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Alec Adams on October 6, 2021
How much is there left to be said about Hamilton? At this point, it is easily the most culturally salient Broadway show of this writer’s lifetime, the hip hop tale of the orphan Alexander Hamilton, who rises from poverty to become one of America’s founding fathers. Back when it was brand new,…
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Mike Huguenor on October 6, 2021
Tumultuous though they were, there was a lot to love about the 1960s. It was a decade of striking musical and sartorial choices, vital counterculture and a libertory push for sexual and racial equality. In Shout! The Mod Musical, all of these epochal charms get blended into a go-go booted, technicolor revue…
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Jay Edgar on September 29, 2021
The demand for “wholesome” entertainment has been higher than ever recently, but sometimes you have to confront the darkness. Set in a future where nearly all insects are extinct—causing untold ecological devastation—Somewhere follows two sibling scientists tracking the last monarch butterflies in the world to the west coast, and run into a…
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Jay Edgar on September 15, 2021
In March 2020, after two successful preview nights, playwright and San Jose State professor Kirsten Brandt was dismayed to have to cancel the world premiere of her latest play, Coded. “It was incredibly heartbreaking,” she says. “We had been working for so long on it and it was a world premiere…nobody knew…
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Jay Edgar on September 8, 2021
There really is something special and captivating about an advice column. The anonymous format grants readers a view into things that are relatable, shocking, tragic or probably made up about their fellow human beings. Tiny Beautiful Things, adapted from a collection of writer Cheryl Strayed’s most memorable entries in her “Dear Sugar”…
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Jay Edgar on September 1, 2021
Coriolanus is fairly unique among Shakespeare’s tragedies, and perhaps the most rarely produced; protagonist Caius Marcius’ tyrannical worldview and lack of soliloquies make him both unsympathetic and opaque. But the travails of the Roman general-turned-politician-turned-traitor have offered a terrific window into the soul of societies undergoing great political turbulence, and have inspired…
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Amani Hamed on August 25, 2021
Writer, actor and former emergency medicine doctor Fred Pitts would like you to know that he looks nothing like Will Smith. In his new one-man play Aren’t You…?—the first live performance at Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Theater in over 18 months—Pitts chronicles his 2012 travels down the California coast to visit each…
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Jay Edgar on August 18, 2021
After becoming the hit show in Pear Theatre’s 2019 “Pear Slices” showcase, playwright Meghan Maugeri expanded “Mothers of the Bride” into a full-length play. The comedy follows a bride-to-be as she navigates her close relationships with her mother and stepmother, and they in turn negotiate their own complicated relationship and common bonds,…
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Elliott Sky Case on August 11, 2021
Midsummer couldn’t have a dreamier night than this: live theatre by queer artists beneath shooting stars. Local collective More Más Marami Arts presents a series of three short plays in celebration of the Perseids Meteor Shower, summertime’s loveliest cosmic event. Emerging playwrights Lea Kapur and Lauren Doyle showcase stories of reconciliation, desire…
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Mike Huguenor on August 11, 2021
This weekend, San Jose’s premiere burlesque troupe the Circus of Sin returns to their loving home of the Caravan for “Back to the Van.” Led by MC and occasional wrestler Some Guy, the adventurous Circus of Sin is all about a memorable night out. A typical performance might include drag, exotic dancing,…
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