Back on Avenue Q
Berkeley Playhouse produces its very first adult show.
Read my review in the San Jose Mercury News. Read more
Do You Hear the Puppets Sing
It’s funny to see how thoroughly a show about foul-mouthed puppets has entered the mainstream of Broadway musicals.
Read my review in the Contra Costa Times. Read more
It’s Got to Be Carefully Brought
Bring It On: The Musical may look like just the latest in a very, very long line of hit movies and cult classics that have been turned into stage musicals in recent years, but looks can be deceiving. This should be where I say that it’s so much more than that, but in fact it’s considerably less. It is, in fact, a total bait-and-switch.
San Francisco Values
I was born and raised in Berkeley, where most people can be safely assumed to be pretty liberal, and nothing sets my teeth on edge more than the belittling portrayal of the place I grew up as some kind of wacky radical madhouse, the view embodied in terms like “Berserkeley” or “San Francisco values.” My native Bay Area may make a mockery of itself on occasion—hometowns do that sometimes—but I’m always mighty sensitive about anything coming along to make it look silly.
