May is always an exciting month at Dell’Arte. It’s when the multinational class of graduating students stages its final ensemble creations — the culmination of the school’s three-year MFA program. Each of this year’s thesis pieces has been written, performed and directed by the students and brings together Dell’Arte’s signature theater of place with their […]
Front Row
Posted inArts + Scene
Hedwig Rocks
As a bridge between the rock, pop and soul music of the 1960s and the explosion of punk in the late 1970s, and the myriad subgenres that followed, there was glam rock. Bigger in its scope and impact in the UK, but by no means limited to across the pond, among its flashy and tuneful […]
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Free Spirits
The House That Will Not Stand The 2014 play The House that Will Not Stand, written by poet/playwright and Oakland native Marcus Gardley and now playing at Redwood Curtain Theatre under the direction of Michelle “Chelly” Purnell and Clint Rebik, is a spirited historical comedy with music and a voodoo spell, set in antebellum New […]
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Hay Fever Breaks Out at HSU
The Bliss family at the center of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, now playing at Humboldt State University’s Gist Hall Theatre, is the epitome of English eccentricity and over-the-top-ness. Judith (Susan Abbey) is the matriarch, a retired stage actress and leading lady in her own drama. She is alternately jealous of and disappointed by her bratty, […]
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NCRT’s The Tenth Muse Reminds Us to Take Nothing for Granted
In the late 17th century in what is now Mexico City, the convent of San Jeronimo was home to one of the most extensive libraries in the New World, presided over by Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz. She was a prolific and adventurous writer of poetry and plays, much beloved by the people of […]
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Nunsense: Sisters Doin’ it for Themselves
The Little Sisters of Hoboken are a welcoming lot, meeting and greeting us audience members as we obediently file into the auditorium and locate our seats for the opening of Nunsense (book and music by Dan Goggin) at Ferndale Repertory Theatre. After all, some of us may have less-than-pleasant memories of the times we didn’t […]
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It’s a Woman’s World
Who among us has not winced at a friend’s seemingly inadvisable romantic choice? Fortunately, however, most of us to do not as a result find ourselves at the center of a murder mystery involving a missing dental hygienist, a collection of antique surgical instruments, a lovelorn policeman and a misguided snowboarder. This antic collection is […]
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On the Rocks
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? looms large in the collective mind. Born as a Tony Award-winning play from the pen of the great Edward Albee in 1962, it was adapted for the screen four years later. And this is how many people, myself included, were first introduced to this story — with Elizabeth Taylor and […]
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Crowns and Coke
The meaning of the word “Shakespearian” is elusive when tossed around by wags and pundits, and it’s occasionally used with a little laziness. It’s dispatched to label something as being multi-layered, and also looking deep into the souls of people who are contradictory and perhaps doomed of their own making. King Lear has great fame, […]
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Grown-up Problems
The Grasshopper and the Aunt Pantomime is a proud European tradition that I’m happy to see gaining a foothold in the U.S., thanks to theatrical funsters like James Peck, Amy Tetzlaff, Alyssa Hughlett and Sarah Peters, the team behind The Grasshopper and the Aunt, the holiday show now playing at the Arcata Playhouse. As with […]
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Hail The Snow Queen
Dell’Arte’s 37th annual touring production is a delightful take on a familiar story of good triumphing over evil, with plenty of magic and other shenanigans along the way. Director Michael Fields and the cast of third-year students have taken Hans Christian Andersen’s original Snow Queen story and compressed it down to a little over an […]
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Circus within a Circus
Plays offer a look into a different era, with modern productions taking on material written centuries ago. But Pippin affords a chance to see a dual track on that: The era in which it was first staged is the early 1970s. To see it now is a glimpse into that era, but also into a […]