537 stories by "Lily Janiak"
Oakland Theater Project, Theatre Lunatico and American Conservatory Theater made Bay Area theater sparkle this year.
Director Pam MacKinnon and playwright Craig Lucas don't establish enough ground rules for their story to cohere into something more than a string of random events.
'Peter Pan' aspires to, and often achieves, smooth-mind, sparkly escape from worldly cares.
TheatreWorks' production of Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon's "Pride and Prejudice" sequel combines holiday confection, spicy debate and sumptuous visuals.
For all of Susi Damilano's compassionate, imaginative direction, this production of Jessie Nelson and Sara Bareilles' 2015 musical suffers from a near-fatal flaw.
Leah Nanako Winkler's world premiere, inspired by a New York Times article, capitalizes on how theater is, at its core, bodies in the same space as you.
When Lucas Hinds Babcock performs at BroadwaySF's Orpheum Theatre, he'll be returning to the venue where he saw tours as a boy.
In Word for Word's "The Strange Library," self-rearranging walls submerge you in a dreamlike state.
The cast members of Actors' Reading Collective's "The Antipodes" don't just chow down on rich material; they're connoisseurs.
In a country that just elected a xenophobe president, Jocelyn Bioh's West Coast premiere at Berkeley Rep is a necessary corrective.
American Conservatory Theater's world premiere of "AÂ Whynot Christmas Carol" demands introspection alongside its magic and laughs.
Oakland Theater Project's "Ghost Quartet" is so gossamery, so there-yet-not-there, that you might feel as if you merely got haunted by a narrative's shadow.
The Tony Award-winning musical at BroadwaySF's Curran Theatre takes a different path from other shows about high schoolers.
Bay Area actors who trod the boards at the Bruns Amphitheater share their memories of the quirky outdoor venue as Cal Shakes' closure looms.Â
Noël Coward's famed repartee " "I love you when you're offended" " occasionally lubricates the proceedings.
The legacy theater, under the leadership of Sean San José, continues to buck trends by producing exclusively world premieres next year.
Jen Silverman's play, now in a Theatre Lunatico production, is so strong as to inspire a feeling of hope in a Bay Area theater scene recently devastated by news of closures.
Lloyd Suh's two-hander, which plays at Capital Stage, Aurora Theatre and TheatreWorks, is gentle, shattering and healing.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre presents a small-scale version of Mozart's opera " small for opera, that is.
Oakland Theater Project's second part of Tony Kushner's epic is every bit as strong as the first.
In an era of emergency fundraising campaigns and sudden closures, it's noteworthy to remain a pillar of the theater community, as Shotgun Players has.
In Cirque Flip Fabrique and Ex Machina's circus-theater hybrid, deep understanding and love of wrestling norms yield delightful scenarios.
The Marsh's production benefits from sources who are so good that you want to see a whole separate play about how Hoyle found these people.
"Witching Hour" moves a maximum of 20 spectators from the Hotel Majestic's bar to a conference room to guest suite 407, which according to lore an especially noisy specter visits.Â
The overwhelming feeling watching Oakland Theater Project's "Angels in America" is that this play is about us, right now.Â
