Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

You’ve heard about monsters being unleashed and wreaking havoc in New York? Well, Beth Wilmurt was just such a monster. The San Francisco-based actor played a ferocious dragon in the final scenes of Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, the Shotgun Players/Banana Bag & Bodice musical that headed to New York after its award-winning birth [...]

EXTENDED THROUGH JUNE 28! Mark Jackson (left) is Faust and Peter Ruocco is Mephistopheles in Jackson’s adaptation of Goethe’s Faust, Part 1, a Shotgun Players production at the Ashby Stage. Photos by Jessica Palopoli Will Faust ever learn? Deal with the devil and you’re gonna get burned«««« The devil’s curse, it turns out, is a [...]

Theatergoing in the San Francisco Bay Area is one of life’s treats. No question about it. If you love theater, this is a wonderland. In this devastating economic climate, may that only hold true for the next couple of years. There is so much good theater here, so many incredible actors, writers, directors and crafts [...]

Three of the actresses playing the Mitchell Sisters, the three main characters of the new musical Rivets, are (from left) Molly Lewis, Erica Maier (the understudy for Shawn Creighton) and Monica Lenk.  Rivets is performed on the SS Red Oak Victory in the former Kaiser Richmond Shipyards in the Rosie the Riveter National Park. Photos by [...]

Opened Sept. 19, 2008 at the Ashby Stage   Sean Owens (center) is Ocar Wilde in Shotgun Players’ production of Vera Wilde, a musical play by Chris Jeffries. Owens is flanked by (from left) Danielle Levin, Edward Brauer and Tyler Kent. Photos by Jessica Palopoli   Shotgun’s revolution in Russian, Irish, musical stripes Oscar Wilde’s [...]

Opened Aug. 2 at John Hinkel Park, Berkeley Dave Garrett is Pa Ubu (roughly translated as Father Turd) and Carla Pantoja is Ma Ubu in Shotgun Players’ rollicking summer production Ubu for President, a free play in Berkeley’s John Hinkel Park.   Crude, hilarious and free! Shotgun’s `Ubu’ wins««« ½ Aw, pschit! Any discussion of [...]

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 [...]

A Shotgun Players production at the Ashby Stage, Berkeley, through June 22 Jason Craig, who also wrote the show, tackles the title role in Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, a Shotgun Players collaboration with Banana Bag & Bodice. Photos by Jessica Palopoli.   Shotgun collaborates, monstrous musical roars to raging life«««« Hungry like the [...]

Berkeley’s Shotgun Players have received a challenge grant opportunity from the East Bay Community Foundation’s Fund for Artists to keep their tradition of free in-the-park summer theater. If the company raises $5,000 by June 30, that amount will be matched with a grant for their production of Ubu for President, a new play adapted by [...]

The arrival of a new Adam Bock play is always an event. Even though the Canadian playwright decided to forgo the pleasures of life in the Bay Area for the rigors of a New York writer’s existence, we still love him. And as long as he sends us a play every now and then (like [...]