“Sweeney Todd,” “Baskerville” – September 28, 2016

Victorian England produced some spectacularly bloody and murderous literature. Some was written and published, some began as the stuff of urban legend before being translated for the stage or to the cheap and popular ‘penny dreadful’ magazines that were filled with stories of the macabre, the sensational, the bloody, the mysterious. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock …

“The Big Meal,” “August Osage County” – September 21, 2016

Two appetizingly notable stage plays, both currently running in the North Bay, feature the unpredictable combustible power of people related to one another, or about to be, sitting down to eat dinner together. Yes, the family dinner. What has been lauded and celebrated as the linchpin of the American family, appears on two local stages, …

“The House That Jack Built” – September 14, 2016

Jack London. One cannot grow up in Sonoma County, or even visit here for very long, without gaining at least some awareness of who Jack London was. Few local school-kids can’t tell you that London wrote books about wolves and dogs, and some might even be able to name ‘White Fang’ and ‘Call of the …

“The Most Happy Fella” – September 7, 2016

It’s been twelve years since Stephen Walsh last played Tony the grape grower, in the classic Frank Loesser musical ‘The Most Happy Fella,’ at Cinnabar Theater. And to employ an over-picked cliché, in his second run of the show at Cinnabar, Walsh has only gotten better, deeper and rich—like a really, really good wine. The …