Chad Jones’ Theater Dogs

From the ashes of the American Musical Theatre of San Jose rises a whole new series bringing Broadway tours to the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, and it’s called Broadway San Jose. A Nederlander Presentation, part of the national Nederlander Organization, is the producing agency that will bring in the shows starting in [...]

Berkeley Repertory Theatre is rocking and rolling with Green Day. After the success of Stew’s Passing Strange, it seems Berkeley Rep can’t get enough of the rock. Already announced for the 2009-10 season was the world premiere of Girlfriend, a stage adaptation of Matthew Sweet’s album of the same name. Today comes official word that [...]

var iamInit = function() {try{initIamServingHandler(320,213,77181,”http://pis.picapp.com/IamProd/Resources/Css/css2.css”)}catch(ex){}}() Kyle Riabko has two jobs: he’s starring as Melchior in the national tour of Spring Awakening, now at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre through Oct. 12. He’s also a rising Canadian pop star who scored a hit with “What Did I Get Myself Into” from his 2005 album Before I Speak. [...]

You’ve gotta see this hilarious spoof of MTV’s terrible “Legally Blonde the Musical: The Search for the Next Elle Woods.” It’s related to In the Heights, and it’s called “Legally Brown: The Search for the Next Piragua Guy.” Matthew Morrison, Cheyenne Jackson, Hunter Bell and other Broadway folks show up. Also, now that the Spring [...]

Opened Sept. 7, 2008 at the Curran Theatre, San Francisco   Kyle Riabko and Christy Altomare are Melchior and Wendla, the doomed lovers in Spring Awakening, the Tony Award-winning musical that launched its national tour at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre. Photos by Paul Kolnik.   Sex, violence and rock ‘n’ roll: `Spring Awakening’ jolts San [...]

For the Tony Award-winning composing team of Steven Sater (book and lyrics, above left) and Duncan Sheik (music), Spring fever may be abating. The duo, along with director Michael Mayer, worked on bringing their musical Spring Awakening to Broadway for seven long years. Then the show opened, won eight 2007 Tony Awards and has just [...]

Michael Mayer, the Tony Award-winning director of Spring Awakening, remembers people looking at his show and saying things like: “You can’t be unconventional.” “That’s choreography?” “This is a musical?” And Mayer is just fine with those questions. “We didn’t set out to break rules,” Mayer says. “The idea was to tell this story, and this [...]

Members of the Spring Awakening creative team will take part in a free “In Conversation” onstage event from 2 to 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 7 at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco. The team will discuss the development of this Tony Award-winning show. The event, moderated by Jesse McKinley of the New York [...]

If the name Tom Hulce sounds familiar, it’s probably not because he’s one of the Tony Award-winning producers of the musical Spring Awakening. He rings that familiarity bell because he has one of the world’s most famous giggles. In 1984, he played Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the movie Amadeus and received an Oscar nomination. Or, [...]

Duncan Sheik (left) and Steven Sater say they hope to open their new musical, The Nightingale, at American Conservatory Theater. Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images Could San Francisco be the starting point for the follow-up to Spring Awakening? If Tony Award-winning creators Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater have anything to say about it, The Nightingale, [...]