KPFA - Bay Area Theater

Playwright David Henry Hwang and composer Jeanine Tesori discuss their latest project, an original musical titled “Soft Power,” at the Curran Theatre June 20-July 8, 2018, with host Richard Wolinsky.

“Soft Power” starts with a play and turns into a musical, about a reverse “King and I” created in China and produced fifty years in the future, concerning the relationship between a Chinese envoy and Hillary Clinton, which brings up questions regarding cultural appropriation and what is called “soft power,” the power of culture to influence society.

David Henry Hwang is a Tony winning playwright, the author of, among other works, “M. Butterfly”, “Chinglish” and “Yellow Face,” along with a recently reworked “Flower Drum Song.” He is also on the writing staff of the Showtime TV show “The Affair.”

Jeanine Tesori is a Tony winning composer. Among her works are “Caroline, or Change,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Violet” (to be seen in a Bay Area Musicals production next season) and “Fun Home.”

Curran theatre website

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Sheryl Kaller, director, and Pamela Gray, playwright of “A Walk on the Moon,” a world premiere musical at A.C.T. Geary Theatre, June 9-July 1, 2018, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

“A Walk in the Moon” is based on the 1999 film with a screenplay by Pamela Gray. The show deals with life in a Jewish bungalow colony in the Catskills during the summer of 1969, and the sexual awakening of a mother and daughter.

Sheryl Kaller is a Tony-nominated director whose most recent Broadway play was “Mothers & Sons” by Terence McNally in 2014. And among Pamela Gray’s other screenplays are “Music of the Heart” and more recently, “Megan Leavey.”

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KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Howard Crabtree’s When Pigs Fly,” at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco through June 10, 2018

New Conservatory website

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KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “An Entomologist’s Love Story” by Melissa Ross, at San Francisco Playhouse through June 23, 2018.

San Francisco Playhouse website

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KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “What The Constitution Means to Me” by Heidi Schreck, at Berkeley Rep through June 17, 2018.

Berkeley Rep website

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