Consider the Yeasts

Consider the Yeasts

Ray of Light Theatre has managed to do something pretty remarkable with its 2014 season; there are almost no human characters in it at all. I say “almost” only because there was briefly a human narrator (Morgan Freeman, actually) in

Triassic Parq this June, but other than that it was all dinosaurs. And now Ray of Light goes back even further down the evolutionary ladder to a time when the only life on earth was salt-sucking yeasts. Read more

Carrie Bears Reexamination

Carrie Bears Reexamination

The same night Dolores Claiborne the opera closes, Carrie the Musical opens. Coincidence or conspiracy? My investigation is on KQED Arts, including an examination of how Stephen King’s protagonists are like the X-Men.

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Assassin Nation

Assassin Nation

That Stephen Sondheim has picked some perverse subjects for his musicals shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone, given that one of his most beloved classics concerns a certain serial-killing barber who provides the secret ingredient for his neighbor’s meat pie shop. But a musical about the various people who have killed or attempted to kill the President of the United States from John Wilkes Booth down to John Hinckley Jr.? Now that’s really pushing the boundaries of good taste.

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