Hard Luck in Harlem
The first season that longtime American Conservatory Theater actor Steven Anthony Jones has programmed as the new artistic director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre has been an interesting mix for San Francisco’s most venerable African-American theatre, from an odd pairing of one-acts—a broad slapstick bit of 1960s agitprop with a tense new Brazilian thriller—to a new version of LHT’s traditional Christmas pageant, to a drama about the British psychiatric system. Now the season closes with a trip back to the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression and Prohibition with Blues for an Alabama Sky, a 1995 melodrama by Pearl Cleage.
Rave Reviews
This week in the Marin Independent Journal, I reviewed Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet, ACT’s conclusion of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brother Sister Plays, and also reviewed Cinnabar’s double bill of Jack Paglen’s new comedy We (Heart) U, Nosferatu with Menotti’s opera The Medium. And you know what? They’re really, really good. So you should go check out those reviews, and check out those shows too while you’re at it.
