Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

There’s bad news aplenty in the world, so it’s always nice to discover some bright spots of good news, especially in the theater world. San Francisco playwright Trevor Allen, who had a sizable hit last fall with his adaptation of Frankenstein, received a walloping dose of good news the other day. PlayGround’s New Play Production [...]

If you want a big, dramatic scene involving John Rosenberg smashing things on his way out the door, you better look elsewhere. About three years ago, along with Tore Ingersoll-Thorp and Damian Lanahan Kalish, Rosenberg founded Sleepwalkers Theatre, a group committed to producing new work by new authors. The trio had been in what they [...]

A man of character, Trevor Allen decided to put his character life behind him. Having detailed what it’s really like to work as a costumed character in Disneyland in his popular solo show Working for the Mouse, Allen made a conscious decision to focus on his burgeoning career as a playwright. Mouse, under the direction [...]

Writing about his high school experience proved therapeutic for playwright Itamar Moses, a Berkeley native whose Yellowjackets has its world premiere this week at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The 30-year-old writer headed back to the year 1994 to dramatically reconstruct his junior year at Berkeley High School, when he was editor of the school newspaper, The [...]

Four years ago, Cutting Ball Theater continued its search for the edge that cuts with the first Avant GardARAMA!, a festival of short, experimental plays. The quest for cutting-edge theater never ends, so Cutting Ball is reviving the festival, which opens Friday, July 18 and continues through Aug. 16 at the EXIT on Taylor. The [...]

Here’s an intriguing subtitle: “A found-object puppetry play inside the mind of Albert Einstein.” That subtitle is attached to One Stone: Einstein, a work-in-progress from two of the Bay Area’s leading theatrical lights: playwright Trevor Allen and puppeteer Liebe Wetzel (along with her Lunatique Fantastique puppeteers). The play, which involves found text, found-object puppets and [...]

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 [...]

It’s been 10 years since Danny Hoch jolted the Bay Area theater scene with Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop, his dynamic solo show at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Since then, he has worked diligently to make hip-hop theater more than just a passing phase. He founded the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival, now in its eighth year of presenting [...]

American Conservatory Theater artistic director Carey Perloff didn’t mince words when introducing playwright Tom Stoppard Saturday morning at a Koret Visiting Artist Series event. She called him the “greatest writer in the English-speaking language.” Indeed the 70-year-old Stoppard, outfitted in light-brown slacks and jacket with vibrant red socks, has an extraordinary body of dramatic work, [...]

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 [...]