A massive, sometimes brilliant staging of one of the greatest musicals ever written, and a pleasant, slightly under-paced staging of a frothy little sherbet of a play. These shows share two things in common: both are musicals, and both feature stunningly good performances by their exceptionally good leading ladies.

Directed by Craig Miller, “Thoroughly Modern Millie” is the stage adaptation of the 1967 Julie Andrews film, substantially reworked for the stage in 2000, by Richard Scanlan and Jeanine Tesori. It tells the story of a naïve newcomer to New York City in 1922, a “modern” woman with a bold scheme to get a job and marry her boss. Her plans are thrown into disarray when she finds herself falling for a penniless paperclip salesman, and further complicated by a secret white slavery ring that appears to be operating out of the hotel for unemployed actresses at which Millie is staying.

Whether or not the use of white actors to play outrageous Asian stereotypes is racist or just unwise and unfunny, I will leave for others to debate.

Essentially, it’s just a silly play, nice enough but with few memorable tunes, and a lightweight cotton candy superficiality that is meant to entertain, but not really say anything. But there is a reason to see this production. As Millie, Rebbekah Pearson is sensational. She’s got the right kind of voice for this style of Broadway belting, and also the acting chops to pull off the complicated blur of emotions and impulses that is Millie. Many of her co-leads are strong, with special emphasis on Evan Atwood, who is an absolute stitch as Millie’s off-the-wall bachelor boss. But it’s Pearson, a newcomer to the 6th Street Playhouse, who gives the best reason to catch “Thoroughly Modern Mille,” lightweight as it is.

The show aside, it’s star is one to be watching in the future.

“South Pacific,” on the other hand, is amongst the least lightweight musicals ever created, though it is filled with light, charming moments and some hummably happy tunes. Originally staged in 1949, the musical was adapted from James Michener’s World War II novel, the Pulitzer-winning “Tales of the South Pacific,” and follows the motley characters who live on and around a U.S. Navy base on a small Polynesian island.

Even after all these years, the writing in “South Pacific” still seems crisp and clean, gradually revealing details in a cleverly structured series of scenes that are less about war and the military than they are about the complexities of human interaction.

And the songs, from “Some Enchanted Evening” and “Younger Than Springtime” to “Happy Talk” and “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right out of My Hair,” are some of the best ever composed for the stage.

And once again, amidst a cast of fine actors and colorful characters, it is the stellar performance of its female lead that makes this show a must-see. Taylor Chalker, as the optimistic but emotionally conflicted nurse Ensign Nellie Forbush, who pushes an already excellent show, very well directed by Linda Dunn, way up to the next level.

Which is saying something.

The thing about the Mountain Play is, it’s not easy to be an actor up there, playing to a four-thousand seat house. But Chalker has the voice to sell everything from the softest heartbreak to the most exuberant self-confidence, and strong supporting performances, by a large cast, are cream on the pudding - especially Randy Nazarian as the comically scheming Luther Billis, and Peter Vilin as the French landowner Emil.

Director Dunn has filled the show with visual razzle-dazzle and authentic detail, packing the frame of the stage with working jeeps and trucks, a sprawling French Villa, a lookout tower with a constant sentry posted up at the top, and even a pair of planes which buzz the open air amphitheater at a crucial moment in the show.

“South Pacific,” without question, ranks as one of the best Mountain Plays in recent memory.

In "Catch Me if You Can: the Musical," a teenage kid takes (a little too literally) the advice that you can be anything you want to be - if you only try.

And he ends up serving five-to-ten in prison.

But first, he sings.

In this surprisingly serviceable musical adaptation of the popular Steven Spielberg film of the same name - the one starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks - "Catch Me if You Can" manages to be both lighthearted and serious. The West Coast premiere of the Broadway show lands at Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park, and as directed by Gene Abravaya, features a trio of notable performances, and a solid supporting ensemble of singers and dancers who’ve captured the spirit and tone of this true-life, sixties-era cat-and-mouse story.

Frank Abagnale, Jr. was a clever kid who soaked up the dubious life-lessons of his yarn-spinning dad, all while watching television shows about successful people. Mainly pilots, doctors and lawyers. From such sources, Frank learned how to walk and talk like a confident, experienced professional. And before he was old enough to drink, he’d successfully passed himself off as an airline pilot, an emergency room doctor, and a prosecuting attorney - passing a lot of fake and forged checks along the way, stealing over two million dollars before he was finally caught by the FBI.

Played by Zach Howard - whose excellent voice and flirty-earnest approach is perfect for the role - Frank isn’t the most sympathetic of characters. After all, he lies compulsively and steals without remorse. But there’s a likeable element to his youthful brashness and fearless creativity, and Howard’s appealing stage presence helps sell that.

As Frank’s own personal Detective Javert, the over-working FBI fraud investigator Carl Hanratty, David Yen brings a hard-boiled world-weariness to the difficult role of the guy who will catch our “hero” in the end.

(Don’t worry! That’s not a spoiler! The play begins with Frank’s arrest and then starts at the beginning).

As good as he is in the hunkered-down, straight-laced scenes, those moments where Yen gets to let loose, to sing and dance, are sheer delights.

A semi-bumbling trio of FBI agents is played nicely by Braedyn Youngburg, Sam Starr, and Patrick Taber, all hilarious. And Garet Waterhouse, as Frank’s big-dreaming dad, brings class and charisma to some of the show’s most heartbreaking moments.

But it’s Kelly Brandeberg, as the sweet-natured southern belle nurse who wins Franks’ larcenous heart, who delivers the goods in the play’s big show-stopper, the achingly beautiful love song "Fly, Fly Away," performed with such aching sincerity and skill you have to believe that Frank is actually worth loving that much.

With a script by Terrence McNally and tunes by Marc Shaiman that are clearly cut of the same jazzy cloth as the sixties T.V. theme shows that served as Frank’s inspiration, "Catch Me if You Can" is bubbly and fresh, if a bit lacking in the kind of ear-catching tunes Shaiman crafted for the much more memorable "Hairspray."

Still, with leads that are perfectly cast, a visually clever set design, and a story that maintain a sense of humor and heart amidst all the twists and turns, Spreckels "Catch Me If You Can" is worth catching - while you can.

"Catch Me If You Can" runs Thursday – Sunday through May 25 at Spreckels Performing Arts Center, spreckelsonline.com.

Theater awards are not why actors, directors and other artists take part in the craft of theater - but awards can be nice, just the same. For decades, the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle has given out awards to the finest Bay Area practitioners of the art of stagecraft, and for years (and years, and years) the awards have almost completely ignored the contributions of Sonoma County theater companies. It’s been a simple matter of mathematics. Too few critics from the southern parts of the Bay Area willing or able to travel north + too few critics circle members who live and see theater in Sonoma County = an unfortunate imbalance when the awards are announced, giving the impression that the best theater is being done primarily in San Francisco, Berkeley, and certain parts of Marin.

Well . . . times they are a changin’.

The mathematics have shifted a bit, due to a recent increase in Sonoma County theater bloggers joining the circle, and a recent fall-off of centrally-located critics from the circle. The result is a rather spectacular change of fortune which, as of last Monday night - at the fancy annual critics circle awards ceremony in Oakland - led to dozens of Bay Area theater people sitting around their tables saying, over and over, Sonoma County? There’s theater in Sonoma County? Why are so Sonoma County theater people getting so many awards?

The answer, of course, is: because they deserve it. Because they have deserved it for years, and never received it. And, by the way, it’s about freaking time.

It wasn’t exactly lopsided or anything. Out of fifty-two awards handed out, exactly eleven honored work done at Sonoma County theater companies, not counting the lifetime achievement award given to Elly Lichenstein of Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. Congratulations to Elly. But eleven out of fifty-two feels about right, even if there were still glaring omissions, including the fact that Main Stage West in Sebastopol was not nominated once, despite having presented some of the best theater in the Bay Area for the last several years.

And of course, even when nominated, as in the case of Michael Van Why and Stephen Walsh, both so brilliant in last year’s "La Cage Aux Folles" at Cinnabar, it’s no guarantee of a win. The award for best Principal actor in a musical went to an actor appearing in San Francisco.

So there is work to be done.

But for now, I am thrilled to be able to announce the following awards given this week to deserving Sonoma County theater artists, theater companies, and shows.

6th Street Playhouse won best ensemble for its production of "Red," featuring Charles Siebert and Ryan Schabach, and also took acting awards for Rob Broadhurst and Julianne Lorenszen, both for "The Rocky Horror Show."

"Young Frankenstein," presented last year by Spreckels Theater Company, took acting awards for Mary Gannon-Graham and Denise Elia-Yen, and was also given the award for best ensemble in a musical and best overall production of a musical. Michella Snyder took the award for best choreography, and Sandy and Richard Riccardi took the award for Best Musical Direction.

And "La Cage Aux Folles," at Cinnabar Theater, took the best featured actress in a musical award for Valentina Osinsky, and two awards for Sheri Lee Miller, one fore her costume work with Clay David, and the other for best stage direction.

My warm, slightly giddy congratulations to all of you.

You made heads turn in Oakland this week. And now the Bay Area theater community knows what we’ve known for years: there IS theater in Sonoma County, and more often than not, it’s worth taking a drive for.

“Mother Jones is a fascinating subject for a musical.”

I overheard a woman saying that in the lobby of Main Stage West last Friday night. The woman made the remark as we all waited for the doors to open for the opening night performance of Si Kahn’s "Mother Jones in Heaven."

Her companion nodded, knowingly, and then added, “Well . . . Mother Jones certainly reads well.”

She was making a joke, of course, a reference to Mother Jones Magazine, perhaps suggesting that if people know Mother Jones at all, most will know her name from the magazine that bears it. Founded in 1976, the famously left-leaning publication chose Mother Jones - the familiar name of Irish-American union activist Mary Harris Jones - for her lifetime of commitment to workers rights in the factories and mines of America

Those causes, and more, are purposefully touched upon in this entertainingly rousing new play by Kahn, himself a songwriter whose prolific energies have taken him from picket lines to concert halls and, frequently, to the theatrical stage. "Mother Jones in Heaven" is one of several musical plays Kahn has written, many of them highlighting the lives and voices of prominent historical figures who stood up with the country’s workers and picket-line strikers, and with the wives and children who sometimes stood between the strikers and the batons of and bullets of industry.

In "Mother Jones in Heaven," Kahn has created the perfect vehicle for Mary Gannon Graham. One of Sonoma County’s best-acclaimed singers and actors, Graham has won kudos for her performances as the real-life Patsy Cline and the fictional Shirley Valentine, and here she blends the real and the imagined, creating yet another indelible character for which she will be long remembered.

As the play begins, in a heavenly whiskey bar somewhere in the clouds of paradise, Mother Jones expresses surprise at having ended up in Heaven, initially worried that she'll miss all of her Union-activist friends - who’d spent their lives being told they were headed straight for hell. Not only is she not alone, she’s got a bar to hang out in, whisky and beer to swig when she wants it, and a full-on Irish folk band (led by Jim Peterson) to back her up whenever she feels like bursting into song.

Some of Kahn’s other union plays have showcased historical protest songs and marching tunes, but for "Mother Jones in Heaven," he’s written a dozen or so original songs, underscoring Mother Jones’ emotional life with words and music that range from the playful and sweet to the heartbroken and angry.

The story unfolds as loosely connected stories from Jones’ life, primarily focusing on her work with the unions, but occasionally aimed at unpacking her emotional life. Especially powerful is her story of losing her husband and four children to the yellow fever, an overwhelming source of grief that fueled Mary Jones’ passion for sticking up for the poor and underserved.

Directed by Beth Craven with a mix of strategic whimsy, sensitivity, and drama, ‘Mother Jones in Heaven’ has little plot, but plenty of power, and before it’s over, audiences might find themselves longing to enter the Great Beyond themselves, just so they could seek out this one-of-a-kind woman, and maybe share a whiskey or two with Mother Jones in Heaven.

The show has been extended, running through the 18th of May, at main Stage West - mainstagewest.com.

The best plays are those that are both specific and universal, revealing vivid details about individuals or cultures or historical moments, while also giving us a glimpse of the common thread that

connects the audience to the characters whose lives are unfolding up on the stage.

The late August Wilson was amongst the best practitioners of this art. His plays are rooted in the historical and socio-political details of

the African American experience. At the same time, Wilson’s plays are about fathers and daughters, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives, friends and foes. His plays are about getting ahead in the world, finding something to believe in, making and losing money, abandoning and discovering love, hope, and a sense of one’s own value and purpose.

As such, August Wilson’s plays are about everyone.

His Pulitzer-winning "Fences," set in the 1950s, captures that sense of specific universality in a new, vibrant and emotionally driven production at Marin Theatre Company. Directed with graceful

attention to the connective tissue that binds a family together, Fences tells the story of Troy Maxon, a mightily proud, deeply angry former Negro Leagues baseball player. At odds with his own past, Troy has been calmed and somewhat healed by the steady love of his powerhouse wife Rose, but even she cannot dampen the growing fire

building between Troy and their teenage son Cory. The young man has been offered a shot at a college football scholarship, but stands

to lose it all if his father doesn't agree to let him have the shot he

never got himself. Troy Maxon, played with quiet fury by Carl Lumbly, is easily one of the great fictional characters of the modern American stage. A man who can be petty, mean-spirited, and unapologetically

unlikable one moment, yet playfully gentle, generous and loving the

next, Troy is a gloriously messy mix of contradictory impulses, and

Lumbly makes him achingly believable, his strengths and flaws all

frustratingly raw and real.

Similarly, at Marin Altertheater in San Rafael, actor-write Denmo

Ibrahim’s world premiere "Baba" ties the specific and the universal

together in an amazingly insightful, superbly performed one-woman-

show. Essentially two related one-acts, "Baba" begins with Denmo

invisible inside the mustache, overcoat and fake belly of a middle-

aged Egyptian-American man named Moe, waiting patiently in line, if only barely, as various government clerks make him fill out, and refill-out, pages and pages of forms. Moe needs a visa to be issued to his 6-year-old daughter Layla, with a red-eye flight to Egypt looming just hours away, and he knows he mustn't express anger at the runaround he’s getting, or he risks having to start all over again. Ibrahim, the author and performer, is jaw-droppingly good at letting us see what Moe sees during this white-collar nightmare, and when Moe’s part of the story ends, she literally strips his character away to become the grown-up Layla, waiting at an airport for a flight the Egypt, where she will be united with her father after a lifetime of absence. "Baba" has plenty of observations to make about the immigrant experience and the way the members of different cultures all see each other, and sometimes don’t. At the same time, it’s a wholly relatable story of a father and daughter, a universally gorgeous slice of life in which we become both of them, and come to realize that they are both us.

"Fences" runs Tuesday–Sunday through May 11 at Marin Theatre Company. www.marintheatre.org

"Baba" runs Tuesday–Sunday through May 11 at Marin Theatre Company. www.altertheater.org

When I first heard the original cast recording CD of the musical "Next to Normal," I was knocked out by it. Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt’s Pulitzer-winning rock opera about mental illness and pharmacology was like nothing I’d ever seen heard, and I couldn’t wait to see it live

on stage. A couple of years later, when the touring production came

to San Francisco - with original star Alice Ripley in the role that won

her a Tony - I was disappointed, underwhelmed by the phoned-in performances and too-slick roadshow blandness of the enterprise. But I still liked the way the story unfolded and the power of music, and I held firm to the belief that, under the right circumstances, Next to Normal could be as good on stage as it was in my headphones that first time I heard it.

Who knew that a community theater production in Novato would be the one to prove my faith was justified.

Under the sensitive and sometimes brilliant direction of Kim Bromley, Novato Theater Company’s full-emotion-ride staging of the Next to Normal is intimate, accessible, and raw - and the cast of skilled, emotionally committed performers just act the hell out of it.

In Bromley’s hands, the melodramatic bombast of the touring production has given way to an understated yet still effectively intense experience, keeping the humor alive while never blinking in the glare of the play’s harsher observations about the cost of mental illness on the families and loved-one’s of the afflicted.

Actress Alison Peltz is astonishingly good as Diana Goodman, a middle class wife and mother who seems fairly typical as the play begins. She’s a little bored with her life, she’s amiably at odds with her teenage children, she’s unable to sleep some nights - but otherwise, she seems okay. Then, without warning, Diana has a full-on psychotic break, manically building jam sandwiches on the kitchen floor as her family watches with weary dismay. That’s when we realize that this is not the first time Diana has gone around the bend, and that her daughter, the over-achieving brainiac Natalie, is terrified that she may eventually end up like her mother. As played by a sensational Julianne Thompson, Natalie is a vividly drawn character, written and performed in three-dimensions, warts and wall, and Dianna’s bland-but-devoted husband Dan, played beautifully by Anthony Martinez, is a wonder of conflicting impulses, devotion pushed to breaking point. Dianna’s son Gabe, played by a forcefully present Fernando Siu, is the only one who seems to accept his mother’s illness, and clearly prefers his mom off her meds to on, and that push-pull relationship proves to be at the foundation of Dianna’s struggles.

And it is Dianna and her battles with the world and her own brain chemistry that stands at the heart of this remarkable musical.

After 16 long years of daily medicinal treatment, her bipolar disorder is beginning to exhibit schizophrenic symptoms as well. Over Gabe’s protests, she agrees to try a new doctor, the rock-star psychiatrist Dr. Madden, played by a first-rate Sean O’Brien.

It’s a major part of the play’s power that Diana’s subsequent journey through a series of therapies - including electroshock, portrayed as a power-rock dance-dream sequence - is treated with a stunning lack of judgment or preachiness.

Novato Theater Company deserves much praise for tackling this play so well, and for doing what the touring show couldn’t - presenting these characters as real, identifiable people, whose ragged pain, wounded love, and biting sense of humor are as highly relatable as they are deeply inspiring.

"Next to Normal" runs Friday–Sunday, through April 27 at Novato Therater Company. Novatotheatercomapny.org

“Nunsense . . . is habit forming!”

So sings a chorus of slightly risqué nuns in Dan Goggin’s unstoppably popular musical "Nunsense," currently running at the brand new Raven Players Windsor theater, expanding doubling the Raven fiefdom from one theater in Healdsburg, to two. That remark about “habits,” could also definitely apply to urge to theatrical expansion and change, because right now, amongst North Bay theater companies, changing locations seems to be the big trend.

In addition to the Ravens acquiring a nifty cinderblock building right off the Windsor Town Green, a building that was once a church, another new site is about to open less than ten minutes away.

The brand new North Bay Stage Company is actually a split-off from the Raven Players, making its new home at Wells Fargo Performing Arts Center. And in Napa, the Napa Valley Players are currently winding up their final season at their longtime location, an eccentric little theater space tucked into a corner behind a Napa strip mall. Facing the necessity of expensive renovations, NVP has decided to hit the road, and for its next season, will play the nomad game, performing in a number of spots around the Napa area.

In Windsor, meanwhile, the Raven’s have launched their new enterprise with the shrewdly chosen "Nunsense," and play that is about as enduring and popular as its songs are maddeningly catchy.

The show was inspired by a line of greeting cards featuring The Little Sisters of Hoboken, nuns who say vaguely dirty things, and it says something that some of those greeting card quotes are amongst the show’s funniest moments. The plot, such as it is, revolves around the recent demise of several dozen sisters, and the need to raise money to bury the last remaining few, who are currently hidden in the convent freezer. With a health inspector about to visit, the remaining nuns are throwing a fundraising variety show, in hopes of burying their sisters before the health inspector buries the convent in legal red tape.

Following that set-up, what remains is essentially a series of songs about life in the convent, interspersed with skits and bingo games. If I sound less than effusive, its only because I’ve seen so many productions of "Nunsense," the original shock and charm of the concept has long ago worn off. But the show continues to be a huge crowd-pleaser, and opening night of the new theater was no exception. With a cast of local community theater veterans, the show has plenty of fun moments, merrily percolating in the juices of its own cozy familiarity. The highlight is Cindy Brillhart-True as sister Mary Amnesia, the convent’s resident amnesiac, after a crucific fell on her head. Her true identity contains the one possible salvation for the Little Sisters of Hoboken, and Brillhart-True - who’s played the part four times before - shines with befuddled dignity and charm, and has a wicked way with an accidental naughty joke.

Raven needed a surefire hit for their opener in Windsor, and with "Nunsense," though hardly an original or bold choice, they certainly do have it.

"Nunsense" runs Thursday–Sunday, through April 19 at Raven Theater Windsor. Ravenplayers.org.

Some plays are so good you can’t wait to talk about them, while others are so good you’re a little bit afraid to. "Water by the Spoonful," by award-winning playwright Quiara Hudes, is one of those latter ones. It’s a play so rich with ideas, and so generous of heart and spirit it won Hudes the Pulitzer in 2012, but as crafted, it also feels delicate and confessional, as if the audience is listening in on conversations we are not supposed to be hearing, witnessing the most painful and transformational moments in the lives of total strangers.

There is a sense of trespass in that, but also of privilege, and as

presented by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival - where I caught the

show in its final preview last weekend - that sense of privilege casts

a kind of spell that binds us together with these frail, fierce, funny and unforgettable people - and frankly, when the show was over, I didn’t want that spell to be broken by talking about it before those people had all settled in good and deep.

All due praise for that to director Shishir Kurup. The play, brilliantly written to begin with, absolutely thrives on Kurup’s tender

understanding of these characters, and his masterful grasp of the

playwright’s intentionally jazz-like rhythms and free-flowing tangents.

The second in a trilogy by Hudes, who also wrote the book for the Tony-winning musical "In the Heights," "Water By the Spoonful" begins with an emotionally stricken former Marine and part-time actor named Elliot, whose war-time encounters in Iraq still literally haunt him. The Puerto Rican aunt who raised him is dying of cancer in Philadelphia, just as Elliot is wrestling with a tempting job opportunity in Hollywood brought about by his music-professor cousin Yazmin. Silently suffering from acute PTSD, his family is the only thing keeping Elliot grounded, a truth he also uses to keep him from taking the risks he has to take if he ever wants to stop working at a sandwich shop.

Woven around Elliot’s journey is an ongoing online chat-room conversation between four recovering crack addicts, who we see

speaking aloud what they write to each other from different corners

of the world. Each character, with aliases like Orangutan, Chutes-

and-Ladders, HaikuMom and Fountainhead, speaks from his or her own spare, square slab on Sibyl Wickersheimer’s deviously simple set. Though separated by miles, writing from Japan, San Diego, and Philadelphia, the sense of community and connection formed by this

quarrelsome quartet of broken souls is evident, and it’s one of the

play’s most astonishing feats that a story about an online recovery

forum feels so intimate and dramatically pure.

The entire cast, lead by company regular Daniel Jose Molina - giving his hands-down best performance in three years at OSF - is sensational across the board. These are complicated people, and

Hudes offers no easy answers for any of them, nor much suggestion

that their futures, clean or not, using or not, will be easy. Especially

insightful is how the play illustrates the way an addict’s recovery,

often inspired by awareness of the pain they’ve caused their families, is most often thrown into jeopardy by the anger and dismissal of

those families.

That Elliot will turn out to be closely related to one of these struggling people is clear. But what happens to both of them after that is revealed is a complete suprise, in this gorgeously knotty, achingly tangled examination of the dehumanizing power of addiction, and of that discordant fusion of love, hatred, anger and forgiveness that some brave souls must struggle through while learning to be human again.

"Water by the Spoonful" runs through November at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. OSFAshland.org.