Masochism Tango

American Conservatory Theater’s masochistic backstage comedy isn’t exactly hard-hitting.
Altered Shepard

AlterTheater revives Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love in a San Rafael storefront, directed by the play’s original Old Man, where it will run in repertory with Marisela Treviño Orta’s The River Bride. My review is in today’s Marin Independent Journal.
Things Fall Apart

Some days it’s all you can do just to hold it together, and sometimes every day is like that. That’s the feeling one gets from Minneapolis playwright Allison Moore’s latest comedy, Collapse, which plays Aurora Theatre in a National New Play Network rolling world premiere that will subsequently play Curious Theatre in Denver and Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas in different productions. Collapse was one of the plays read last season as one of the finalists in Aurora’s Global Age Project new works initiative, and is the second GAP play to go on to a main stage production at the theater.
Rock’s Progress

If you’re really, really looking forward to seeing Rock of Ages this spring (featuring “the mind-blowing, face-melting hits of Journey” et al.), you may want to tide yourself over by checking out a much smaller-scale ’80s-style rock musical finishing up its run in San Francisco this week.