah Ruhl explores the nature of these kinds of relationships in her 2017 play, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, which can be seen at Custom Made Theatre in San Francsico through February 16th. Two straight couples in their early forties, Jane and Michael, and George and Paul, are enjoying an evening together, when Jane mentions a temp at her workplace, a woman named Pip, who is involved in a polyamorous relationship with two men. At first, the jokes and assumptions fly fast. Do the men have sex with each other, does their

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Noura” by Heather Raffo, a co-production of Marin Theatre and Golden Thread, at Marin Theatre Company through Feb. 9, 2020. Text of review (audio is slightly different). The cost of war is always high. It’s high at the start, through violence, destruction and the death of soldiers and innocent civilians. It’s high later on through the rebuilding process, and it becomes higher still when, through unintended consequences, everything falls apart. That happened to Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities, surviving the American invasionand then succumbing to the horrors of the ISIS takeover. When ISIS came in, Assyrian Christians were forced to leave their homes and their lives. Many came to America, and those exiled Iraqis are the subjects of Noura, a play by Heather Raffo, at Marin Theatre Company through February 9th, in a co-production with Golden Thread. It’s Christmas, and Noura and her husband Tareq, have been living in New York City for the past eight years. They’r

Valerie Soe, in conversation with KPFA associate theater critic C. S. Soong. “Love Boat: Taiwan,” a documentary film directed, produced, and written by Valerie Soe, examines the allure of a Taiwanese government-sponsored summer program that brings overseas Taiwanese and Chinese to the island nation for cultural enrichment (officially) and potential romance (unofficially). The film’s next Bay Area screening is in Milpitas on February 9; find a full list of dates and locations here. The film’s website The post Interview: Valerie Soe about her film “Love Boat: Taiwan” appeared first on KPFA.

Mona Golabek is bringing her one-woman show, The Pianist of Willisden Lane, which was adapted and directed by Hershey Felder, to TheaterWorks in Mountain View, from January 15th through February 16, 2020. This interview conducted by Richard Wolinsky was recorded in 2013 when The Pianist of Wilisden Lane was produced by Berkeley Rep. Performing the story of her mother, a piano prodigy who escaped from Austria to England in 1938 on the Kindertransport and the years afterward as a refugee, Mona Golabek weaves the narrative with performances of the music that kept her mother alive, both as listener and performer. The play is based on her book The Children of Willisden Lane. The post Interview: Mona Golabek, “The Pianist of Willisden Lane” appeared first on KPFA.

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Becky Nurse of Salem” at Berkeley Rep‘s Peets Theatre through January 26, 2020. Text of review (audio is slightly different and has actuality from Sarah Ruhl) The notion of witch hunt as metaphor comes from Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible,” which translated what happened in Salem in 1693 to the story of McCarthyism and those accused during the darkest days of the Red Scare in the late 1940s into the 1950’s. But while “witch hunt” is a perfectly fine metaphor, if abused by the absurdity in the White House, the real witch hunt was something else again, part of a war against sexuality and particularly, a war against women – something Miller himself stayed away from in his famous play. Playwright Sarah Ruhl tackles that aspect of the witch trials, and their contemporary meaning, in a crackling new play, “Becky Nurse of Salem,” which is enjoying its world premiere run at Berkeley Rep through January 26th. Becky Nurse of Salem didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened b

Yanna McIntosh, David Abeles, RW, John Skelley A conversation with John Skelley (Harry Potter), Yanna McIntosh (Hermoine) and David Abeles (Ron), from the production of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” a sequel to the Harry Potter books and films, playing in two parts at the Curran in San Francisco, hosted by Richard Wolinsky. With a story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, written by Jack Thorne and directed by John Tiffany, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” takes place as Harry, Ron and Hermoine are approaching forty years of age, and their children (Harry is married to Ron’s sister Ginny) are now going to Hogwarts School for Magicians. John Skelley, Yanna McIntosh and David Abeles have all been acting in theatre, film and television for the past several years. John Skelley and David Abeles understudied their roles in the Broadway production, and the Canadian Yanna McIntosh is new to the role in San Francisco. They discuss their visions of the roles and the play, and how the

Noted playwright Sarah Ruhl, whose latest work “Becky Nurse of Salem” is having its premiere at Berkeley Rep through January 26, 2020, is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. Sarah Ruhl’s plays, The Clean House and In The Next Room (The Vibrator Play) have both been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, and In The Next Room was also nominated for a Tony. In 2008 she received the Helen Hayes award for Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and has written the screenplay for a new film about Gloria Steinem, The Glorias directed by Julie Taymore. Sarah Ruhl has also written a collection of essays published in 2015 and Letters from Max: A Book of Friendship, published in 2018. A collection, 44 Poems for You, will be published in February, 2020. From the Berkeley Rep website: Becky Nurse is an outspoken, sharp-witted tour guide at the Salem Museum of Witchcraft who’s just trying to get by in post-Obama America. She’s also the descendant of Rebecca Nurse, who was infamously executed for witchcraft in 1692—but things have changed for women

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews a new musical adaptation of “Pride & Prejudice” at TheatreWorks Lucie Stern Theater in Palo Alto through January 4, 2020. TheatreWorks website Text of review (audio is slightly different). Jane Austen only wrote six complete books, yet over two centuries since her death, she has become one of the most popular best-selling authors. There have at least seventeen adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, including six miniseries, and a variety of films, from the direct to the indirect, including Bridget Jones’ Diary and, god help us, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Plus at least four musical adaptations, the most recent of which is a world premiere, with book, music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, which can be seen at Theatreworks’ Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto through January 4th. It’s, set in Regency England. The Bennet family has five daughters, the eldest Jane a beauty, the next in line, Elizabeth, proud and smart. For girls, the only step to take when of age is marr

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the 42nd Street Moon production of “Scrooge in Love” starring Jason Graae, at the Gateway in San Francisco through December 22, 2019. 42nd Street Moon website Text of review (differs slightly from audio version). Often remembered and revived, the big hit musicals of the fifties and sixties will never leave us. But there were other shows, minor hits and flops on Broadway, and television musicals that never went that far. These shows had weak books, and usually undistinguished scores with one exceptional song that survives. Cole Porter’s Aladdin, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Me and Juliet, The Adventures of Marco Polo. The shows served as a backdrop to the bigger ones, the ones we sing today. So when you’re going to the Gateway Theatre to see “Scrooge in Love,” a sequel to A Christmas Carol, starring Jason Graae with music by Broadway veteran Larry Grossman and lyrics by Kellen Blair, it’s easy to imagine this show, first written and produced in 2015, being a revival

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Groundhog Day: The Musical” directed by Susi Damilano, at San Francisco Playhouse through January 17, 2020 SF Playhouse website Text of review (differs from the edited audio version).. The entertainment world has always used branding to sell its products. Adapting best-sellers and hit plays to the screen, and adapting films to television has been going on for decades, using the same name as the book or the film to draw audiences into the new iteration. For Broadway, it hasn’t quite worked that way. Musicals tended to take on new names. So Pygmalion became My Fair Lady, Anna and the King the King and I, Seven and a half cents the Pajama Game. But after Giuliani, Bloomberg and the Walt Disney Company turned Broadway into a corporate cash cow, branding now rules the street. Whether jukebox shows or film adaptations, the bigger the name the greater the hedging of bets by producers. But still, three quarters of all shows flop. Which brings us to the musicals Pretty Wom

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Tale of Despereaux” at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre through January 5, 2020. Text of review (audio version contains actuality from co-director Marc Bruni and other changes). Most classic fairy tales come down to us through history and the Brothers Grimm. But over the years, there have also been new fairy tales, stories that enchant younger generations, which over time will become classics in their own way. One such story was “The Tale of Despereaux” written by Kate DiCamillo and published in 2003, which went on to win a Newberry Award and was adapted into an animated film in 2007. Now, “The Tale of Despereaux,” which tells the story of a young mouse with big ears, a rat with big ideas, and a kingdom damaged by grief, has become a musical created by the Pig Pen Theatre Company, at Berkeley Rep through January 5th. In translating animated films to the stage, Disney has gone all-out with high tech special effects that could never be duplicated or even attempted in

Photo: David Allen Jason Graae, the star of “Scrooge in Love,” a 42nd Street Moon production at the Gateway Theatre in San Francisco, is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky. Jason Graae has appeared on Broadway several times, is a noted cabaret performer, and recently played the Wizard in the national tour of “Wicked.” In this interview he discusses his work and his career and tells anecdotes about working on “Wicked,” his first audition, dealing with hits and flops, and various other items. The post Interview: Jason Graae, “Scrooge in Love” appeared first on KPFA.

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Cloud 9” by Caryl Churchill, at Custom Made Theatre in San Francisco through December 15, 2019. Custom Made website Text of review: During the Victorian era, the tyranny of colonialism went unchecked, as did sexual and gender-based oppression. Straitjacketed in their roles through patriarchy, the power disparity between men and women paralleled the relationship of whites and people of color all through the British empire. Those connections are explored, deconstructed and reconstructed in Caryl Churchill’s now classic play from 1979, Cloud 9, performed with gusto and bravado, and directed by Allie Moss, at Custom Made Theatre in San Francisco through December 15th. The play functions in two symmetrical parts: Act One takes place during the 19th century, in Africa, and presents itself as comedy. To show how women’s roles were determined by men, the wife of Clive, the colonial administrator, is played by a man, and her young son by a woman, and to show the parallel w