Podcasts about cinnabar theater

For years, Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater has closed out the year with a musical cabaret show. Past years’ productions have celebrated the work of musical artists from Edith Piaf to Mahalia Jackson to Frank Sinatra. This year, the work of classic American tunesmith Cole Porter takes center stage via Love, Linda, a look at Porter through the eyes of his wife, Ms. Linda Lee. Veteran cabaret performer Maureen McVerry plays Mrs. Cole Porter and yes, there was a Mrs. Cole Porter. More than a marriage of convenience, the Porters had a genuine affection for each other, despite Porter leading an active homosexual life. Notwithstanding the challenges that presented to the relationship, they remained married until Lee’s death in 1954. The show is set in the Porter’s elegant Parisian apartment where Linda reminisces about her life before Porter, how they met, their life together in Paris, their adventures in Hollywood, and their settling in an apartment at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. Interspersed between the memories are, of course, the songs. The tale of their time in Paris is matched with “I Love Paris”, their time in Hollywood with “Night and Day” (also the title of the highly fictionalized film biography where the diminutive Porter was portrayed by the 6’4” Cary Grant). Her complex relationship with Porter is represented by “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and “Wunderbar”. Ms. McVerry’s vocals are accompanied by a terrific on-stage three-piece combo of piano (played by Chris Alexander for the opening performance, musical director Cesar Cancino handles it for the rest of the run), bass by Steven Hoffman, and drums by John Shebalin. McVerry does not possess a particularly rich voice, which led the musical accompaniment to regularly overwhelm her vocals. We hear Porter’s beautiful compositions, but his often amusing, often passionate lyrics are frequently lost. Cinnabar should really consider miking their musicals. Director Clark Sterling keeps things moving at a brisk pace and brings the show in at 85 minutes, including an intermission. Scenic designer Wayne Hovey brings an expansive apartment feel to the Cinnabar space, though I wish the projections used throughout the show had been worked more into the set rather than displayed over it. Love, Linda is an affectionate look back at one of America’s greatest musical talents. My affection for it would be amplified if the vocals were. 'Love, Linda' runs through January 13th at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 8pm; the Sunday matinee is at 2pm. There’s a New Year’s Eve party and performance at 9pm on December 31st. For more information, go to cinnabartheater.org.

For folks looking for some respite from Christmas shopping or from becoming participants in the demolition derby that is mall parking, North Bay theatre companies are providing several seasonal entertainments to help keep you in the holiday spirit. Family-friendly musicals are the usual fare and there are several on tap. While not all would be classified as holiday-specific shows, they’ll still get the kids out of the house for a few hours and give adults some welcome relief. Santa Rosa Junior College Theatre Arts (theatrearts.santarosa.edu) is presenting Shrek, the Musical. Burbank Auditorium renovations continue to require them to do their shows “on the road”, so you’ll have to travel to Maria Carrillo High School to see this one. Spreckels Theatre Company (spreckelsonline.com) is doing The Tailor of Gloucester. This original holiday musical, based on the Beatrix Potter story, was originally commissioned and produced by Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater back in 2004 and had several Youth Theatre productions there. Michael Ross directs (mostly) adults in this studio theater production. Sonoma Arts Live (sonomaartslive.org) brings Anne of Green Gables to their Rotary stage. This musical version of the L.M. Montgomery classic is about a spunky redheaded orphan winning over her new family and an entire Canadian island. Speaking of spunky redheaded orphans, 6th Street Playhouse (6thstreetplayhouse.com) assures us the sun’ll come out tomorrow with Annie. It’s Daddy Warbucks versus the evil Miss Hannigan with Annie - and her little dog, too – as the objects of their attention. The 12 Dates of Christmas will run in the 6th Street Studio Theater. It’s a single woman’s ‘holiday survival guide’. For nostalgia fans, Redwood Theatre Company (redwoodtheatrecompany.com) will be presenting It’s a Wonderful Life in the live radio play format. A plucky little girl – this time named Eve – takes center stage at the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center (cloverdaleperformingarts.com) in Yo Ho Ho: A Pirate’s Christmas. Can she rescue Santa and Christmas from the clutches of a gang of directionally-challenged pirates? If she doesn’t, the audience may mutiny. Over in Napa, Lucky Penny Productions (luckypennynapa.com) is presenting Scrooge in Love. This will be only the third fully staged production of this original musical after having been done twice by San Francisco’s 42 Street Moon. It musically answers all the questions you may have about what happened after the end of Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol. Dyan McBride, the show’s original director, heads this production as well. Finally, for those in the mood for a big, splashy music and dance extravaganza, there’s always Transcendence Theatre Company (transcendencetheatre.org) and their Broadway Holiday Spectacular. They’ll be doing three performances at Santa Rosa’s Luther Burbank Center and two performances in Napa at the Lincoln Theatre in Yountville. Lots of entertainment options, and I’m sure the producing companies would like to remind you that theatre tickets make GREAT stocking stuffers. You can find links to all these shows and more on the calendar page of the North Bay Stage and Screen web site at northbaystageandscreen.com.

With September come football games that actually matter, open season on California tree squirrels (daily limit of four) and the opening of the new artistic season for many North Bay theatre companies. Here’s some of what they have in store for local audiences: Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater (cinnabartheater.org) transforms itself into Berlin’s Kit Kat Club and bids you willkommen, bienvenue, and welcome to the classic Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret. Broadway veteran Michael McGurk and Petaluma native Alia Beeton take on the roles that won Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli their Oscars. The Spreckels Theatre Company of Rohnert Park (spreckelsonline.com) opens its season with the multi-Tony-Award-winning The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Fans of the Mark Haddon novel about a young boy on the autism spectrum investigating the death of a neighborhood dog will find that it’s been somewhat reworked for the stage, but Tony voters liked it enough to name it 2015’s Best Play. Sebastopol’s Main Stage West (mainstagewest.com) opens its season with the world premiere of an original comedy by local playwright Bob Duxbury. Savage Wealth examines the impact of the sale of a Lake Tahoe home and the vacant lot next to it on a pair of brothers and their childhood friend. John Shillington directs a cast of three in a story that also manages to work new age philosophy, politics, and romantic betrayal into it. Dancing and singing New York “wiseguys” take over Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse (6thstreetplayhouse.com) as they present Guys and Dolls. Summer Repertory Theatre Artistic Director James Newman moves to Railroad Square to helm what has been called “the greatest of all American musicals”. Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theatre (leftedgetheatre.com) continues to provide North Bay audiences with recently written plays never before seen in the area with the U.S. premiere of a hit British comedy. David Simpson’s The Naked Truth involves charity fundraising, female empowerment, and pole dancing. Argo Thompson directs and somehow has worked former Second Row Center host David Templeton into the mix. The Pegasus Theatre Company of Guerneville (pegasustheater.com) will present its 12th annual Tapas: New Short Play Festival. This year’s festival will include seven short plays by Northern California playwrights and will be the first production overseen by new Artistic Director Rich Rubin. Healdsburg’s Raven Players (raventheater.org) open with two contemporary dramas that deal with a host of complex issues including war, PTSD, gun violence, politics and religion. Time Stands Still and Church & State will run in “rep”. In Marin, the Novato Theater Company (novatotheatercompany.org) hopes to have one singular sensation with their production of A Chorus Line, while Mill Valley’s Marin Theatre Company (marintheatre.org) will present the West Coast premiere of the 2017 Best Play Tony-winning political thriller Oslo. Ross Valley Players buck the trend and bring Shakespeare indoors for a change with their production of Twelfth Night. Napa’s Lucky Penny Productions (luckypennynapa.com) invites you Into the Woods, where director James Sasser has apparently added another layer of “fun” to the musical fairy tale mash-up. Plenty of options for the avid theatregoer. Information on all these shows can be found in the “Calendar” section of the North Bay Stage and Screen web site at northbaystageandscreen.com

Theatregoers hankering for a classic or the desire to see something new have two productions running now that fit the bill. Cinnabar Theater presents the 50-year-old classic Cabaret. The Kander and Ebb musical, which has gone through significant changes via numerous revivals since its 1966 debut, is the tale of two couples whose lives intersect via the Kit Kat Klub, a seedy pre-WWII Berlin cabaret. Cliff Bradshaw (Lucas Brandt) is an American traveling through Europe as he attempts to write the great American novel. His train mate Ernst Ludwig (Mark Robinson) sets him up at the boarding house of Fräulein Schneider (Mary Gannon Graham) whose other boarders include members of the chorus of the Kit Kat Club. Cliff meets Sally Bowles (Alia Beeton), the “headliner” at the club with whom he’s soon sharing his room. Fräulein Schneider, who’s becoming adept at looking the other way at certain situations, finds herself being courted by Herr Schultz (Michael Van Why), the local grocer. The future of these relationships grows gloomier as the cloud of National Socialism forms over Germany. One of the darkest American musicals ever written with as depressing an ending ever staged, director Elly Lichenstein proves that Cabaret still has the ability to stun, evidenced by the opening night audience’s hesitation at applauding the end of Act One. Michael McGurk makes the iconic role of the cabaret Emcee his own, but it’s the delicate and devastating performances of Gannon Graham and Van Why that will haunt you. Mary Chun does her usual fine job of musical direction, though a balance between vocals and accompaniment was occasionally elusive. ‘Cabaret’ runs through September 23 at the Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. Friday and Saturday performances are at 8 pm; There’s a Sunday matinee at 2 pm. For more information, go to cinnabartheater.org For audiences looking for something a lot lighter, there’s Main Stage West’s production of Savage Wealth. It’s a world premiere comedy by local playwright Bob Duxbury. John Shillington directs Peter Downey and Matt Cadigan as Todd and Gabe, two very different siblings dealing with the disposal of their late father’s Lake Tahoe home. Complications are provided by their new-age neighbor/friend/ex-lover Beenie, played by Ilana Niernberger. It’s a very amusing script that only occasionally belies the pedigree of its retired English professor author. Timing is everything in comedy and the three performers have it down to a tee. It’s well worth checking out, particularly for those who decry the cyclical and repetitive nature of local theatre. ‘Savage Wealth’ runs through September 16 at Main Stage West in Sebastopol. Thursday through Saturday performances are at 8 pm; their Sunday matinee is at 5 pm. For more information, go to mainstagewest.com

Two community theatre workhorses have galloped onto North Bay stages. Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater is presenting The Fantasticks, the 1960 musical that ran for a record 42 years Off-Broadway and then had a revival in 2006 that ran for another eleven years. It’s a modest production with a sweet score and engaging performances. It’s a simple tale of two neighboring families. Mrs. Hucklebee (Krista Wigle) and Mr. Bellomy (Michael van Why) each have a child they wish to fall in love with the other. They figure the best way to achieve that is to start a pseudo-feud between the families and make it clear to them they don’t want them to see each other. When Luisa (Carolyn Bacon) and Matt (Lucas Brandt) do fall in love, how do they end the “feud” so all may live happily ever after? Well, they hire a mysterious stranger who goes by the name “El Gallo” (Sergey Khalikulov) and some players (James Pelican, Brandon Wilson) to stage a phony abduction of Luisa to allow Matt to rescue her so all may be forgiven between the families, of course! Act One ends on a happy note as all seems rosy for the couple. Act Two makes it clear the bloom has fallen off the rose. The Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical can trace its roots back to Shakespeare and even further back to Greek and Roman mythology and yet if often feels more dated than that. Director Elly Lichenstein utilizes several authorized revisions to make some of the show’s more problematic elements more palatable to today’s audience and it mostly works. The music is nostalgic (“Try to Remember” opens the show), the staging is colorful, and the cast is excellent with Ms. Bacon and Mr. Khalikulov in fine voice and Messrs. Pelican and Wilson providing welcome comedy relief. 'The Fantasticks' runs through June 24 at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 8pm; there’s a Sunday matinee at 2pm. For more information, go to cinnabartheater.org Curtain Call Theatre in Monte Rio is presenting Bullshot Crummond, a 45-year-old parody of a 100-year-old pretty-much-forgotten British literary character. Running through June 23, it’s the type of show where you’re encouraged to boo the villain and cheer the hero as he rescues a damsel in distress. An ambitious undertaking for the small theatre company in terms of staging, its technical elements are somewhat lacking but the steampunk-style costumed cast is game and director Avi Lind puts them through their paces. There are some nice bits of physical comedy and inventive sight gags that at the very least will have you cracking a smile and shaking your head. It’s silly and it’s stupid, but that’s what it’s supposed to be. 'Bullshot Crummond' runs through June 23 at the Russian River Hall in Monte Rio. Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 8pm. For more information, go to curtaincallrussianriver.com

In Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg assesses Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with the criticism that it has “too many notes.” Cinnabar Theater’s current production suffers from the opposite - it’s missing a few. Amadeus is actually the story of Antonio Salieri (Richard Pallaziol), the most celebrated composer of his time and a man who’s dedicated his life to God and mankind as thanks for God’s granting him the gift of musical talent. Enter Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Aaron Wilton), a crude, boorish reprobate for whom reasons Salieri cannot fathom has been gifted by God with musical genius. Salieri, feeling mocked by God and unhinged by what he sees as a betrayal, seeks revenge on Him by destroying His vessel. He will bring about Mozart’s ruin while seeming to be his friend but destroy himself in the process. Shaffer’s historical fiction won the 1981 Tony Awards for Best Play and Best Actor in a Play (Ian McKellen) and the film adaptation matched that with its 1985 Oscar wins for Best Picture and Best Actor (F. Murray Abraham). Both Pallaziol and Wilton have their moments as Salieri and Mozart with Pallaziol at his best when Salieri is at his most duplicitous. While Wilton succeeds in bringing a high level of obnoxiousness to his Mozart, there’s little chemistry displayed in scenes he shares with Rose Roberts as Mozart’s wife Constanza. Chad Yarish leads an uneven supporting cast as the amusingly befuddled Austrian emperor Joseph II with Tim Setzer also effective as the pompous Count Johann Kilian von Strack. Where this Jennifer King-directed production really falters is in its design elements. Scenographer Peter Parrish brings little more than a few platforms and some haphazardly hung drapes to a play whose settings include an 18th century Viennese palace. A large center scrim used occasionally for shadow projections went curiously unused for most of the production. Parrish’s lighting design was also lacking, really only effective in a scene where Salieri collapses in frustration after he reads page after page of Mozart’s compositions and finally succumbs to his genius. Skipper Skeoch’s period costume design had to do double-duty in providing a sense of time and place with wigs and makeup by Jolie O’Dell also providing nice atmospheric support. The show concludes with Salieri, speaking for all “mediocrities” in the word, absolving them. Sadly, that’s not in my power here. “Amadeus” runs Friday through Sunday through April 15th at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. Friday and Saturday evening performances at 8pm; Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2pm. For specific dates and times, go to cinnabartheater.org

The choices in life that haunt you take center stage in two terrific productions running now in North Bay theatres. Sebastopol’s Main Stage West is presenting Sam Shepard’s Buried Child while Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater has David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People. Shepard’s forty-year-old, Pulitzer-Prize-winning look at the implosion of the American nuclear family seems as fresh as ever with a very strong cast bringing Shepard’s oft macabre cast to life. John Craven (in a perfect melding of actor to role) is Dodge, the family patriarch. Once a successful farmer, he’s been reduced to being the cuckold of his domineering wife Halie (as played by Laura Jorgensen) and often finds himself at the mercy of his sons Bradley, an amputee who shaves Dodge’s head while he’s sleeping, and Tilden, who’s back home after getting in “trouble” in New Mexico. Tilden now spends his time carting in vegetables from a farm that hasn’t seen a seedling in decades. The sons are played by Eric Burke and Keith Baker, both making a welcome return to the Sonoma County stage after too-long absences. The family’s decline can be traced to an event that is occasionally hinted at but never revealed - that is, until the arrival of grandson Vince and his girlfriend Shelly (played by Sam Coughlin and Ivy Rose Miller) sets a chain of events in motion in which the devastating secret is revealed and the family, perhaps, regenerated. Rooted in realism yet often surreal, Buried Child is dark, funny, heartbreaking, disturbing and great theatre. Good People, seen locally two years ago as the premiere production of Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theatre, is the tale of Margie (Sarah McKereghan), a down-on-her-luck Boston “southie” who some would say has made a string of bad choices in life but would say herself that she never had any to make. At the encouragement of her friend Jean (Liz Jahren), she attempts to reconnect with her old boyfriend Mike (played by Nick Sholley), now a doctor who long ago abandoned the projects of South Boston. Margie, for whom the term “pushy” is an understatement, wrangles an invitation to a birthday party for Mike being thrown by his wife. The wife is played by Liz Rogers-Beckley, who interestingly is reprising the role from the Left Edge production. Margie hopes to connect with someone who can offer her a job, but then the party is cancelled - or is it? Margie’s gonna find out. It does not go well. Funny, bleak, and utterly real, Good People will have you nodding your head in recognition of these characters and shaking your head in frustration at their decisions. Two great scripts. Two great casts. Two great shows. Your Choice. 'Good People ' runs through February 18 at Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater - Friday & Saturday at 8pm; Sunday matinees at 2pm. For more information, go to cinnabartheater.org. 'Buried Child' runs through February 25 at Main Stage West in Sebastopol – Thursday through Saturday at 8pm; Sunday matinees are at 5pm. For more information, go to mainstagewest.com.

If you like A.R. Gurney’s popular two-person play “Love Letters”, you’re going to love “Daddy Long Legs”, a musical adaptation of the 1912 novel by Jean Webster. Set at the turn of the 20th century, it’s the story of the relationship between an orphan and her mysterious benefactor as told – well, actually, sung – through a series of letters. Elly Lichenstein, Artistic Director of Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater, transports her directorial skills from the cozy confines of Cinnabar to the even cozier confines of Sebastopol’s Main Stage West for this production. Jerusha Abbott (Madison Genovese), the oldest orphan at the John Grier Home, is surprised to learn that a trustee who’s been impressed with her writing will provide her with a college education under a very particular set of circumstances. She must write him regularly with the knowledge that he will never respond. He will remain anonymous with her letters simply to be addressed to “Mr. Smith”. Jerusha imagines him to be a trustee whose shadow she caught a glimpse of one evening. His legs were long and spindly and as he is a trustee she imagines him to be quite old. Rather than address her benefactor with his chosen boring moniker, she titles him “Daddy Long Legs.” Her benefactor is actually Jervis Pendleton (Tyler Costin), a young philanthropist who is at first amused but soon enchanted by Jerusha’s musings on college life and her personal growth. As he’s the uncle of one of Jerusha’s college roommates, he arranges to meet her while maintaining his anonymity. Their relationship grows over the four years of college, but Jerusha’s graduation may finally force Jervis’s hand in revealing his true identity. This entire tale is told through song with titles like “Who is this Man?”, “She Thinks I’m Old”, “Freshman Year Studies”, “The Secret of Happiness”, “Graduation Day” and the like. The show’s format demands that the music and lyrics by Paul Gordon and John Caird be heavy on exposition and there’s so much of it that it often feels repetitive and one note. Ah, but it’s a beautifully sung note. Ms. Genovese brings pluck and charm to Jerusha and Mr. Costin’s physical lankiness is perfect for the role of Jervis. Both are in fine voice and complement each other quite well in their duets. They manage to completely avoid the trap that a closer examination of the storyline might provide. Elizabeth Craven had designed a very utilitarian set for the small MSW stage with half of it occupied by Jervis’s study and the other half representing the orphanage, the college, a farm and a mountaintop at various times. Musical director Dave MacNab and his three-piece orchestra give the often-sweet score its due with the cello work by Gwenyth Davis particularly emotive. Director Lichenstein, though again limited by the show’s epistolary format and the relatively small performance space, manages to add a few nice directorial touches that when combined with two appealing performances ends with the result being a very pleasant evening of musical theatre. “Daddy Long Legs” plays at Sebastopol’s Main Stage West through December 10, Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8pm, with Sunday matinees at 5pm. For more information, go to mainstagewest.com

The holiday season will soon be upon us and Sonoma County Theatre companies will be providing plenty of opportunities to escape the bumper-to-bumper traffic, full parking lots, and crowded stores that are all too common at this time of year. Some will be presenting traditional Christmas programs while others will be giving audiences some theatrical refuge from this often-overwhelming season. Perhaps the most traditional will be 6th Street Playhouse’s production of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, a stage musical based on the popular 1954 film starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. It’s the story of a couple of song-and-dance men who come to the rescue of their old Army commander who’s now the proprietor of a failing Vermont lodge. Looks like they’re gonna put on a show to save the lodge, and do it while singing a bunch of classic Irving Berlin songs like “Happy Holidays”, “Blue Skies” and, of course, the title tune. The show opens on the GK Hardt stage December 1st and runs through December 23rd. In their smaller Studio Theatre, 6th Street will be presenting the somewhat less traditional Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge, playwright Christopher Durang’s manic mash-up of A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, It’s a Wonderful Life and some other stories. It’s a very funny show and runs from December 8th to December 23rd. Out in Sonoma, the folks at Sonoma Arts Live will be presenting Inspecting Carol, a comedy about a flailing theatre company trying to get through a disastrous production of A Christmas Carol with the hopes of receiving a financial grant dangling over their heads like mistletoe. The Carl Jordan-directed show opens on November 29th and runs through December 10th. For a wine country take on a couple of holiday classics, you might check out the Raven Players’ A Vintage Christmas. It’s a world premiere production written by Tony Sciullo that’s described as a cross between A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life set in wine country. It’s a Raven on the Road production that plays at the Trione Vineyards and Winery in Geyserville from December 1st through December 10th. Travel a little further north and you’ll find The Nutcracker Musical being presented by the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center. It is not the ballet based on Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite (though there should be about one hundred productions of that produced in the next two months.) It’s a musical play based on the original E. T. A. Hoffman story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” and has a two-weekend run starting on December 1st. For those seeking a respite from holiday-themed shows, you have a few choices. Santa Rosa’s Left Edge Theatre opens Bakersfield Mist on November 17th. It’s a comedy based on the true story of a Southern California trailer park resident who’s convinced the five-dollar painting she bought at a thrift store is a Jackson Pollack original worth millions. Sebastopol’s Main Stage West is presenting the two-person musical Daddy Long Legs. A turn of the century story most famously turned into a Fred Astaire/Leslie Caron film, it’s a May-December romance set to music. The Spreckels Theatre Company in Rohnert Park is reprising its production of Little Women: the Musical, albeit with a new director and an almost entirely new cast. It opens in Rohnert Park on November 24th. Monte Rio’s Curtain Call Theatre presents Rapture, Blister, Burn, a drama that presents a generational debate over the question “Can today’s woman really have it all?” Finally, for those looking to ring-a-ding-ding in the New Year with the Chairman of the Board, Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater is presenting My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra. It opens December 15th and runs through mid-January. Sonoma County Theatres are serving up a nice variety of shows for the holiday season. Consider checking one out or make a present of live theatre to a friend or family member. Season tickets to one of your local theatres would make a great gift.

Titular roles don’t come more challenging than those of Miguel de Cervantes, the Man of La Mancha and John Merrick, better known as The Elephant Man, so why not increase the challenge by casting the roles with performers whose fortés are outside of standard theatre? Cinnabar Theater Director Elly Lichenstein has Daniel Cilli, primarily an opera singer, in the dual role of Cervantes and Don Quixote, while Michael Tabib of Curtain Call Theatre has cast stand-up comedian James Rowan as Merrick. Both gentlemen do honor to their characters. La Mancha is set in the bowels of a 16th century Spanish prison, where Cervantes awaits his fate at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition. Stripped of his belongings by the other prisoners, Cervantes pleads for the return of his manuscript of Don Quixote and demands a trial. His defense will be a reenactment of his story of honor and love. He will play the title role with his also-imprisoned manservant (Michael Van Why) as Sancho Panza. Other prisoners are drafted into roles as the tale is told. And sung, because it is a musical after all. Under musical director Mary Chun, Cilli’s magnificent baritone is the perfect match for the Mitch Leigh & Joe Dario score culminating with a show-stopping version of “The Impossible Dream.” He sets the standard for musical performance in this show, and is met by Daniela Innocenti-Beem as his Dulcinea with the heart-breaking “Aldonza”. Nice vocal work is also done by Kevin Gino as the Padre. A necessary lighter tone is brought to this often-dark production courtesy of Van Why with “I Really Like Him” and Mary Gannon Graham as the Housekeeper in “I’m Only Thinking of Him”. Other quality performers round out the ensemble. Befitting a show with a budget, there’s a dank and detailed dungeon set by Wayne Hovey and appropriately grimy costumes by Abra Berman. Chun continues her award-winning work at Cinnabar with a six-piece orchestra that fills the auditorium with the Tony-winning score. Lichenstein wasn’t tilting at windmills when deciding to bring this production to the North Bay. A quest to Petaluma to catch this production will bring ample reward. On the opposite side of the budget spectrum lies Monte Rio’s Curtain Call Theatre. Housed in the Russian River Hall, they’ve impressed me in the past with what they’re able to do with minimal resources. Their current production of The Elephant Man utilizes projections more so than set pieces to evoke a sense of time and place and, because of the playwright’s desire to not recreate the physical deformities that afflicted the title character, allows the audience to get past that potential distraction by displaying photographs taken of John Merrick and his condition. That leaves it to James Rowan to give the audience the inner character. Best known for hosting and performing comedy at local taprooms, he’s begun dipping his toes in local theatre. There’s ample evidence that comedians make good actors (and, conversely, that actors do a lousy job playing comedians) and Rowan’s name can be added to that list. He gives a very human performance as Merrick that recalls John Hurt’s brilliant work in the same-titled film. For those unfamiliar with the story, it’s the fact-based tale of John Merrick, the doctor who rescued him from his “freak show” existence, his life as a resident of London Hospital and his transformation into an A-list member of British society. The cast consists of Curtain Call regulars and Tabib guides them in doing good work, but it all comes down to Rowan’s believability as the title character. His commitment to Merrick - his physicality and his manner of speech - is admirable. More importantly, he brings Merrick’s humanity to the forefront, particularly in several very touching scenes with Segal/Kendall. The Elephant Man is an excellent example of how, while technical elements often play an important part in a production’s success, a strong central performance is what really makes a show.

There’s a certain segment of the “thea-tuh” community that turns its collective nose up at the mere mention of a mainstream, commercially-successful playwright. One of my most vivid college memories is of a member of the Theatre Arts faculty nearly having a stroke at the mention of the possibility of scheduling a Neil Simon play in the season. These artists often measure success by how badly attended their productions are, reveling in the confirmation of how unique and right they are about what is art and how wrong everybody else is. Director Jennifer King graciously admits to prescribing to some of these thoughts, till an actor who she greatly respects prodded her into taking a look at Simon’s The Odd Couple. The next thing she knew she was directing a production of it, now running at Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater. The Odd Couple may be the most post popular American play ever written. From its premier on Broadway over fifty years ago to the classic Jack Lemmon – Walter Matthau film to its current third incarnation as a prime-time television sitcom, The Odd Couple, with slight modifications (including a Saturday morning cartoon) endures. Why? Because it’s funny. The premise is simple – mismatched roommates. There’s a whole lot more than that, of course, but it’s with that now-classic premise to which most people can relate. Who hasn’t roomed with a Felix and/or Oscar at some point in their life? Who hasn’t been driven up a wall by a compadre’s peccadilloes? Who hasn’t reached out to help a friend and then turn around and want to kill him? Friendship is at the heart of The Odd Couple, male friendship in particular and King has cast the show with a group of guys who you can actually believe are friends. Nathan Cummings brings a gruff charm to Oscar and Aaron Wilton nails both the prissiness and heart of Felix. Both manage to avoid comparisons to Matthau/Lemmon & Klugman/Randall, with Wilton’s Felix wound a bit tighter than usual. Wilton may come off as a tad young to be playing the middle-aged Felix, but his character choices get you past that. They’re both fun to watch. A lot of the humor in the play comes from Felix and Oscar’s poker playing buddies, and King has cast these supporting roles as well as her leads. Tim Kniffin is very dry as accountant Roy. Tim Setzer, usually seem locally in musicals, is amusing as henpecked Vinnie. Zachary Stockton as the cigar-chewing, wise-cracking Speed is a man after my own heart with his laser-like focus on the game. Chad Yarish’s Murray the cop is the heart and soul of the group, managing to be funny and kind of sweet when it comes to caring about his friend Felix. Laughs also come via the Pigeon sisters (nicely played by Samantha Dakin and Morgan Harrington), a couple of British expatriates who are the source of the final conflict (and resolution) between Oscar and Felix. In a pre-show presentation, director King addressed the personal challenge of putting on a straight forward production and resisting the temptation to add any avant-garde elements. I can’t imagine this show done with a minimalist set instead of Joseph Elwick’s nicely designed NY apartment or everyone dressed in black instead of Skipper Skeoch’s nicely understated period dress. King met the challenge by simply sticking to the script and trusting her actors. While there are individual lines that seem dated ($280 a month for an eight room, New York City apartment?!) the show itself does not come off that way. Rooted in real relationships, it’s a funny look at the American male-psyche, still gloriously flawed after fifty years. \Cinnabar Theater’s The Odd Couple is an extremely enjoyable production of an American comedy classic. It plays weekends through April 23rd. For more information, go to cinnabartheater.org

Truly effective plays are often built on big ideas. And ideas don’t get much bigger than the Birth of America – or E = mc 2, which happen to be the subjects of two shows currently being performed by a pair of prominent Sonoma County theater companies. One’s a classic, rarely performed due to the monumental size of its cast, The other is brand new, notable for the minimalism of its scope, in the face of the gargantuan themes it dares to tackle. Let’s start with the classic - Spreckels Theater Company’s grand staging of Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards historical musical ‘1776,’ first produced in 1968. Telling the surprise-laden story of how America’s Declaration of Independence came to be signed, the production, under the direction of Larry Williams, combines a cast of nearly 30 actors, along with clever projections and elaborate, gorgeously detailed costumes. Not surprisingly, the show looks magnificent, and the somewhat longish tale — clocking in at just under three hours, with one intermission — only rarely loses its momentum. That’s really saying something for a show boasting just thirteen songs, only two or three dance numbers, and a “plot” - if that’s the word - in which impassioned political debate carries the bulk of the “action.” The story, fortunately, includes a Who’s Who of American historical figures. Jeff Coté plays John Adams, who – in May of 1776, is desperate to convince his fellow Continental Congress-members to separate from Great Britain. Coté is wonderful, fiery and fun, even if the singing does sometimes get away from him, pitch-wise. Adam’s chief supporters in seeking Independence are Benjamin Franklin, played by a thoroughly delightful Gene Abravaya, and the darkly moping Thomas Jefferson, David Strock. Then there’s the genial Richard Henry Lee, played by Steven Kent Barker, who shines in one of the show’s most rambunctious songs, ‘The Lees of Old Virginia’. It’s thorough-lee infectious, and if you think that joke is bad, wait till you hear the ‘Lee puns’ layered through the song itself. ‘1776’ is a massive undertaking, and Spreckels pulls it off with only a few bumps. Assisted by a large orchestra under the fine guidance of Lucas Sherman, Spreckels accomplishes a very difficult task with, as audiences will clearly see, far more grace and polish than the founding fathers showed in bringing our still struggling nation to life. On to another big idea. At Cinnabar Theater, Trevor Allen’s delightful ‘One Stone’ takes on Albert Einstein’s development of the Theory of Relativity — but approaches it on a much smaller scale than that with which Spreckels tackles 1776. Under the inventive direction of Elizabeth Craven, working on a simple stage suggesting a cluttered office, a single actor, Eric Thompson, represents Einstein’s Brain, his various discoveries and observations brought to life by a balletic puppeteer (Sheila Devitt) and an often-present violinist (Jennifer Cho). Elevators fall through space, bicycles scoot along at the speed of light, and much more. The miraculous thing about ‘One Stone’ is how emotionally powerful it is. With little in the way of actual plot, Allen’s words, plus Thompson’s exuberant performance, and the rich, magical puppetry of Devitt, all create a poetic space where Einstein’s ideas scamper about like curious children in a playground. ‘One Stone’ is consistently lovely, excitingly unconventional, and thoroughly extraordinary. ‘One Stone’ runs through February 19 at Cinnabar Theater, www.cinnabartheater.org. '1776' runs Friday–Sunday through Feb. 26 at Spreckels Performing Arts Center. www.sp[reckelsonline.com

Whatever else one has to say about the year 2016, for those in the North Bay who love live theater, it’s been an especially strong year. If you were willing to do your homework, make good choices, take some chances, and keep at it even after the occasional disappointment, there have been a high number of truly exceptional shows playing on local stages over the last 12 months. So what better way to end the old year and start the new one than by attending a party at one of our fine local theaters. It’s become a tradition, for some companies, to kick off their new year with a performance of the first show of that new year. Cinnabar Theater, in Petaluma, has turned the tradition into one of its best-attended fund-raisers of the year. This time, on Saturday night, December 31st, they’ll be launching another year-end gala with the first performance of the new one-woman musical “Sophie Tucker: Red Hot Mama.” Written and performed by acclaimed Tony-nominated actress Sharon McKnight, ‘Red Hot Mama’ tells the story of Sophie Tucker, the renowned burlesque, vaudeville and Broadway performer who made a name for herself with her tough-as-nails, bawdy and boozy songs and banter. The show features several of Tucker’s most famous songs, including ‘Red Hot Mama,’ “My Yiddishe Mama,” and “I Don’t Want to Be Thin.’ McKnight was nominated for a Grammy award for best supporting actress for the 1989 sci-fi musical ‘Starmites.’ Now a resident of Hollywood, she’s performed ‘Red Hot Mama’ all over the world. The show will have a full run at Cinnabar from January 6 – 22, but for those looking for a sexy and salacious way to sashay into the new Year, Cinnabar’s New Year’s Eve party will give a chance to see the show first, along with special musical entertainment, food and drinks, champagne and Auld Lang Syne. There’s just something about New Years and naughtiness. The other hot ticket for the New Years – so hot it had to be spread over two nights and three shows – is 6th Street Playhouse’s New Year’s Cabaret featuring Sandy and Richard Riccardi, performing their YouTube sensational songs about the weird side of life, love, politics and making it in a crazy world. The show runs once on December 30, at 8 p.m., and twice on New Year’s Eve, at 7 p.m. and again at 10, for those who want to be laughing at midnight when the calendar finally turns the page. To learn more and buy tickets, visit 6thsttreetplayhouse.com and/or cinnabartheater.org.

Have you ever noticed that most stories that appear, on the surface, to be all about death and dying, actually turn out to be all about life and living? It’s true. Think about Joan Didion’s memoir ‘The Year of Magical Thinking,’ or C.S. Lewis’s ‘A Grief Observed.’ What about Anne Tyler’s ‘The Accidental Tourist,’ or movies like ‘Heaven Can Wait,” ‘The Descendants,’ or Pixar’s ‘Up,’ or even plays like the recent ‘Fun Home’ and the obvious ‘Death of a Salesman.’ All of these stories use the inevitability of death and dying, and the trappings of grief, to cast a clear, comparative light on the many joys, privileges, and bittersweet consolations of surviving death, of finding a way through grief, of being alive. In such a spirit of philosophical death-musing comes Jane Alexander’s deliciously rich drama The Quality of Life, now playing at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. Featuring four superb performances, the play is a beautifully-crafted series of alternately heavy and lighthearted discussions about death and life, and everything in between—culminating in a gorgeous two-part climax that is at once breathtaking in its poetic simplicity and stunning in its blunt clear-eyed wisdom. Dinah and Bill—played by Susan Gundanas and Richard Pallaziol—are conservative Christians from the Midwest, each struggling in their own way with the recent brutal death of their teenage daughter. When Dinah learns that her cousin Jeanette—played by Elly Lichenstein—has lost her Northern California home in a wildfire, and that her husband Neil—James Pelican—is in the final stages of cancer, the straight-laced Midwesterners decide to visit their hippy-dippy in-laws, and are stunned to find their hard-hit in-laws living blissfully in a yurt beside the blackened and skeletal remains of their house. Dinah and Bill are in for another surprise when they learn that Neil, who inhales a great deal of pot as relief from the pain, plans to take his own life in a few weeks – after he and Jeanette throw one last blowout of a party. What perhaps sounds depressing and heavy is anything but in Anderson’s lovely, humor-filled script. In fact, the level of intellectual debate that unfolds between this oppositional foursome is at times exhilarating, as this mismatched foursome power through a list of hot-button topics, from medical marijuana and right-to-die issues to the question of whether God actually truly has a plan for our lives. The striking and unusual set, by Nina Ball, is truly impressive, all scorched timber at crazy angles on a patch of real dirt complete with a rather realistic campfire. And the lighting by Jon Tracy effectively gives a sense of time, from early morning to late evening. Taylor Korobow’s sensitive direction is unfussy and clean, focusing on building intensity through the ever-shifting relationships of the all-too-human characters. Though an unnecessary opening sequence, set to Bob Dylan’s It’s Not Dark Yet, is more confusing and odd than engaging, and mainly just serves to delay the start of the action, Korobow’s work with her actors is marvelous, drawing effective and dialed down performances that are powerful without pushing too hard. I encourage you to overlook what might sound like a downer, and take a chance on Quality of Life, a gripping, moving, funny and life affirming examination of the ways that death, ironically enough, does have ways to remind us that life, for all its shocks and snares and unhappy twists, really is worth living, and worth savoring, right to the end. ‘Quality of Life’ runs through October 30 at Cinnabar Theater, cinnabaretheater.org

It’s been twelve years since Stephen Walsh last played Tony the grape grower, in the classic Frank Loesser musical ‘The Most Happy Fella,’ at Cinnabar Theater. And to employ an over-picked cliché, in his second run of the show at Cinnabar, Walsh has only gotten better, deeper and rich—like a really, really good wine. The show itself—about romantic complications arising when the much older Tony, an Italian wine-maker in Napa, impulsively leaves a love letter for a San Francisco waitress—is a blend of fantasy romance and soap-opera heartbreak. It’s like something John Steinbeck might have written if asked to pitch an idea for a musical about love. Nicely directed by Elly Lichenstein, with her patented knack for filling the stage with things to look at, the production pivots on the performance of Walsh, who not only sings gorgeously, but nails the role of a love-struck sweetheart who believes he’s too old and unattractive to deserve happiness. Walsh makes Tony’s emotional journey so believable it’s impossible not be happy when happy and devastated when his desperate attempt at love hits snags, which it does from the very beginning. This is hardly light and fluffy musical material. There is real human drama here, and the music—with the exception of the poppy ear-worm ‘Standin’ on a Corner’— is complex and operatic, beautifully light and dark, bubbly and haunting, and occasionally a bit weird. This is the kind of show in which people sing whatever is in their soul, even if that means singing a single name over and over and over. As Amy—who Tony seems to think is named Rosabella—Jennifer Mitchell is charming. She’s especially strong in the early scenes where she is tricked—due to Tony having sent her a photo of his foreman instead of himself—into believing that her coffee shop pen-pal is the young and handsome guy she recognizes from the photo when she arrives at the Vineyard. She’s there in Napa, having impulsively agreed to marry the man she’s been swapping letters with. Mitchell sings beautifully, and plays the early flirtations of love and attraction to lovely effect. When she learns of the deception, a series of actions take place that steer the tale in the direction of tragedy, but never leaves us doubting that true love might somehow be possible for Tony, one way or another, no matter how unlikely. Michael Van Why, as Tony’s optimistic farmhand Herman, is magnificent—like the Scarecrow of Oz crossed with Curly from ‘Oklahoma’—and his guileless courtship of Amy’s friend Cleo—a power-force performance by Krista Wigle—is a nice balance to the rockier romance of Tony and his “Rosabella.” The music, played simply on two pianos and a set of drums, is nicely directed by Mary Chun. There are many reasons to see this show, but in the end, it all comes down to Walsh, who returns to a favorite role after a dozen years, and somehow makes it even better, giving one of the best performances of his career, and easily one of the North Bay’s best musical productions of 2016. ‘The Most Happy Fella’ runs through September 25 at Cinnabar Theater, www.cinnabartheater.org

War is not just about bombs and bullets and blood. It’s also about politics and position and power. Playwright Donald Margulies is not particularly interested in either the politics of war or the gory details of modern warfare. From his Pulitzer nominated play ‘Collected Stories’ to his Pulitzer-winning play ‘The Dinner Party,’ Margulies has always been interested in relationships, and the way extraordinary circumstance force people to peel away the beliefs and desires and secrets and lies around which their lives become wrapped. That is exactly what happens, brilliantly, in Margulies’ flawlessly observed comedy-drama Time Stands Still, running now at Cinnabar Theater. The achingly authentic adrenaline-junkies at the center of the play are very much interested in the politics and power of war, though to Sarah and Jamie, it’s much more than just a profession. It’s their reason for living—until a series of horrific events in a war-ravaged country returns them both to the states, one scarred mentally, one only physically. Photographer Sarah has only narrowly survived a car bombing in Iraq, an event that left her in a coma for several weeks. Her longtime journalist boyfriend Jamie (John Browning, also excellent) would have been with her, had he not suffered a war-stress breakdown and returned home alone several weeks before the explosion. As Sarah, Laura Lowry is excellent, balancing brittle fragility against steely resolve. Browning, for his part, portrays Jamie’s post-traumatic trauma with a nicely subdued sensitivity, instantly telling us that in witnessing one-too-many horrors, Jamie’s war addiction may have just been given exactly the right intervention it needed. But as he forcefully works to leave the battlefield behind—all but ignoring the book he’s agreed to write to accompany Sarah’s wartime photographs–Sarah, quite clearly, cannot wait to get back into harm’s way. Feeling caged by her own wounds, smothering under Jamie’s loving but stifling care, she struggles hard to regain a sense of normalcy in a world of polite conversation, dinner parties, theater performances—and the absence of constant physical danger. Adding further complications to the relationship with Jamie is her guilt over the death of Tariq, the America-loving Iraqi interpreter who died in the roadside bombing that almost killed her. Siding with Jamie is the couple’s friend-and-editor Richard—a spot-on John Shillington—and his much-younger new girlfriend Mandy, played by Ivy Rose Miller, who is brilliantly layered and full of surprises. Initially, Jamie and Sarah cannot understand what Richard sees in the chipper young event planner. Sheltered, but hardly lacking in grit, Mandy brings an outside perspective to that subtly but powerful alters the way these hardened professionals look at war, and their own participation in it. Director Sheri Lee Miller skillfully and gracefully guides the story forward with an emphasis on emotional authenticity, gradually building tension, and believable connections between her characters. Packed with gradual revelations and delightfully acerbic observations, supported by first-rate lighting, sound and set design, Time Stands Still is a remarkable, breathlessly beautiful achievement, as hopeful and healing as it is heartbreaking, intelligent and wise. ‘Time Stands Still ’ runs through April 17 at Cinnabar Theater, www.cinnabartheater.org I’m David Templeton, Second Row Center, for KRCB

The Nobel-prize winning novelist Edith Wharton once wrote, “There are two ways of spreading light—to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” Mirrors—and candles, too—are both the set dressing and driving metaphor in two recently opened plays, stories in which indelible women stand center-stage to take a good hard look at their world, their choices, and their own naked souls. One was written in the 1970s in South Africa, the other just a few years ago in New York City. Beyond the shows’ mutual use of mirrors, and the fact that the central characters are women, they have little in common, other than this: if you get a chance, you should really try to see them both. The first, set in a tiny South African community in 1974, is Athol Fugard’s three-actor drama The Road to Mecca—now running at Main Stage West. The play was inspired by the life of artist Helen Martins, though Fugard’s script takes fictional flights of fancy as mystical and inventive as the cement sculptures of owls and camels and elongated wisemen that Martins fashioned and surrounded her tiny rural house with. Martins, played with bone-weary specificity by Laura Jorgenson, is a lapsed Christian, once driven by the need to create, now trapped in a difficult space, intensely feeling the encroaching darkness she once fought by filling her yard with strangely beautiful creatures. She crams the interior of her house with mirrors, mosaics and hundreds of candles. Frail and uncertain, Helen seriously considers leaving her house and moving to a church-run retirement home, a move that is strongly supported by her one-time minister, Marius, played by John Craven. Marius has secretly loved Helen for years, despite her frightening displays of pagan art making, and worries for her safety as she grows older, also worrying deeply about the state of her soul. Opposing her move from the house is Martin’s schoolteacher friend Elsa, Ilana Niernberger, a strong supporter of Martin and a fierce opponent of the church. Elsa has just arrived from the city in a state of deep sadness and barely controlled rage and heartbreak, the reasons for which take most of the play to reveal themselves. The resulting three-way showdown comes in gradually building waves leading to an affecting, fiercely hard-won moment of awareness and self-resolution. The set, with it’s mirrors, mosaics and suggestions of sculptures, was designed by director Elizabeth Craven and David Lear, and it’s a marvel, as much a character as everyone else in this powerful play, a marvelous, thoughtful, deeply complex and human examination of the power of light, outside and in. Mirrors are equally prominent in Theresa Rebeck’s one-woman comedy-drama Bad Dates, now running at Cinnabar Theater. Starring Jennifer King, and directed by Molly Noble, this is a ferociously funny rollercoaster of a show, about a hard-working New York restaurant manager and single-mother named Hayley, who tells her story as she prepares herself for a series of dates, few of which turn out the way she hopes. Observing her reflection as she tries on an array of outfits, King’s marvelously performed “long-night of the soul” includes hilarious descriptions of each date-gone-wrong, and much more. As Hayley tells the story—which in the second act takes us to some truly surprising and unexpected places—she gradually realizes that finding a person to love won’t happen until she finally figures out what she really wants, and who she really is. ‘Road to Mecca’ runs Thursday–Sunday, through February 21 at Main Stage West. Mainstagewest.com. ‘Bad Dates’ runs through February 21 at Cinnabar Theater, cinnabartheater.org

“Sometimes,” exhorts actress Sharon E. Scott, stirringly embodying the rich voice and sassy-sweet attitude of the great Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. “Sometimes, God turns your life upside down—so you can help turn things right side up.” In the sensational, heartbreaking and soul-lifting biographical theater piece ‘Mahalia Jackson: Just As I Am’—running through January 24 at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma—Scott takes what might have been a straightforward story of an American church singer who became an international star, and creates something much richer than mere biography or impersonation. In a show that runs just over two-and-a-half hours, Scott—who wrote and directed the show—turns Mahalia Jackson’s tumultuous life upside down and sideways, singing nearly thirty of Jackson’s most memorable songs and hymns, all while giving us a sense of Jackson’s vibrant, indomitable style and personality. Simultaneously, she leads her audience through one of America’s most dramatic and moving social evolutions—the civil rights movement of the 1960s. With first-rate musical direction by Tammy Hall, who accompanies on piano, and assisted on stage by John Shillington in a variety of roles, Scott’s tribute to Jackson is sometimes feels a tad overstuffed, as if she was reluctant to leave any part of the story out. But just when the show seems to reach the full-to-the-brim point, Scott launches a series of emotional climaxes that are nothing short of stunning, transforming the show into tribute to the power of faith. Not just faith in the religious sense, but faith in the power of the human soul to transcend impossible obstacles. Known in her time as the Queen of Gospel, Mahalia Jackson had the power to turn even non-believers into full-fledged Gospel music fans, and with a voice as rich and full of emotion as a full-on Sunday service with lunch served afterwards, Scott makes her audiences believe by showing us how Mahalia did it. In addition to the Florida-based performer’s committed musical performances of songs like ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ and ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,’ she turns out to be a first-rate actor, attacking the many storytelling portions of the play with a luscious, laid-back warmth and depth of feeling that might make you believe you are being addressed by the real Mahalia Jackson. In the second act, when Jackson’s friendship with Martin Luther King is described, the play reaches a new plateau of dramatic tension and lyrical creativity. In one achingly gorgeous sequence, Scott intersperses verses of the song The Lord’s Player, with snippets of her own conversations with Dr. King. The power of the sequence is electrifying and deeply moving. Shillington proves an equally energetic force, playing recognizable and obscure figures from Mahalia’s life—various promoters, a frighteningly racist policeman, and even the great performer Danny Kaye. Most notably, as Mahalia’s lifelong friend and supporter Studs Terkel, the legendary radio personality and interviewer, Shillington serves as a kind of narrator, setting up the story, and finishing with a breathtaking eulogy to a true American original. “Mahalia Jackson: Just as I Am,” is a must see, as moving as it is ambitious, as inspirational as it is eye-opening. Mahalia Jackson: Just As I Am, runs through January 24 at Cinnabar Theater, cinnabartheater.org.

Let’s talk a little about New Year’s Eve. I know, I know. It’s not even Christmas yet. But given that some of the New Years Eve events I’m about to mention will be sold out by Christmas, I thought I’d better talk about them now, while you still have a chance to snap up a ticket. But first, let me offer a little perspective on the whole theme of New Year’s Eve traditions. Different people celebrate the turning of the year in different ways. In Canada, on New Year’s Eve, cities offer free public transportation. Not sexy, perhaps, as traditions go, but it’s certainly practical. In certain parts of Mexico, as the midnight bells strike twelve times, partiers eat twelve grapes—hopefully without choking—because they make a wish with each swallowed grape. In Albania, at precisely midnight on New Year’s, they make perfectly timed phone calls to wish each other a prosperous new year. Also not sexy, or particularly festive, but definitely warm and fuzzy and nice. It’s midnight. Let’s call Dad. I like it. Meanwhile in the San Francisco North Bay area . . . well, we do all kinds of things. Amongst them, it has become a certified tradition for theater companies to wrap a big happy New Years Eve party around a brand new theatrical production, often kicking off the next full run of their new show by debuting it on the 31st of December, followed by a champagne toast, confetti, cheers and a kiss or two. I like that too. Case in point: this New Year’s Eve, Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater (www.cinnabartheatre.org)—one of the first theater companies in the area to adopt the New Year’s Eve debut tradition—will be staging the first performance of their new show, Mahalia Jackson: Just as I Am. Written and performed by Sharon E. Scott, the show tells the story of America’s iconic blues and gospel singer, punctuating the tale with scorching renditions of Jackson’s best known songs. Cinnabar’s New Year’s Gala, running from $55-$66, begins at 9:00 p.m., and includes fancy pre-show desserts and champagne at midnight. Mahalia Jackson: Just as I Am, continues it’s run at Cinnabar through January 24. Over at Main Stage West in Sebastopol (www.mainstagewest.com), a bit of macabre mayhem will be added to the merriment on New Year’s Eve, as the esteemed theater launches Serial Murderess: A Love Story in Three Ax, Amanda Moody’s one-woman-show about a trio of famous female killers. Talk about drinking a cup of kindness … just make sure it’s not poisoned. Main Stage West’s first annual New Year’s Bash—cost $50, with the show beginning at 8:00 p.m.—includes food, drinks, a bit of murderous revelry, and the show itself. I suggest you dress to kill for this one. And finally, over at 6th Street Playhouse (www.6thstreetplayhouse.com), the New Year will kick in with a cabaret-style party and musical show—cost: $25-$40—featuring the return of Sandy and Richard Riccardi, the daft and daring duo whose charmingly satirical, tastefully raunchy songs have taken them to New York and back, and won them international acclaim on YouTube. There will be two shows, at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Food and drink will be available for purchase. These shows are actually much more than just a great way to kick off the New Year. Such special events are vital fundraisers; so even if you can’t make it out to your favorite theater, consider dropping off a tax-deductible donation as your way of saying Auld Lange Syne to support live theater in Sonoma County. Happy New Year, a little early, and here’s to a theatrically satisfying 2016.

1999 years ago, an unmarried teenage mother had a bad dream. The next morning, she decided to turn that dream into a short story. Over the next few months, that story evolved into a novel—and that novel changed the future of literature. The teenager was Mary Shelley, and her book was Frankenstein. As everyone knows, it’s the tale of a creature assembled from dead body parts and granted the spark of life. In playwright Trevor Allen’s stage adaptation The Creature, Shelley’s original story is taken apart at the seams and reassembled into something entirely new. The Creature, now running at Cinnabar Theater, is daring, inventive, and artful—but problematic. Director Jon Tracy mixes up a meta-theatrical cocktail of misty atmosphere and sheer chance-taking guts, staging Allen’s minimalist take on the novel using only a trio of chairs, a snowy slab of white for a set, a leather journal—and three actors. Eschewing special effects, action scenes and monster makeup, the three barefooted narrators are: Victor Frankenstein (played by popular local actor Tim Kniffin) Captain Walton (played by Richard Pallaziol), and the Creature himself (Robert Parsons). Each character takes turns telling their side of the story in a long string of beautiful words. Unlike the novel—a tale within a tale within a tale—Allen places the narratives side by side, simultaneously, with the narrative bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball every sentence or two. Confusion and exhaustion are just some of the by-products of this fiendish experiment. By breaking each man’s tale into such tiny fragments, the power of Shelley’s original story is almost entirely diminished, literally smashed to pieces. As Walton, the ships captain who discovers Victor Frankenstein near the North Pole and takes his deathbed confession, Pallaziol is quite good, and Kniffin, as the dying mad scientist, nicely captures the last-gasp desperation of the character. But in delivering his entire story in a steady, near-lifeless monotone, the emotional arc of Frankenstein’s horrific personal journey becomes one-note, sadly hammered flat and cold. As the Creature, Parsons is served the best, and he brings an impressive sense of wounded dignity to the role of an abandoned child, but in the script, Allen goes too far in trying to make the character sympathetic, even altering the details of the Creature’s various murders. In a deliberate deviation from Shelley’s text, Allen turns each murder—including the calculated framing of an innocent woman—into simple, unintentional accidents. While such story and plot changes may go unnoticed by those unfamiliar with the novel, they do matter, throwing off the balance of the drama, robbing the story of much of its complexity. On the plus side, Tracy’s set is beautifully done—a sloping swath of snow that runs across the stage and curves up the wall and out of sight. And the lovely light design (also Tracy) and sound design (Jared Emerson Johnson) all set the mood beautifully. Still, though fascinating and visually haunting, this Creature—despite the best intentions of its talented creator—turns out to be less than the sum of its parts. ‘The Creature’ runs through Nov. 1 at Cinnabar Theater www.cinnabartheater.org

There’s no denying it. Music is a powerful force. Music can express the deepest of human emotions. And there are, obviously, many different styles and forms of music. One could easily make the argument that no two forms of musical expression better convey the depth of human feeling than do OPERA and the mighty SPRITUALS that grew out of slavery and the African-American experience. Right now, two different opportunities await you in the Bay Area to experience the power of both musical forms. Let’s start with opera. In Giuseppe Verdi’s "Falstaff," the last of 30 operas the Italian composer wrote in the late 1800s, the emotional and financial stakes are high for everyone, but the comedy is as broad as the girth of its title character. Now running in an intimate English-language adaptation at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma, the story of Falstaff is borrowed from William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. The debt-ridden Sir John Falstaff - played with delightful expressiveness by Jo Vincent Parks - is a plus-sized inebriate with an exaggerated appreciation for his own attractiveness and charm. When he runs out of money with which to pay his bills, including the tab for all the beer and food he ingests, Falstaff attempts to solve his money problems by seducing two different local married women, Mrs. Ford - played by Eileen Morris, who practically glows with charm and mischief - and Mrs. Page - Kim Anderman, quite good as the less flashy of the two wives. Both merry wives are beautiful and, most importantly, rich. When they discover Falstaff is courting both of them, they launch a scheme to expose and embarrass Falstaff. Their plan is complicated by certain subplots - one involving Mrs. Ford’s jealous husband (William Neely, who’s hilarious), the other involving the sweet, secret love affair between the Ford’s daughter Nannetta and a poor local boy. As directed by Elly Lichenstein, who brings plenty of wicked silliness and disarming funny business to the story - aided by strong musical direction from Mary Chun - "Falstaff" is classic fluff, but it’s fluff with tremendous heart and some spectacular operatic melodies. Melody and heart are traits shared by the brilliant, beautifully written, flawlessly acted "Choir Boy," by Tarell Alvin McCraney. Directed with stunning intensity by Kent Gash at Marin Theatre Company, the play is set at the fictional Charles Drew Prep School for Boys, a prestigious all-black boarding school. As a new year begins, tensions boil when the all-but-openly gay student Pharus - a stunningly good Jetani Alladin - is made the leader of the school’s all-important a cappella choir. The choir presents classic black spirituals in contemporary arrangements, and the uplift they give Pharus, a true believer in the power of music, helps guide him through what turns out to be a very rocky year. The music, by the way, is awesome, with the cast all able of blending into some jaw-dropping harmonies. A coming-of-age story with tremendous insight and lovingly observed characters, this lyrical thought-poem of a play is not just about bullying and prejudice and homophobia. Yes. It touches on those things, but at its heart "Choir Boy" is about friendship and self-acceptance. Wonderfully crafted and beautifully staged, "Choir Boy" is about what happens when a person is finally accepted for who they are. It’s about the transcendent power of a simple song, and the power of a single voice when they are finally allowed to sing from the heart. "Choir Boy" runs Tuesday–Sunday through June 28 at Marin Theatre Company. www.marintheatre.org. "Falstaff" runs through June 28 at Cinnabar Theater, www.cinnabartheater.org I’m David Templeton, Second Row Center, for KRCB.

Well, Monday night was a good night for North Bay theater people. At the 39th annual San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Awards, a batch of Sonoma County theaters were honored, with some very talented actors, directors and theater artists walking the steps up to claim awards for their work in 2014. Winners included Denise Elia-Yen for her snappy portrayal of Annie Oakley in Spreckel’s Performing arts Center’s brilliantly presented production of "Annie Get Your Gun." Other North Bay actresses who picked up awards included Abbey Lee, honored for her outrageous portrayal of an oversexed gangster’s moll in "Victor/Victoria," and Rebekkah Pearson for playing the title role in "Thoroughly Modern Mille," both of those shows at 6th Street Playhouse. 6th Street saw a few more of its artists win awards: Anthony Guzman and Evan Attwood both picked up wins for "Thoroughly Modern Mille," and for the same show Joseph Favalora was honored for his choreography. And back to Spreckels, Mary Gannon Graham was awarded for her splendidly goofy turn as a wacky modern day witch in "Bell, Book and Candle," and Jeff Coté picked up a win for the title role in Gene Abravaya’s "The Book of Matthew (Liebowitz)." Oh, and Janis Wilson won for musical direction of "Annie get Your Gun." Main Stage West, in Sebastopol, also saw a few wins, beginning with singer-songwriter Si Kahn, for best original music for his show "Mother Jones in Heaven." Also honored were Tyler Costin for his fine work in "Vanya and Sonja and Masha and Spike," and for Albert Casselhoff, for his sound design on "T.I.C. (Trenchcoat in Common)." And for Cinnabar Theater, the love continued with wins for Mary Chun, for her musical direction of last year’s "Fiddler on the Roof," with the entire cast of "Of Mice and Men" winning for best ensemble. And speaking of love, local actor, writer, director Dezi Gallegos, who’s just nineteen, picked up a special award, the first ever Annette Lust Award, given to young theater artists who show incredible promise and potential. His acceptance speech, promising to find the next young dreamer and help them follow their passions, had the audience crying and cheering. That’s just a few of the winners in the North Bay. For the full list, go to the Cristics Circle website at S-F-B-A-T-C-C dot.org, standing, of course, for San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle. And while we’re celebrating the art of theater, let me just mention two upcoming shows about the art of theater, in one form or another. Opening this weekend, down in San Rafael, is a little thing called "[Title of Show], in brackets." It’s a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical, and when they invite two talented women to join them, it becomes a show about four people creating a musical about four people creating a musical, and then there are songs. Songs about writing songs. As it so happens, the cast of four were ALL nominated for awards Monday night, for previous works, and two of them, including the aforementioned Abbey Lee. It runs March 13-28 at Belrose theater, presented by Marin Onstage, marinonstage.com. The show sounds like a blast, as does "Deathtrap," opening in a couple of weeks at Spreckels performing arts Center. It’s the story of dueling playwrights who might just be trying to kill each other. It runs March 20 through April 5. Who knows, maybe next year these shows will be picking up awards of their own. And either way, as was recently stated, theater awards are just a party game. Getting to make theater, that’s the real party. I’m David Templeton, Second Row Center, for KRCB.

Twelve years ago, journalist and playwright Doug Wright unveiled a new one-actor play with a curious name: "I Am My Own Wife." As a member of the Tectonic Theater, which had earlier premiered the ground breaking play "The Laramie Project," Wright was fully adept at the process of creating documentary style theater, a play that built from actual interviews with people who lived the experiences being recreated on stage, actors performing real-life characters using the actual words collected in the interview. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and travel was permitted into East Berlin for the first time since 1961, word began to spread about a woman named Charlotte Von Mahlsdorff, an elderly antique dealer who ran a museum in her home. Charlotte was an openly transgender woman; people then referred to her as a transvestite. When Doug Wright learned that a transgender woman had somehow survived not only the communist regime of East Germany, but the Nazis before that, he set out to build a play around her experiences, using actual interviews, which he taped face-to-face over the course of a few years. Wright decided to emphasize the play’s tale of isolation and endurance by having all 40 characters, including himself and Charlotte, played by one single actor. The result, "I Am My Own Wife," is as much Wright’s journey as it is Charlotte Von Mahlsdorff’s, something much deeper, richer, complex and mysterious than a mere survivor story. It premiered on Broadway in 2003, winning the Tony for Best new play, and going on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2006, working with director Jennifer King, North Bay Actor Stephen Abbott tackled ‘I Am My Own Wife’ at Sonoma County Repertory Theater, a brilliantly-staged performance that played sell-out crowds. Four years later, Abbott and King remounted the show at Spreckels Performing Arts Center, with similar results. And now, nine years after first playing Charlotte Von Mahlsdorff, Abbott is doing it once again, this time at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. While it seems impossible to improve upon perfection, Abbott is doing just that. He is once again working with director King, who recently visited Germany and toured the real-life home and museum of Von Mahsldorff, who died in 2002 at the age of 74. That up-close-and-personal touch has only deepened the show, King introducing tiny details on which Abbott builds his characters, each one a bit more real, more clearly defined and complicated than ever. Regardless of how one ultimately feels about Von Mahlsdorff, and the questions of how she actually survived her years under brutal totalitarian regimes, this is an impressive work of art. Was she telling the truth with stories of killing her Nazi father with a rolling pin and turning a beloved gay friend over to the communists at his request? Did she really operate a gay brothel under the eyes of one of the most oppressive governments in history? Some of her stories are easier to swallow than others. Perhaps it was her ability to tell tall tales, to spin the truth her own way, part of what allowed her to survive in such an impossible set of situations? Either way, Abbott fully embodies the heart and soul of this extraordinary human being, showing her from the inside out, along with scores of the family, friends, soldiers, neighbors, customers, journalists and visitors she met along the way. As an extraordinary feat of first-rate theater, "I am My Own Wife" is a must see. As an inspiring, true-ish tale of living as your heart guides you, existing by your own rules, it could even, for some, be nothing short of life-changing. "I Am My Own Wife" runs through February 22 at Cinnabar theater, cinnabartheater.org.

In Victorian England, the unhappy wife of a repressed doctor yearns to feel alive - and finally takes matters into her own hands. In an imaginary steam-punk version of Victorian England, a band of brave, opera-singing women similarly yearn to be happy, free - and a little bit naughty - and they make it happen through the power of song. In East Berlin, Germany, a mysterious woman with a powerful secret survives against impossible odds, ultimately becoming an inspiration to a young American journalist. She survives through the power of her own belief in herself. In three productions either currently running or about to open in the North Bay, the concept of “gender” is just the tip of the iceberg in stories that challenge us, the audience, to look beneath the surface of some amazing human beings - some real, some fictional - all with something to show us we might not be expecting. Let’s start with "Heroines," opening tomorrow night at Sonoma State University. This one is a brand new original musical review featuring classic operetta tunes from the likes of Bertolt Brecht, Franz Lehar, Gilbert & Sullivan and others. It was created by musical director Lynn Morrow and stage director Jane Irwin Hammett, who appropriately titled their piece, "Heroines." Set during a time of radical change in England, when women were demanding the vote and a whole lot more, the piece pulls famous females from out of other stories and throws them all together. Due to a magical twist of time, these women from various centuries join forces to express their feelings through indelible songs borrowed from shows like "The Threepenny Opera," "The Merry Widow," and other musical masterpieces, and number from the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. In a fantasy version of London, these iconic characters come together in a city blending visuals from Dickens with ideas from Jules Verne, joining their hearts and voices in a revolutionary effort to break the shackles of tradition and inequality. Sounds fun, huh? New shows deserve our support, and SSU, in recent years, has made a strong effort to present at least one original show a year. And with voices recruited from SSU’s Departments of Music and Theater Arts & Dance, this is a production that probably will sound like a blast of pure operatic dynamite - and then some. Meanwhile, At Cinnabar Theater, Doug Wright’s Pulitzer-winning one-actor drama "I Am My Own Wife" introduces audiences to a different kind of heroine: the real-life Charlotte von Mahlsdorff, a transgender woman whose courage - and possibly a bit of treasonous duplicity - allowed her to escape Hitler’s concentration camps, and survive, in her own way, operating a small museum under the noses of her enemies, all during the communist party’s decades-long reign of suspicion and terror. I’ll be reviewing it in full next week. And finally, there’s Sarah Ruhl’s eye-opening drama, "In the Next Room," subtitled, "The Vibrator Play." This is a daring move for the usually fairly reserved Raven Players. The play looks at the marriage of a late Victorian woman and her husband, a doctor specializing in the treatment of hysterical women. He has been using a new treatment, made possible through the power of electricity, which seems to leave his patience extremely happy, and eager for their next appointment. It only his wife could become the focus of his attentions, she - and maybe even he - could find what is missing in their lives. Gorgeously written by Ruhl, it’s a love story with a jolt of raw truth, another story of what happens when strong women are given the power they need to take control of their own destinies, their own happiness, their own world. "I Am My Own Wife" runs February 6-22 at Cinnabar Theater, cinnabartheater.org. "Heroines" runs February 5-15 in the Evert B. Person Theater at Sonoma State University, Sonoma.edu. "In the Next Room" (or "The Vibrator Play") runs through February 14 at Raven Theater, Raventheater.org

It’s awards season, and everyone’s talking about who got nominated and who didn’t. And no, I’m not talking about the Oscars. Last week, the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle announced the nominees for its upcoming 29th annual awards ceremony, to be held Monday March 9, at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco. After decades of neglect from the Circle, which simply has had a majority of writers working and watching shows in the City, the East Bay and South Bay, the poor North Bay, and especially Sonoma County, has recently been enjoying a gradual shift in attention from the Circle, of which I am a member. Last year, there were actually a fair number of wins for a few surprised actors, directors and stage artists from North of the Golden Gate. With this year’s announcements though, it’s as if some sort of theatrical earthquake has hit the area, changing the geography so much that even Main Stage West, in far-from-the-Bridge Sebastopol got a number of well-deserved nominations. The reason for the change? It’s a mix of factors, one being simply that more North Bay theater critics have joined the circle of late, at the same time that the ranks of the circle have been declining due to attrition and other factors. So the odds once stacked impenetrably against Sonoma County theater artists are, for the time being, somewhat in our favor. There are, in fact, too many local names to mention all of them here, though I will point out a few highlights, and let you look for yourselves, if you find yourself curious. I’ll give the link to the Critics Circle web site in just a minute. Focusing primarily on Sonoma County, congratulations are due to Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater, snapping up 22 nominations, including a Best Director nod for Sheri Lee Miller, for last year’s spectacular "Of Mice and Men," which also got nominations for Samson Hood for best Principle actor in a play, who played Lennie in the production also nominated for best show and best ensemble. Cinnabar was also awarded several nominations for its production of "The Marriage of Figaro," and for "Fiddler on the Roof," the latter snapping up a nomination for best principle actress for Elly Lichenstein and Best principle actor for Stephen Walsh. Nineteen nominations were awarded to Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse including several for choreography in a musical - congrats to Stacie Ariaga and Joseph Favalora for their work on "Grease" and "Victor/Victoria," both for Stacie, and "Thoroughly Modern Milly," that one for Joe. 6th Street also several got nominations for acting, including a much-deserved nomination for Abbey Lee, stealing every scene and dazzling audience with her hilarious strip-tease seduction in "Victor Victoria," and Larry Williams, doing the same thing, sort of, with exhausting-to-watch energy in the comedy "Boing Boing." Other acting nominations include one for Trevor Hoffman who played Kinicki in 6th Street’s production of "Grease." Other companies honored are Spreckels Performing Arts Center, with a whopping 25 nominations, including acting nods for members of "The Book Of Matthew Liebowits," "Annie Get Your Gun," "Oliver!," and "Bell, Book and Candle," and "Scrooge the Musical". Then there’s Main Stage West, with fourteen nominations, including one for Mary Gannon Graham for her work in "Mother Jones in Heaven," directing nods for Sheri Lee Miller for "T.I.C. Trenchcoat in Common" and Beth Craven for "Yankee Tavern," and acting nominations for Sheri Lee Miller (a good year for her) for her work in "Other Desert Cities," which also got nominations for Sharia Pierce. Whew! These names are just the tip of the iceberg. To read them for yourself, and get info on how you can attend and cheer on our local heroes, go to the website at SFBATCC.ORG, those being, of course, the initials of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle. Check it out.

It’s a new year, and as the North Bay theater community prepares to launch its first shows of 2015, Cinnabar Theater, in Petaluma, has already unveiled its newest show, and I mean new. "Edith Piaf: Under Paris Skies" is an original commission, assembled from scratch for Cinnabar Theater, and though its creators are better known as performers than authors, I predict their clever, moving, raunchy, mysterious, funny, sad and seductive little musical theater piece will definitely have a life beyond Cinnabar, or should, if there is any justice in the world. Written by Michael Van Why and Valenitna Osinski, with additional work by translator Lauren Lundgren, "Edith Piaf: Under Paris Skies" is primarily a musical revue, blending many of the legendary French cabaret singer’s best-known songs with a number of obscure treasures from the far reaches of her repertoire. The songs are sensitively and cleverly blended with biographical vignette’s, adapted mainly from the memoir’s of Piaf’s sister Simone, played with world-weary panache by Melissa Weaver, who also directs the shopw with endlessly entertaining creativity. Simone appears as a kind of narrator/spirit guide through the show, commenting on but also interacting with Piaf. In the show’s most interesting artistic choice, Piaf is played by four different performers - two female, two male - each embodying a different aspect of Piaf’s character. Osinski, for example, is Reckeless Piaf, while Van Why plays Jaded Piaf. Joining them are Julia Hathaway as Romantic Piaf, and Kevin Singer as Traditional Piaf. Piaf’s life was a rough one, and the script does not shy away from that, with language and sexual references that are suitably appropriate to the kind of hard-drinking, hard-hitting life she rose from, and eventually fell back to. That the creators of the show chose not to turn Piaf into a singer-makes-good saint is one of the strengths of the show. Through the four aspects of Piaf’s personality, demonstrated through songs that chart her growth as a writer and as a defiant, love-struck, frail but also fearless human being, we get a better sense of who this woman was and what she achieved than any traditional biographical piece would do. The music, performed by a tight stage band under the direction of Robert Lunceford and Al Haas, is sensational, all of it arranged by the directors, who had almost no printed sheet music to work with. The first act is perhaps a bit too long, with a few too many songs crammed in, but the second act, which includes the stories of Piaf’s doomed love affair with a prizefighter and her stint in an asylum. Flies along on a wave of dramatic power, aided by some of the show’s strongest musical pieces, including Piaf’s signature song La Vie en Rose. That song, a sweet and melancholy description of love in all its openhearted vulnerability, has lasted for decades, pretty much defining Piaf’s commitment to the kind of love she dreamed of but never found. Here’s hoping that audiences will find "Edith Piaf: Under Paris Skies," and that it will have a life as rich and memorable as the woman who inspired it. "Edith Piaf: Under Paris Skies" runs through January 18 at Cinnabar Theater. Cinnabartheater.org

In the episode "World Premieres," Spark talks to John O'Keefe, a San Francisco playwright who's been on the scene for decades. From the first draft to final rehearsals, from his home in the artist community Project Artaud to the stage at Cinnabar Theater, watch the development of his new play, "Queer Theory," set to make its world premiere in Petaluma.