In many ways, John Patrick Shanley's Storefront Church, now at San Francisco Playhouse for a well-timed holiday run, is less about the battle between the material world and the spiritual world and more about finding the most personal of solutions to the stress and pull and darkness of life: being still.

In such a hectic world, stillness seems practically revolutionary, but that's where the Rev. Chester Kimmich (Carl Lumbly) finds himself: in stillness waiting for an answer or a way to cross the giant black hole that has opened up before him.

The thing about a love story is this: you want to feel it. You need to feel it. When Juliet wakes just after Romeo bites it, if you’re not feeling that dagger in your own chest, what’s the point?

There are only so many love stories – love gained, love lost, love unrequited – and so many variations. How, then, do you make the story fresh? How do you reignite the passions and make your audience feel it all anew?

The shortest answer to that query is: let Kneehigh tell the story.

The remarkable thing about Mona Mansour's Urge for Going and the work of Golden Thread Productions is how effectively the complex world of the Middle East comes through in a moving family drama. A very personal story set against a sprawling backdrop of history, politics and geography forges a strong emotional connection and brings a distinct perspective to a part of the world that can feel overwhelming if, like me, you know precious little about real-life experiences there.

Certainly drama benefits from conflict and tension, and that's where Mansour's story, set in Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, begins.

Don't you love it when a new play starts out and you really like it, then it turns into something else and you like it even more? That's what happens with Ideation, a world-premiere play by local scribe Aaron Loeb that is part of San Francisco Playhouse's Sandbox Series, an incubator for new plays.

As new plays, Ideation is in remarkably good shape primarily because Loeb's writing is so smart, sharp and full of grounding humor. It also helps that director Josh Costello has ...

For a second time this fall theater season, a play is dealing with the Rapture, that moment when believers will ascend and everyone else...doesn't. First it was the young gay actor in the San Jose Repertory Theatre production of Geoffrey Nauffts' Next Fall (read my review here). He worried that as a believer, he would spend eternity without the comfort of his boyfriend, a non-believer, and the boyfriend kind of rolled his eyes and dismissed the whole Rapture thing as nonsense.

Now we have Samuel D. Hunter's A Bright New Boise at Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company in which a staunch believer has his faith shaken by a terrible event at his northern Idaho church enclave (cult?) and attempts to make a fresh start in the bustling metropolis of Boise.

The company of Peter and the Starcatcher opens Act 2 with a rousing number involving Neverland mermaids. The Tony Award-winning play continues through Dec. 1 at the Curran Theatre as part of the SHN season. Below: Peter (Joey deBettencourt) takes a leap of faith into a golden lagoon. Photos by Jenny Anderson Is it the fantasy of flying? The lure of perpetual...