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Mike Huguenor on December 29, 2021
The holidays are rarely so high-flying or reality-defying as they are in A Magical Cirque Christmas. In this wintry performance, incredible feats of acrobatics meet jaw-dropping magic, all set to a yuletide soundtrack that arrives just in time for the end of the holidays. Twirling rope and hoop performers, tumbling gymnasts and…
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Elliott Sky Case on December 22, 2021
Nollaig shona! (That’s ‘Merry Christmas’ in Irish.) This Wednesday, Tomáseen Foley’s A Celtic Christmas—now in its 25th season—comes to the South Bay a day after the winter solstice. Celebrating the light to come after the longest nights of the year, A Celtic Christmas shares Irish tradition through story, dance and song. The…
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Grace Stetson on December 22, 2021
Sometimes, when the going gets tough, the tough take the Kris Kringle route. This winter, the Christmas mindset finds new legs in A Merry Little Christmas Cabaret, a story focusing on how music executives turned to the man in the red suit for a boost to record sales. Set in 1964, the…
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Charles Addams’ lovable family of macabre aristocrats are so identifiable that it’s hard to remember how long they’ve been around. The 1938 comic strips led to the TV series of the ’60s, which led to the classic movies from the ’90s, and have all given these goth weirdos a permanent place in…
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Grace Stetson on November 24, 2021
The past isn’t so far removed from the present, and playwright Jennifer Maisel showcases that fact in her play “Eight Nights.” Winner of the 2021 Ovation Award for Best Playwriting, the play tells the story of Chanukah from 1949 to 2016. Protagonist Rebecca Blum arrives in the U.S. at just 19 years…
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Grace Stetson on November 24, 2021
What’s it like to be a girl in 1960s Baltimore with big hair and even bigger dreams? Well, with John Waters’s 1988 classic Hairspray—which has since become a hit on Broadway and in London’s West End—audiences can join in 16-year-old Tracy Turnblad’s dreams, all while she attempts to change the world. The…
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Jay Edgar on November 17, 2021
Of all the petty dramatics of suburban American life, nothing seems to offer a window into the soul of a people more than the yard dispute (remember when Rand Paul got beaten up by a neighbor over a pile of branches on their lawns?). Native Gardens plums the fraught realm of Homeowner…
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Grace Stetson on November 17, 2021
In 2021, it’s important to acknowledge that Thanksgiving’s history isn’t necessarily one to be celebrated. At Mountain View’s Pear Theatre, playwright Larissa FastHorse brings that fact to life in her new production “The Thanksgiving Play.” The play follows three “woke” white thespians as they put on an elementary school play about the…
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Alec Adams on November 17, 2021
This year, San Jose Stage Company is all about the greats. After their run of The Great Leap, they’re back to tackle Dickens’s Great Expectations. One of the 19th century’s most iconic novels, the story of orphaned Pip’s journey through poverty-stricken England is probably a little less relevant today, in this era…
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Katie Lauer on November 10, 2021
San Jose’s St. James Park has seen more than its fair share of violence since the city was founded, its gardens and grasses—meant to provide tranquil escape—also often acting as grounds for death.
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