Second Row Center Blog
Four-and-a-half years ago, Richard Bean’s comedy play ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ appeared out of nowhere, making a mad, merry pratfall onto the stage of public awareness—first in London on the West End, then in New York City on Broadway, and most recently in Berkeley, where last year ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ played to ecstatic sold …
Continue reading ““One Man, Two Guvnors” – January 20, 2016″
“Sometimes,” exhorts actress Sharon E. Scott, stirringly embodying the rich voice and sassy-sweet attitude of the great Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. “Sometimes, God turns your life upside down—so you can help turn things right side up.” In the sensational, heartbreaking and soul-lifting biographical theater piece ‘Mahalia Jackson: Just As I Am’—running through January 24 at …
Magic isn’t easy. And sometimes, it takes a village to make something truly magical—and that even goes for fairy tale villages perched on the edge of a mysterious forest. With leads us to Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Into the Woods,’ now playing at Spreckels Performing Arts Center for one more weekend. Featuring a strong ensemble of North …
Let’s talk a little about New Year’s Eve. I know, I know. It’s not even Christmas yet. But given that some of the New Years Eve events I’m about to mention will be sold out by Christmas, I thought I’d better talk about them now, while you still have a chance to snap up a …
Continue reading “New Year’s Eve Traditions – December 16, 2015”
Many of our Christmas entertainment traditions are tales of tribulation from Jimmy Stewart contemplating suicide in It’s a Wonderful Life to Charlie Brown’s seasonal affective disorder which becomes a kind of wistful melancholia with enough piano jazz. So, it stands for reason that writer and performer David Templeton would yoke is yuletide monologue, Polar Bears, …
“I wear the chains I forged in life!” This ghostly report from the doomed spirit of Jacob Marley is amongst the most famous supernatural utterances in English literature. It’s also a fair metaphor for the heavy weight of responsibility carried by any theater company brave enough to stage Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This unstoppably …
Continue reading ““A Christmas Carol,” “Little Women: The Musical” – December 2, 2015″
It has been said that there is nothing less dramatic or more lacking in entertainment value than watching a writer write. In the clever comedy-drama ‘Seminar,’ presented at Wells Fargo Center by Left Edge Theatre, playwright Theresa Rebeck—the mastermind behind such stage hits at The Scene and television’s Smash—deftly transports her patented hard-edge comedy style …
Invisibility. It’s not just something that happens in fantasy books and science fiction movies. In the real world, there are invisible people, folks who, because of their social status or lifestyle, or just because they keep their secret pains and problems to themselves, remain essentially unseen, unnoticed, unappreciated, unprotected—invisible. In two highly recommended North Bay …
Continue reading ““The Other Place,” “My Mañana Comes” – November 11, 2015″
Halloween is upon us, and to get us in the mood, two infamous supernatural sex-comedies are currently haunting 6th Street Playhouse. Both plays are crammed with witty retorts and sexual innuendo, both feature ghostly visitations and eye-popping fashions—but only one has the Time Warp and a guy dressed in fishnet stockings. Let’s start there. Richard …
Continue reading ““The Rocky Horror Show,” “Blithe Spirit” – October 28, 2015″
1999 years ago, an unmarried teenage mother had a bad dream. The next morning, she decided to turn that dream into a short story. Over the next few months, that story evolved into a novel—and that novel changed the future of literature. The teenager was Mary Shelley, and her book was Frankenstein. As everyone knows, …