Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

ACT’s `Rainmaker’ shakes, rattles and pours Two ½ stars Dusty and dreamy You’ve got to hand it to American Conservatory Theater. When reviving a musty old relic like N. Richard Nash’s 1954 melodrama The Rainmaker, you need to something to shake it up, and having a 5.6 earthquake during the opening moments of opening night [...]

Last night I attended a screening of Disney’s big holiday movie, Enchanted, and I have to say, I was pretty charmed by the notion of a classic Disney animated feature turned on its head and morphed into a modern-day, live-action musical. The trailer gives you a pretty good idea what the movie’s all about: The [...]

Frequent Theater Dogs commenter Tracy recommends the somewhat controversial CBS series “Kid Nation.” You’d think, as an elementary school teacher, her days would be full enough of kid nations. Here’s what she has to say (and thank you, Tracy, for the contribution). You’d think I’d get enough of kids from teaching and parenting, but no, [...]

Hey, Theater Dogs — it’s time to check in with the hip, the hot, the happening in the world of theater and beoynd. I figure that a common-denominator blog such as this one, where readers (and the writer) gather because they love theater, will also enjoy similar tastes elsewhere, in music, books, TV, movies, etc. [...]

Campo Santo, Denis Johnson go a little crazy in Iowa Three and 1/2 stars Comic, dramatic depth charge There’s a lot of wonderful weirdness in Denis Johnson’s Des Moines. The play had its brief, three-performance world premiere last weekend, not at Intersection for the Arts, the usual home for Campo Santo works. This season is [...]

Admit it. You’re wondering what it was like. Cheesy? Silly? Stultifying? Genius? Yes, yes, not so much and no. We’re talking, of course, about Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour, which opened Thursday at the Oracle Arena in Oakland and then heads to San Jose’s HP Pavilion. The easy answer is High School Musical, [...]

Opened Oct. 17, 2007 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Thrust Stage Galati translates Murakami stories to the stage Three stars Stirred, not shaken We’re lucky to live in the Bay Area for many reasons, the quality and bounty of theater chief among them. When our theater companies aren’t producing interesting shows themselves, chances are they’re importing [...]

Campo Santo, the small theater company with major literary impact, is not doing a traditional season. Sean San Jose, Campo Santo founder, and Deborah Cullinan, executive director of Intersection for the Arts, describe this offbeat season as a “search for the most exciting and bold new theatrical constructs.” The season includes three world-premiere plays by [...]

Claymates rejoice while the rest of us ponder why Clay Aiken ever stuck his fingers in Kelly Ripa’s mouth (OK, he covered her mouth with his hand, but like she said at the time, she didn’t know where that hand had been — right on, sister). Aiken, the “American Idol” second-place finisher behind Ruben Studdard, [...]

On Saturday at San Francisco’s El Rio bar, where a giant cut-out of Carmen Miranda looks down on the back courtyard, Crowded Fire Theatre Company held a festive fundraising chili cook-off. Here are the competitors, who each contributed three chilis — traditional, veggie and “anything goes”: Impact Theatre Fools Fury Playwrights Foundation Crowded Fire (actually [...]