Arielle Jacobs: From Half Moon Bay to `High School Musical’


Arielle Jacobs is Gabriella Montez and John Jeffrey Martin is Troy Bolton in the touring production of Disney’s High School Musical coming to San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre. Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

Growing up in Half Moon Bay, Arielle Jacobs wanted to be a pop singer – the next Mariah or Whitney. She’s not there yet, but she did manage to snag a leading role in one of the hottest properties of the 21st century.

Jacobs is starring as Gabriella Montez. If you’re a tween (around the ages of 9 to 12), that name is enough to elicit squeals of delight. For those of you a little out of that demographic, Gabriella Montez is one half of “Troy and Gabriella,” the jock and the brain, the Romeo and Juliet if you will, of Disney’s cultural phenomenon known as High School Musical.

HSM, as it’s known in cyberspace, was an original musical made for the Disney Channel. No one quite expected the level of popularity it found. The TV movie sequel, aptly titled High School Musical 2, became the most-watched TV program ever on cable.

There’s an entire HSM empire as only Disney could create it replete with every product imaginable, burgeoning pop careers for all the movie’s young stars (Zac Efron, who plays Troy in the movies, even has potential as a breakout movie star after his star turn in last summer’s Hairspray movie) and even a touring ice show (which played the Bay Area last year).

Jacobs’ take on Gabriella can be seen beginning April 15 at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre when the touring stage production of High School Musical opens for a two-week run as part of the SHN/Best of Broadway season.

On the phone from a tour stop in Des Moines, Iowa, the chipper Jacobs, 24, says she and her family lived in Half Moon Bay until she was 14, when the Jacobs clan moved to New Jersey.

But Jacobs has fond memories of our little coastal hamlet. “I remember the pumpkin festival, of course,” she says. “To this day I’m obsessed with pumpkins. At one of our tour stops, we went to a glass-blowing factory, and I blew a glass pumpkin.”

Jacobs also recalls clam chowder at Barbara’s Fish Wrap as “the best in the whole world” and remembers riding horses on the beach and through the eucalyptus forest.

“That smell still reminds me of the beach there,” she says. “And you can’t beat those sunsets.”

As a kid, Jacobs was truly serious about being a singer. She took voice with Teddi Lightfoot in San Francisco, and she and her brother, Adam, joined a group called Razzle Dazzle Kids and did little cabaret and Christmas shows around the Bay. One year she was Raggedy-Ann then worked her way up to Mrs. Claus.

She also studied music at the San Francisco Conservatory, and though guided toward classical music, she fell in love with show music.

“I really liked performing and communicating story through song,” she says. “I started to lean in the musical theater direction, and my parents were really supportive, and I have to tell you, I was famous for starting something and getting bored half-way through. I started playing soccer because my brother played soccer. My parents took me to all the practices and bought the equipment. I was 7 or so. I went to the first game and quite at half-time.”

Luckily her interest in theater remained constant. And so did her brother’s. Apparently the Jacobs family ate show-tune Wheaties for breakfast. The two Jacobs siblings made their professional theater debuts in 1994 in TheatreWorks’ Honor Song for Crazy Horse. Adam was Little Hawk and Arielle was Blue Swan. Jump ahead a few years, and while Arielle tours the country in High School Musical, her brother recently finished a gig on Broadway in Les Miserables.

“My parents don’t know quite what they did, but they’re really proud of us,” Jacobs says.

Even before there was a stage version of HSM, Jacobs says she was alerted to the movie because friends and casting directors kept telling her she looked like the original Gabriella (played by Vanessa Hudgens). So when auditions rolled around, Jacobs felt primed.

“I could relate to Gabriella,” Jacobs says. “I didn’t just look like her, I am a lot like her.”

Being on the inside of the HSM phenomenon, Jacobs says she can understand why the show has become such a hit. “The story is very universal,” she says. “It’s very much a model for kids to show them what high school is going to be like and how it’s possible to pursue different things and follow your dreams and get the support of friends, family and teachers.”

Keen HSM observers will notice differences between the TV and stage versions. For instance, onstage there’s a new narrator character, Jack Scott, the school announcer. There are also some new songs – “Cellular Fusion” recalls “The Telephone Hour” from Bye Bye Birdie as the students of East High blaze up their cell phones spreading rumors about Troy and Gabriella and the school talent show – and some new complexity in the relationships, most notably between brother and sister Ryan and Sharpay. Drama teacher Ms. Darbus and basketball coach Bolton also have a new level of adult interaction.

Touring to cities large and small has been a wearying but ultimately satisfying experience for Jacobs, who also paints and takes photos. When she’s done with the tour, she’s heading to Brooklyn, where she just bought an apartment. Her next goal: to star in a Broadway show, of course. But there are other things to do first.

“I’m going on an artist’s retreat,” she says. “I’m going to paint for four days during a break in the tour. I’m also hoping to write some music. I wrote a children’s book and want to get that published as well.”

As if she weren’t busy enough touring and maintaining an official backstage blog (highschoolmusicalblog.com), she also has her own Web site (www.ariellejacobs.com) and an environmental site called www.helphealtheearth.com, which opens with a photo of Jacobs literally hugging a tree.

“I like to direct a lot of the HSM fans to that site,” she says. “It’s all about helping the environment and appreciating nature. It’s really hard on the road to find people who care about recycling. I’m trying not to get depressed too much that people don’t seem to care.”

Spoken like a true Half Moon Bay kid.

High School Musical runs April 15-27 at the Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco. Tickets are $23-$85. Call 415-512-7770 or visit www.shnsf.com or www.ticketmaster.com for information.

SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle winners

Below you’ll find the winners of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. In lieu of a gala this year, winners will attend a cocktail party and receive their awards.

DRAMA (In theaters with more than 99 seats):
ENTIRE PRODUCTION:
Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, American Repertory Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and Theatre for a New Audience
The Pillowman, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

PRINCIPAL PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Rene Augesen, The Rainmaker, American Conservatory Theater

PRINCIPAL PERFORMANCE, MALE:
James Carpenter, The Birthday Party, Aurora Theatre
Ken Ruta, Trying, TheatreWorks

SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Joan Mankin, Bosoms and Neglect, Aurora Theatre

SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Ken Ruta, The Circle, American Conservatory Theater

DIRECTOR:
Jonathan Moscone, Long Day’s Journey into Night, San Jose Repertory Theatre
Robert Wilson, Our Town, Ross Valley Players
Tom Ross, The Birthday Party, Aurora Theatre

SET DESIGN:
Annie Smart, Man and Superman, California Shakespeare Theater
Robert Broadfoot, BOT, Magic Theatre

SOUND DESIGN:
Odabiah Eaves, Heartbreak House, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

LIGHTING DESIGN:
Don Darnutzer, The Rainmaker, American Conservatory Theater
Lap-Chi Chu, Long Day’s Journey into Night, San Jose Repertory Theatre

COSTUME DESIGN:
Anna R. Oliver, Man and Superman, California Shakespeare Theater
Candice Donnelly, The Circle, American Conservatory Theater

ORIGINAL SCORE:
Andre Pleuss & Ben Sussman, After the Quake, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

CHOREOGRAPHY OR FIGHT DIRECTION:
Dave Maier, The Pillowman, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

ORIGINAL SCRIPT:
Josh Kornbluth, Citizen Josh, Jonathan Reinis Productions, Z Space Studio

SOLO PERFORMANCE:
Mike Daisey, Great Men of Genius, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

ENSEMBLE:
Angel Face, Word for Word
King Lear, California Shakespeare Theater
Our Town, Ross Valley Players

MUSICALS
ENTIRE PRODUCTION:
Bingo, a Winning New Musical, Center Repertory Company

PRINCIPAL PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Carol Woods, Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M. Hayes Productions
Nina Josephs, One Touch of Venus, 42nd Street Moon
Susan Himes-Powers, Show Boat, Broadway by the Bay

PRINCIPAL PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Maurice Hines, Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M. Hayes Productions

SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Freda Payne, Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M. Hayes Productions

SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Travis Poelle, Emma, TheatreWorks

DIRECTOR:
Marc Jacobs, Show Boat, Broadway by the Bay

MUSIC DIRECTOR:
William Liberatore, Emma, TheatreWorks

CHOREOGRAPHY:
Mary Beth Cavanaugh, Emma, TheatreWorks

COSTUME DESIGN:
Fumiko Bielefeldt, Emma, TheatreWorks

SET DESIGN:
Douglas D. Smith, Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M. Hayes Productions

LIGHTING DESIGN:
Steven B. Mannshart, Emma, TheatreWorks

SOUND DESIGN:
Andrew F. Holtz, The Secret Garden, Willows Theatre Company
Ian Hunter, Bricktop, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre

ORIGINAL SCRIPT:
Paul Gordon, Emma, TheatreWorks

ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE:
Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M Hayes Productions
Emma, TheatreWorks
Merrily We Roll Along, TheatreWorks

TOURING
Jersey Boys (Second cast), Dodgers Theatricals

DRAMA (in theaters with 99 seats or less)
ENTIRE PRODUCTION:
Based on a Totally True Story, New Conservatory Theatre Center
Enchanted April, Porchlight Theatre Company
Nathan the Wise, TheatreFIRST

PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Barbara Michelson Harder, A Streetcar Named Desire, Off Broadway West Theatre Company
Susi Damilano, Six Degrees of Separation, SF Playhouse

PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Carl Lumbly, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, SF Playhouse

DIRECTOR:
Adriana Baer, Woyzeck, The Cutting Ball Theater
John Dixon, Based on a Totally True Story, New Conservatory Theatre Center

ORIGINAL SCRIPT:
Aaron Loeb, First Person Shooter, SF Playhouse

SOLO PERFORMANCE:
John O’Keefe, Song of Myself, The Marsh

ENSEMBLE:
Anna Bella Eema, Crowded Fire
Nathan the Wise, TheatreFIRST

MUSICALS
ENTIRE PRODUCTION:
Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre
Wilde Boys, New Conservatory Theatre Center

PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Connie Champagne, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, New Conservatory Theatre Center

PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Louis Parnell, Man of La Mancha, SF Playhouse
Rudy Guerrero, Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre

DIRECTOR:
Jay Manley, Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre

CHOREOGRAPHY:
Joe Duffy, Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre

MUSICAL DIRECTOR:
David Dobrusky, Man of La Mancha, SF Playhouse
Joe Collins, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, New Conservatory Theatre Center
Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn, Wilde Boys, New Conservatory Theatre Center

ENSEMBLE:
Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre

Play award finalists announced

The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) has named six finalists in its annual playwriting competition, supported by generous funding from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, which recognizes plays that premiered outside New York City.

The top honoree in the Steinberg /ATCA New Play Awards will receive $25,000 — the largest prize for a national playwriting award. Two additional playwrights will receive $7,500 each.

The winners will be announced at a March 29, 2008 ceremony at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre in Louisville, Ky.

The six finalists:

The Crowd You’re in With, by Rebecca Gilman, debuted at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in November. The play examines three couples at a backyard barbecue who reveal vastly different attitudes toward having children in the 21st century.

Dead Man’s Cell Phone, by Sarah Ruhl, bowed at Washington D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in June. The quirky comedy examines the fallout when a lonely woman takes the cell phone from the body of dead man she discovers sitting next to her in a café and begins answering his calls.

End Days, by Deborah Zoe Laufer, premiered in October at Florida Stage in Manalapan. Sometimes comic, sometimes moving, the play studies the challenge of maintaining faith in a world dominated by science and fear. A Jewish family copes with the aftermath of 9/11 as the mother, now a born-again Christian, tries to convert the family before the rapture arrives — on Wednesday.

The English Channel, by Robert Brustein, debuted in September at Suffolk University and then the Vineyard Playhouse on Martha’s Vineyard. The noted critic and founder of the American Repertory Theatre penned a droll comedy centering on creativity, inspiration and plagiarism, in which the young Shakespeare, the ghost of Marlowe and the Dark Lady of the Sonnets collide in a tavern.

Strike-Slip, by Naomi Iizuka, opened last spring at the Humana Festival. The playwright presents a cinematic look at the interconnected nature of seemingly disconnected lives in the diverse, multi-cultural Los Angeles basin. One judge praised it as a 21st Century O. Henry story.

33 Variations, by Moises Kaufman, debuted in September at Washington’s Arena Stage. Kaufman offers a fictional imagining of Beethoven’s creation of 33 brilliant variations on a prosaic waltz. His obsessive pursuit of perfection parallels a modern tale of a terminally-ill musicologist struggling with her own obsession to unearth the source of Beethoven’s.

These finalists were selected from 28 eligible scripts submitted by ATCA
members. As the competition requires, none had productions in New York City in
2007. They were evaluated by a committee of 12 theater critics from around the
U.S. headed by chairman Wm. F. Hirschman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and vice-chair George Hatza of the Reading Eagle.

“The amazing range of work — dramas, fantasies, musicals, farces, melodramas —
was uplifting confirmation that theater remains a vital and evolving art form
that can speak to every generation,” Hirschman said.

Since the inception of ATCA’s New Play Award in 1977, honorees have included
Lanford Wilson, Marsha Norman, August Wilson, Jane Martin, Arthur Miller, Mac
Wellman, Adrienne Kennedy, Donald Margulies, Lee Blessing, Lynn Nottage, Horton
Foote
and Craig Lucas. Last year’s winner was San Francisco’s own Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Hunter Gatherers.

The awards are supported by an annual grant of $40,000 from the Harold and Mimi
Steinberg Charitable Trust, created in 1986 by Harold Steinberg on behalf of
himself and his late wife. The primary mission of the Steinberg Charitable Trust
to support the American theater. The trust has provided grants totaling millions
of dollars to support new productions of American plays and educational programs
for those who may not ordinarily experience live theater.

`Ha’penny’ bails

Ha’penny, we hardly knew ye.

Hot on the heels of announcing that the big Irish musical Ha’penny Bridge would be part of its season, the folks at SHN/Best of Broadway have announced that the show has canceled its San Francisco date.

“It is with great regret that we will be canceling the scheduled engagement of Ha’penny Bridge, but as producers we feel that the production is not yet ready,” said Garret McGuckian, producer of the musical, in a statement.

No word yet on what show might replace Bridge. For more information, visit www.shnsf.com.

Review: `Gone’

Opened Feb. 11, 2008 at SF Playhouse Stage II

Mee’s melancholy Gone goes down easy
Three stars (Sad beauty)

No man was ever born
but he must suffer.
He buries his children and gets others in their place;
then dies himself. — Sophocles

Those words open Charles L. Mee’s grief-stricken but strangely joyous Gone, having its Bay Area premeire from Crowded Fire Theatre Company at SF Playhouse’s Stage II in San Francisco.

The ever-entertaining Mee (Big Love, “Fetes de la Nuit’’ at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Wintertime at San Jose Repertory Theatre, Summertime at the Magic Theatre) always takes an unusual approach to his plays. He borrows liberally from any source that happens to interest him. There’s almost always good music (also mostly borrowed), and the final creation is often an enjoyable theatrical collage.

Gone is what Mee calls a “fragment’’ play. And that’s as good a description as any. He takes chunks of Sophocles, Proust, Ginsberg, Updike, Alphonse Daudet and Philip Larkin – not to mention the New York Times obituary page and random blogs. Oh, and Mee has included pieces from some of his own plays as well.

With such a variety of sources and no plot or consistent characters, the task before director Marissa Wolf is to create not a play so much as a tone, a feeling, an experience. When other writers attempt this fragment thing, the results tend to be pretentious and boring. Mee values humor and music, two combatants against boredom, so Wolf already is at an advantage.

Rod Hipskind’s set consists of doors – some useable, some leaned up against the wall of the small black-box theater. In the center of the performance space is a sort of sandbox filled with dark soil – not unlike a fresh grave.

The set also consists of many and varied lamps, which play an important role in Jarrod Fischer’s lighting design, which often consists solely of a single lamp being held by an actor. This is a dark evening, figuratively and literally.

The text, as intoned by Shoresh Alaudini, Kalli Jonsson, Marilee Talkington (above) and Mollena Williams, is dominated by themes of loss. You’ve got your death, your love loss, your wiped-out civilizations.

It’s moody to be sure, but not grim. Part of that has to do with the music. For Odetta’s “Another Man Done Gone,’’ for instance, the cast is doing sort of a spiritual dance in the sandbox. For Montgomery Gentry’s country-fried “Gone,’’ Jonsson lip synchs, and the other cast members provide back-up (choreography throughout the show is by Humu Yansane).

Between the country songs and spirituals, we get a healthy dose of Proust’s madeleine moment from Swann’s Way, a musing on the tragic, love- and pleasure-filled lives of cicadas and some insight into the world of Ruth M. Siems, inventor of Stove Top stuffing on the occasion of her death.

It’s all rich and compelling and beautifully performed, but I must admit, after about an hour, I found myself longing for character and story. Some elements, such as Proust and Sophocles, make repeat appearances, but the fragment nature of the show couldn’t overcome my need for narrative.

There’s pleasure, fleeting (as in life) to be sure, amid the pain and loss, and that’s the triumph of Mee’s show and Wolf’s production: that we seize on the joy when it arises. But then we head back to Sophocles, who leaves us in, as he puts it, “Egyptian blackness’’ with, “Time makes all things dark and brings them to oblivion.’’

Gone continues through March 2 at SF Playhouse Stage II, 533 Sutter St., San Francisco. Shows are at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $15 to $25. Call 415-433-1235 or visit www.crowdedfire.org.

Arthur Miller’s intriguing dates

Reading the almanac in the newspaper today, I noticed something interesting and theatrical.

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman opened 59 years ago today — Feb. 10, 1949 — at Broadway’s Morosco Theater.

And Arthur Miller died three years ago today — Feb. 10, 2005 — at age 89.

In honor of this curious chronology, here’s a scene from the 1966 broadcast of Salesman on CBS starring Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock.

Breaking `Wind’

Ill wind, you’re blowing me no good.

Actually, the winds are favorable. If you’ve ever heard the original London cast album of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman’s Whistle Down the Wind, you may be relieved to know that the American touring production of the show, which had previously been announced as part of the SHN/Best of Broadway season in San Francsico, has been blown to another city.

The tour, now in Boston, will go to Philadelphia and then Norfolk, where it will close for good Feb. 17.

For information about the remainin shows in Best of Broadway visit www.shnsf.com.

‘Whistle’ a happy tune?

You knew Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote Cats, right? Well, did you know he also wrote a dog?

In the Lloyd Webber canon, only By Jeeves was more critically pummeled than Whistle Down the Wind, a collaboration with lyricist Jim Steinman (of Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” and Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” fame). The show, based on a 1961 movie of the same name, had its premiere at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. in 1996 and was supposed to open on Broadway the following year.

The Hal Prince-directed show was reviled, by critics and audiences alike, and the Broadway transfer was scrapped.

A revised London production opened in 1998 and closed in 2001. Producer Bill Kenwright took over the directing reins for a UK tour, which ended up back in London last year (taking up some slack from another flop Lloyd Webber show, The Woman in White) at the Palace Theatre.

Now Kenwright’s production of Whistle Down the Wind is touring the U.S., and that tour (seen above and below) is coming to San Francisco’s Curran Theatre April 1 through 20, so we can see what all the fuss (or what all the non-fuss) was about.

Here’s Lloyd Webber in a statement: “Whistle Down the Wind is a fantastic story for a musical dramatist and it took me back to my rock roots. It’s a primal tale about salvation and forgiveness that everyone can relate to. I’m absolutely delighted that Bill Kenwright’s wonderful production is going to be seen in America.”

The ticket sale date has not been announced. Visit www.shnsf.com for information.

Looking ahead: Theater ‘08 highlights

There are some theater treats heading our way in 2008. Here’s a mere sampling.

The show I’m most excited about also seems the furthest away. The national tour of the Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening is slated to start sometime in the second half of the year, courtesy of SHN/Best of Broadway. Spring Awakening was the best thing I saw on Broadway last year, and I eagerly anticipate the tour and the chance to hear the Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater score performed by exciting young singer/actors.

A close second on the old excitement meter is Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking, her autobiographical solo show coming to Berkeley Rep in February.

At SF Playhouse, Theresa Rebeck, a hot-hot playwright at the moment, arrives with the West Coast premiere of her The Scene starring “Melrose Place” alum (and Berkeley native) Daphne Zuniga. The show opens later this month.

At American Conservatory Theater, the most intriguing offering this spring is ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, John Ford’s Jacobean tragedy about a brother and sister who fall in love…with each other. The show begins performances in June.

TheatreWorks in Mountain View ushers in the new year with Wendy Wasserstein’s final play, Third, which begins performances next week. But the real excitement comes in April when the company mounts Caroline, or Change, the astonishing Tony Kushner-Jeanine Tesori musical.

At Berkeley’s Shotgun Players, the summer show will be Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, but the big excitement comes at the end of the year when director Mark Jackson (Death of Meyerhold) returns to take a whack at Macbeth in December.

This summer, California Shakespeare Theater gives us some really good reasons to head into the Orinda hills: Jonathan Moscone directs Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband (July) and Timothy Near is directing Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (August).

And this one is a little iffy, but should the fates conspire, Thick Description will bring back former Bay Area actor Colman Domingo (fresh from his Broadway turn in the musical Passing Strange) in his autobiographical solo show A Boy and His Soul. Proposed show run is July. Keep your fingers crossed.

2007 theater Top 10

I can always tell whether a theater year has been good or not so good when I sit down to hammer out my Top 10 list. If I can summon five or more shows simply from memory, it’s a good year. This year’s entire list came almost entirely from memory (which is a feat in itself as the old noggin’ ain’t what it used to be), so it was a good year indeed.

Here’s the countdown leading to my No. 1 pick of the year.

10. Anna Bella Eema, Crowded Fire Theatre Company — Three fantastic actresses, Cassie Beck, Danielle Levin and Julie Kurtz, brought Lisa D’Amour’s tone poem of a play to thrilling life.

9. First Person Shooter, SF Playhouse and Playground — What a good year for SF Playhouse. This original play by local writer Aaron Loeb brought some powerhouse drama to its examination of violent video games and school violence.

8. Bulrusher, Shotgun Players — Berkeley’s own Eisa Davis’ eloquent play, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama, turned the Northern California dialect of Boontling into poetic drama as it told the story of an outcast young woman finding her place in the world.

7. Avenue Q, Best of Broadway/SHN — Hilarious and irreverent, this puppet-filled musical by Jeff Marx, Robert Lopez and Jeff Whitty made you believe in friendship, life after college and the joys of puppet sex.

6. Jesus Hopped the `A’ Train, SF Playhouse — It took a while for Stephen Adly Guirgis’ intense drama to make it to the Bay Area, but the wait was worth it, if only for Berkeley resident Carl Lumbly in the central role of a murderer who may have seen the error of his ways. And note: This is the second SF Playhouse show on the list.

5. Emma, TheatreWorks _ Paul Gordon’s sumptuous, funny and, of course, romantic adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel came marvelously to life as a musical, with a star-making performance by Pleasanton native Lianne Marie Dobbs.

4. Argonautika, Berkeley Repertory Theatre _ Mary Zimmerman’s athletic retelling of the Jason and the Argonauts myth fused beauty and muscle and impeccable storytelling into a grand evening of theater.

3. Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People, Word for Word — Actually, the second half of Strangers We Know, this stage adaptation of Lorrie Moore’s short story was brilliantly directed by Joel Mullenix and performed by Patricia Silver and Sheila Balter.

2. Man and Superman, California Shakespeare Theater _ This unbelievably vivid version of George Bernard Shaw’s massive existentialist comedy benefited from superior direction by Jonathan Moscone and an impeccable cast headed by Elijah Alexander and Susannah Livingston.

1. The Crowd You’re in With, Magic Theatre _ The team of playwright Rebecca Gilman and director Amy Glazer fused into brilliance with this slice-of-life meditation on why we make the choices we make in our lives. Local luminaries Lorri Holt and Charles Shaw Robinson brought incredible humor and tenderness to their roles, and T. Edward Webster in the lead managed to make ambivalence compelling.

Now it’s your turn. Please post your favorite theater moments of 2007 — no geographical limitations, just good theater.