The Anti-Rock Musical
Bye Bye Birdie depicts the cultlike following of a rock star, but it’s not a rock musical. Far from it.
A Fracking Shame
Shotgun Players has doubled down on its commitment to new plays lately. Last year’s 20th-anniversary season was entirely made up of commissioned world premieres, and after an impressively solid production of Tom Stoppard’s Voyage this spring, Shotgun unveils another commission. The Great Divide is a modern take on Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play An Enemy of the People, updated to focus on current hot-button environmental issues. The playwright is Adam Chanzit, whose play Down to This closed in a Sleepwalkers Theatre production in San Francisco the same weekend this show opened in Berkeley.
