537 stories by "Lily Janiak"
At San Francisco Playhouse's "The Play That Goes Wrong," I got to remember that backstage is a charmed, sacred space.
"Interrogations: Pre-Election Coverage," a trio of plays from theater company Performers Under Stress, has parallels to the presidential election " and journalism.
Underneath the surface gloss of Noël Coward's comedy of manners is a serious truth: Marriage isn't lovey-dovey.Â
Ray of Light Theatre's production slyly interrogates who's allowed to take up the mantle of traditional femininity.Â
As any high school theater teacher will tell you, you're still acting when you don't have any lines.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre's West Coast premiere, about the branch of the Underground Railroad that went south to Mexico, layers in a full orchestra from just two men onstage.Â
Tere MartÃnez's world premiere about the mainland United States' exploitation of Puerto Rico constantly switches among English, Spanish and Spanglish, frequently pivoting mid-sentence.
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Church of Clown and La Lengua Teatro en Español are just some of the bounty in fall's theatrical cornucopia.
Naomi Iizuka's translation, part of the Play On Shakespeare project, begins with a life-and-death fight scene and somehow never lets that rush abate throughout its lean 100 minutes.
In Shakespeare's comedy of mistaken identities and two sets of twins, now in a Marin Shakes production, tepidity prevails.
Market Street Arts, the Living Earth Show and San Francisco Shakespeare Festival are partnering with the city to attract residents and workers back to downtown neighborhoods.
Crowded Fire Theater's world premiere makes us endure such prodigious and portentous throat-clearing as to dull its insights.
Almost every cast member unveils something new and delicious in Rotimi Agbabiaka's production of Shakespeare's island-set play.
Leontyne Mbele-Mbong and Michael Torres are so good in this "echo" of "Macbeth" that you might realize you never fully understood Shakespeare's tragedy before.
With San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe is playing Prospero, the spell-casting lead in "The Tempest," as her first Shakespeare performance.
Director Susan Dalian sets the tragedy in the Kennedy era, when women wore their hair shellacked around their heads, like Christmas ornaments.
Perhaps not since 2021 has a work of Shakespeare seemed so apt to help us understand an extraordinary political moment.
The Oakland concert found its footing as soon as the Tony Award winner and Disney princess voice returned to her musical theater roots.
The three-year-old Napa concert series inaugurated its summer season with not one, but two, "West Side Story" Anitas.
The title character of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1978 musical might recognize much in 2024's election runup.
"Who's-Dead McCarthy: Stories by Kevin Barry" creeps into your mind, vine-like, and flowers.
Domenique Lozano's adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing" reveals Shakespeare as not some holy writ etched in stone but a bubbling lab ripe for experimentation.
Venue changes, shaded seats and costume modifications are just some ways Bay Area theaters have learned to adapt amid a record-breaking heat wave.
John O'Farrell and Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick's musical shadowboxes its way through key plot points and memorable shots from the 1993 Robin Williams film set in San Francisco.
Jeremy Kareken and David Murrell's adaptation of John D'Agata and Jim Fingal's book fails as both a portrait of journalism and a work of theater.
