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Continue reading →: Review: ‘Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce’ at the Curran is deliciousThere is an awful lot happening in a Taylor Mac show. By Mac’s sustainability standards, the wonderfully poignant and joyous two-plus hour piece “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce” is obviously not the length of Mac’s prior efforts, most notably the 24 hours of music performance a year ago in New York…
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Continue reading →: Review: Hope and devastation make for the perfect storm in Nilaja Sun’s ‘Pike St.’ at Berkeley RepWhen you watch solo artist extraordinaire Nilaja Sun move through space, her brilliance isn’t always in what you see. The true greatness lies in what she herself is seeing. This is what struck me so deeply as I witnessed her move with a slippery fluidity in and out of each…
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Continue reading →: ‘Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce’ at the Curran features a ‘Ray’ of musical lightFor the past 10 years, Matt Ray has had a front row seat to a genius performer in the literal sense. And in an example of incredible staying power, one of those seats lasted for 24 hours straight. That’s because Ray has served as the music director to Macarthur Genius…
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Continue reading →: Sun rises at Berkeley Rep: Solo performer shares stories of devastation and hope in ‘Pike St.’Upon arriving in Berkeley this past weekend, performer, playwright and teaching artist Nilaja Sun was harshly reminded of the pain and suffering of a natural disaster. The beautiful, blue Bay Area sky was replaced by something out of the twilight zone, thick smoke pushed south from the punishing fires in…
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Continue reading →: Theatre Capsules: Immersive in the City, Circus in the Town, and a new company rises in the EastThree capsules to capture some new and exciting events in the Bay Area’s theatre scene… CROWDED FIRE, EMN AND AXIS JOIN ARTISTIC FORCES Multiple arts organizations are gathering together this weekend in order to present an immersive, multidisciplinary arts experience. San Francisco’s Crowded Fire Theatre along with playwright Star Finch…
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Continue reading →: Altizio finds balance with Polly in Bay Area Musicals’ ‘Crazy for You’At first glance, George and Ira Gershwin’s classic show “Crazy for You” seems a lot older than it is. Its base is built from the catalogue of arguably the greatest brother duo songwriting team in music history, a team who owned the 20s and 30s.The show’s three Tony Awards, including…
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Continue reading →: Arabian Shakes’ gets physical with Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’There is no one way to direct a play written by William Shakespeare. What is thrilling about directing a work by the Bard is that it’s an empty canvas. Stage directions in the text are minimal, and potential of the show is only limited by the creativity of the director…
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Continue reading →: Review: Powerful ‘Fairview’ at Berkeley Rep asks for truthIf you could be another race, what would you be? Well, it seems like it would be pretty cool to be Black. But not like, rich and educated Black, because that would be less authentic. Asian would be nice, except for all those expectations and stress. And hey, being Latin…
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Continue reading →: Review: TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s ‘Fun Home’ soarsBruce (James Lloyd Reynolds) shares a piece of treasure with his daughter Small Alison (Lila Gold), a memory that Alison (Moira Stone) draws at her drafting table in “Fun Home,” through Oct. 28th. (Kevin Berne photo) “Sometimes the fire burns so hot, I don’t know what to do.” – Bruce…
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Continue reading →: Family loyalty is tested in Halfnight’s ‘The Resting Place’ at the MagicPeople who commit horrific crimes and engage in criminal behavior don’t just have a whole new litany of problems as a result of their terrible choices. They also have family members who scramble to figure out what went so wrong, and a new reality for those families – attachment to…
David John Chávez
Bay Area theater critic/reporter, Executive Chair – American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association, Two-time Pulitzer Prize for Drama jurist (’22-’23). Follow me on socials and say hi! #hellatheatre
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