TheatreFirst’s Bold Third Act
Longtime East Bay company TheatreFirst reinvents itself with a bold new mission.
Read my company spotlight for Theatre Bay Area. Read more
Mama Medea, Here We Go Again
One month after becoming a new dad, what could possibly be more appropriate than unveiling my new Medea play? Well, pretty much anything would be more appropriate, I guess, but I am undeterred!
Weaving Together Middle Eastern Stories with Golden Thread
Golden Thread’s ReOrient festival of short plays gives a strong sense of the diversity of Middle Eastern cultures and voices.
Read my Q&A with Evren Odcikin on KQED Arts. Read more
Get Hapa
Christopher Chen’s latest play, Mutt, has a few superficial similarities with
Warrior Class, Kenneth Lin’s drama that played TheatreWorks last year. Both center on Asian-American politicians that represent the Republican Party’s best hope for an Obama of its own. But what the two plays do with that subject matter is very different, and thank goodness for that. Chen’s play is a satirical comedy rather than a drama, for one thing, but it also takes on race politics in America in a much more direct and satisfying way, appropriately enough for a play whose subtitle is Let’s All Talk About Race! Read more
The Quality of Mercy
Dance Dance Revolution in the Chinese Land of the Dead? That’s Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s 410[GONE] at Crowded Fire Theater. KQED Arts has my review.
Return to ReOrient
It’s been a while since Golden Thread’s last ReOrient festival of short plays about the Middle East. The festival had been going on an almost annual basis since 1999, but after its 10th anniversary in 2009 the company went on a producing hiatus, reemerging last year for the world premiere of Adriana Sevahn Nichols’s Night over Erzinga. But now the festival’s back in a big way, with two programs of short plays (the second batch for two shows only toward the end of the fest) and a forum of panel discussions at Z Space.
Can’t Tease Everybody
I rarely miss a show at Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, because I’ve always liked the company’s fast and loose energy and its knack for finding outrageously funny new comedies. And from the name alone, The Play About the Naked Guy looked to be one of them. I’ve enjoyed several of the cast members in other things, and have been impressed with some of the shows director Evren Odcikin has helmed lately at Brava and Boxcar.
Old Year, New Blog
Top Ten Theater Productions of 2009
Although I started 2009 reviewing theater for one paper and ended the year reviewing for another, when I look over the list of the 108 shows I saw over the course of the year to determine my top ten, I realize that none of my favorite shows are ones that I actually reviewed. Those respective papers have space, money and geographical constraints, and it just happened that there was no overlap between the shows in my review docket and those in this year’s top ten.
