Aisle Seat Review: Independent Reviews and News on Bay Area Arts, Destinations, and Lifestyle.
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By Joanne Engelhardt Palo Alto Players’ current production of the musical version of the beloved Roald Dahl book, Matilda is a bit of a mixed bag. While there are odd bits to enjoy – most especially Doug Santana’s uproarious acting and buxom look as the school’s old bag principal, Miss Agatha Trunchbull – there are …
Continue reading “ASR Theater ~~ Palo Alto Players’ “Matilda” A Mixed Bag”
By Joanne Engelhardt It’s a miracle that Mountain View’s tiny Pear Theatre pulls off the complex staging required for the insanely wacky Michael Frayn comedy Noises Off. Some may recall that Frayn’s 1982 play was made into a film a decade later with Carol Burnett playing the role of the housekeeper Mrs. Clackett/Dotty who keeps …
Continue reading “Pick ASR Theater ~~ Prepare to Die Laughing at Pear Theatre’s “Noises Off””
By Joanne Engelhardt Seeing Kinky Boots at City Lights Theater in San Jose is a little like witnessing a 2 ½-hour earthquake: It’s guaranteed to shake you right down to your boots, shoes, slippers or whatever else you’re currently wearing on your feet. The much-acclaimed musical starts out rather innocently, with a young white boy …
Continue reading “PICK! ASR Theater ~~ Top-Notch Fun with “Kinky Boots” at SJ’s City Lights Theater”
By Joanne Engelhardt A strange musical production with an equally strange history is currently on stage at The Pear Theatre in Mountain View. Falsettos is an impressive undertaking for a small theatre which seldom offers musicals in its season. First, there’s a four-piece band, led by conductor Val Zvinyatskovsky, playing in a tiny second-story balcony. …
Continue reading “ASR Theater ~~ “Falsettos” – A Mixed Bag at The Pear Theatre”
By Joanne Engelhardt If you’ve never read a Harry Potter book or seen any of the movies based on the books, then how will you understand Puffs, a play written in 2015 by New York-based playwright Mike Cox? One suggestion: Bring along a 13-year-old to enlighten you. In any event, the full title of Cox’s …
By Joanne Engelhardt Make no mistake: The women of Chinquapin parish are as delicate as magnolias – but as tough as steel. That’s why Robert Harling’s play, Steel Magnolias has endured since it first premiered in New York in 1987. Two years later, it was made into a movie featuring a whole lineup of Academy …
Continue reading “ASR Theater ~~ Funny and Sweet: TheatreWorks’ “Steel Magnolias””
By Joanne Engelhardt For its current production of Sunday in the Park with George, Los Altos Stage Company turned its proscenium into a gold frame – a very large gold frame, thanks to the efforts of scenic designer Skip Epperson. The James Lapine-Steven Sondheim musical gets a credible showing at LASC, despite the relatively small …
Continue reading “ASR Theater ~~ Pointillism on Point in LASC’s “Sunday in the Park with George””
By Joanne Engelhardt When you’ve never watched one single cartoon episode of Spongebob Squarepants, you’re at a bit of a disadvantage seeing the latest Palo Alto Players production, The Spongebob Musical. No matter. The set is so full of spectacular lights, sounds and moving parts, the characters are so darn silly (but likeable), the musical …
By Joanne Engelhardt The astonishing thing about The Producers is that no matter how many times you’ve seen it, its inane characters, its music and its heart still catch you by surprise. Mel Brooks, writer of the book, music, and lyrics, is a legendary master of this kind of comedy. Running at Foster City’s Hillbarn …
Continue reading “PICK! ASR Theater ~~ “The Producers” Still Enthralls at Hillbarn”
By Joanne Engelhardt The Pear Playwrights Guild is made up of about fifteen playwrights, although five more are currently listed as “on leave.” Of the fifteen active playwrights, seven wrote short plays for this year’s Pear Slices, at Mountain View’s Pear theater. (Two wrote two each, making a total of nine short plays. The plays …
Continue reading “ASR Theater ~~ “Pear Slices” 2023: A Mixed Bag of Offerings”
By Joanne Engelhardt A wonderfully inviting library located exactly on the border between a small town in northern Vermont and a Quebecoise town is the setting for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s production of A Distinct Society. There’s a cozy children’s nook filled not only with children’s books but also pint-sized furniture, an abacas and a couple …
Continue reading “ASR Theater ~~ TheatreWorks’ “A Distinct Society” a Vague Memory of Long Ago”
By Joanne Engelhardt Los Altos Stage Company’s executive artistic director Gary Landis came up with a winning formula for their production of Harold and Maude, which opened April 14 and runs through May 7. Landis relates that he decided to include Harold and Maude in the 2022-23 season because it was the 50th anniversary …
Continue reading “Pick! ASR Theater ~~ LASC’s Exquisite “Harold and Maude””
By Joanne Engelhardt Topher Payne’s 2014 production Perfect Arrangement seems horribly out of date even though written a scant nine years ago. That’s why it’s surprising that Foster City’s Hillbarn Theatre and director Tyler Christie decided to make it part of the 2022-23 season. Although it’s played mostly for laughs – as in I Love …
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By Joanne Engelhardt You know you’re in for a story about the plight of Southern Black people when you take your seat in the Lucie Stern Theater in Palo Alto for Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer and see signs all over the theater walls with slogans like “Folks died so you …
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By Joanne Engelhardt There’s nothing like a relatively small theater to enable audiences to appreciate the wonder, the magic and the magnificence of Stephen Sondheim’s way with words. That’s what’s in store for anyone lucky enough to get a ticket to the current Foothill Theatre Arts production of Into the Woods, running through March 19 …
By Joanne Engelhardt Horrible topic. Terrible timing. Yet when Hillbarn Theatre’s production of Assassins opened last weekend, it was, in a word, spellbinding. Imagine watching the incredibly talented Andre Amarotico kill President Abraham Lincoln a few days after the news of the seven farm workers shot in Half Moon Bay. Amarotico’s acting skills are so …
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By Joanne Engelhardt When you have as versatile an actor as Dave J. Abrams playing Buddy the Elf, it’s impossible to go wrong. Director Randy Ohara can justifiably be pleased with his new hit Elf, the Musical, running through Dec. 18 at the Foster City theater. This young man – locally educated at UC Berkeley …
By Joanne Engelhardt An enchanting Belle, a handsome, muscular Gaston and snappy choreography. What could go wrong? A few things, actually, although the large opening night audience at the Palo Alto Players’ production of Beauty and the Beast probably didn’t notice. In fact, after the big Act 1 production number “Belle” — featuring the entire …
By Joanne Engelhardt Who doesn’t love a “whodunit?” Audiences revel in the idea of trying to figure out which one of a number of suspects is the culprit. And who is the Queen of that genre? Agatha Christie, of course. Director Brad Friedman and Coastal Repertory Theatre in Half Moon Bay figured it was a safe …
Continue reading “PICK! ASR Theater ~~ Coastal Rep’s Engrossing “Murder on the Nile””
By Joanne Engelhardt Although the Pear Theatre in Mountain View is currently offering two 90-minute plays in repertoire through Oct. 2, one far outshines the other, most likely because one of them was written by a more experienced playwright. Jen Silverman’s “Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties” is practically a laugh-a-minute as the lives …
Continue reading “ASR Theater ~~ Amusing Back-to-back Productions at Pear Theatre”
By Joanne Engelhardt Rose– as in Mama Rose, the ball-busting lead character of the much-performed and universally loved musical “Gypsy,” is obviously a force to be reckoned with. But when that role is played by the phenomenally talented Stephanie Prentice, whose full-throated vocals can likely be heard at least several blocks away, it’s definitely worth …
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By Joanne Engelhardt With a bushel of fresh-faced, multi-talented kids, Palo Alto Players has a hit on its hand with the broad comedy “School of Rock,” playing through Sept. 11 at Lucie Stern Theater. Sure, there are tons of hackneyed caricatures in “Rock,” the kind that Julian Fellows creates here. In fact, almost all the …
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Our Writers Kris Neely is ASR’s Founder, Owner, and Editor-in-Chief. Kris served as a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle (SFBATCC) and also served as a Theater Bay Area (TBA) Adjudicator. He is a stage director who earned an SFBATCC Best Director award (Lend Me a Tenor, Ross Valley Players) in …