Avenue Q is a puppet show with humans. Or a human show with puppets. Whichever way you look at it, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx’s musical, now playing at Humboldt State University, is a smart blend of youthful angst and mature topics that brings to all-too-realistic life that treacherous bridge from student to responsible adult. […]
Front Row
Posted inArts + Scene
Little Shop’s Creepy Charm
With the changing weather and darkening skies, October in Humboldt is well suited to those who relish turning their attention to gruesome subjects, culminating in the finale on Oct. 31, a last gasp of frolicking about before those other holidays start in earnest. If that’s you, enjoy yourself while you can and go see The […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Conversations Across Time and Space
My good friend Tom is very much a man of science and mathematics, and also the smartest person I know. I talk with him about all manner of things and while he may have a way of viewing the entire universe in terms of equations and probability, he also sees connections down to art and […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Dispelling the Princess Myth
As a child, I wasn’t much for princesses and happy-ever-after fairytales, and most Disney interpretations of princessdom passed me by, so I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to relate to this musical reinterpretation of multiple Disney princess stories. Fortunately, Redwood Curtain Theatre’s production of Disenchanted provides just enough of the saccharine background for […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Dating Advice for the Cursed
Nobody ever said finding a mate was easy. In some places, the absence of suitable suitors or a dating pool up to snuff is more prevalent than elsewhere. Heck, I’ve even heard some whispers that Humboldt County isn’t ideal. In Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, ladies and lads gone lacking for love serves as a jumping-off […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Tangled Tales of Love
What happens when King Ferdinand of Navarre and his three companions decide to improve themselves by dedicating three years to study and fasting, forswearing women by forbidding any member of the fair sex from coming within a mile of the court? A challenging prospect in the best of circumstances, but when the Princess of France […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Alternative Farce
The truth is a tricky thing. It can be objective or subjective, slippery or elusive. It can be deep and bitter and hard to hear. It is rarely absolute. More rarely, it can be very funny. Now, lying — that’s funny. Not so much when it’s done to you but in the service of comedy, […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Drag King
Drag shows, and even drag itself, are in a sense as old as theater itself, for varied reasons ranging back countless centuries. Be it a lack of female performers for female roles or plays with plot points involving men dressed as women, history has not suffered for a lack of men in dresses. But the […]
Posted inArts + Scene
This Land Belongs To … Whom?
It’s coming up on the Fourth of July and the MacBurn family has checked into KOALA (Kampground Of American Liberty for All) for their annual State of Jefferson Picnic, courtesy of Dell’Arte International. For generations, the MacBurns have had the campground to themselves — back since their cabin sat on the edge of a toxic […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Hello, Sailor
The genre of light opera may seem like an odd one to 21st century audiences but only if you think about it too much. Productions in that niche pop up on theater calendars everywhere from high schools to Broadway. It can be tricky for small productions with all the singing the genre indicates. Light opera […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Four Journeys of Love and Loss
Each May, the graduating students in Dell’Arte’s MFA program in ensemble-based physical theatre put the sum of their talents and training on the stage at the Carlo Theatre in Blue Lake for the Thesis Festival. For anyone (this reviewer included) who has watched these students develop their skills and talents over the three years of […]
Posted inArts + Scene
By the Horns
Beauty and the Beast has evolved into some sort of larger-than-life thing of its own in the past quarter century. It really owes all this to Disney’s 1991 animated film, the gigantic success of which helped jump-start the company’s nearly dormant animated movie division. Under the laws of nature, there was no reason to stop […]