Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

Shannon Cochran (left) is eldest daughter Barbara and Academy Award-winner Estelle Parsons is Violet, her drug-addled mother, in the national Broadway tour of August: Osage County, running through Sept. 6 at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco. Photo by Robert J. Saferstein

 
Where have all the family dramas gone and why did they become so unfashionable?

With [...]

Finally caught up with the outstanding documentary Every Little Step about casting the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line.

Though some Chorus Line purists balked at the revival, I was pretty fond of it, mostly because I got to cover its out-of-town tryout at the Curran Theatre here in San Francisco as part of the SHN/Best [...]

Opened May 27, 2009 at the Golden Gate Theatre

Jeff Dumas is loyal sidekick Patsy (backed up by the Lady of the Lake’s Laker Girls) in the Broadway touring production of Monty Python’s Spamalot at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco. Photos by Joan Marcus

Amiable Python musical farts in our general direction«««

There’s nothing wrong with [...]

Anthony Rapp (left) is Mark, Lexi Lawson (center) is Mimi and Adam Pascal is Roger in the latest national touring company of the rock musical Rent, coming to San Francisco’s Curran Theatre in October. Photo by Joan Marcus
You’re never too old to play a Bohemian 20something who can’t pay the rent.

At least that’s the theory [...]

The touring cast of Monty Python’s Spamalot. Photo by Joan Marcus
If you know about the Knights of the Round Table, who dance when’er they’re able, then you probably already know that the Monty Python-inspired musical Spamalot is making its long overdue debut in the Bay Area Friday, May 22, and continues through July 5 at [...]

Some members of the Los Angeles company of Wicked (seen above) will be hopping the broomstick north when the production lands at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre in January. Photo by Joan Marcus
The Wicked Witch is coming, so keep an eye on your little dog, too.
SHN/Best of Broadway is bringing the hit Broadway musical Wicked back [...]

John Cudia as the Phantom woos Trista Moldovan with the music of the night in the U.S. touring production of The Phantom of the Opera, which plays through the holidays at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco. Photo by Joan Marcus

 
All I ask of `Phantom’: wishing you were somehow not here again««

 
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The [...]

Broadway diva Patti LuPone releases a new old CD today: Patti LuPone at Les Mouches (Ghostlight/Sh-K-Boom records). The disc is new, but the performance captured on it is from a New York nightclub 28 years ago. Every Saturday night, for 27 weeks, LuPone would dash from the Broadway Theatre after her final performance of Evita [...]

Green-faced fans of all kinds swarmed San Francisco’s Union Square on Friday, Sept. 26 – Wicked Day in San Francisco, according to a proclamation from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom – at a party celebrating Wicked’s return to the city that gave it birth next January. Photos by J. Lynne McVey

 
San Francisco has often been [...]

Chazz Palminteri excavates his childhood in his one-man show A Bronx Tale, at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre through Oct. 19. Photo by Joan Marcus

 
Chazz Palminteri offers a `Bronx’ cheer«««

Watching Chazz Palminteri come to life on stage in his one-man show A Bronx Tale, you realize how limiting movies can be.

Palminteri has made dozens of [...]