KRCB-FM: Second Row Center

Relationships are front and center in two very different shows now running on the North Bay’s northernmost stages through August 19.

The Cloverdale Performing Arts Center is presenting Heroes, playwright Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of a 2003 French play about three World War I vets in a retirement home.

Gustave (Robert Bauer), Henri (Peter Immordino), and Philippe (Dale Harriman) pass their days sitting on a terrace, annoying each other, and plotting their escape from the veterans’ home. Convinced that the tyrannical nun in charge has it out for Philippe, their latest plan starts out with the goal of running to French Indo-China but ends on settling for a poplar grove within view of their terrace. Now if they can just figure a way to take a 200 lb. statue of a dog with them.

An odd combination of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Waiting for Godot, and The Golden Girls (with Gustave as Dorothy, Henri as Blanche, and Philippe as Rose), Heroes is a slight piece with some amusing dialogue and geriatric slapstick.

'Heroes' runs Friday through Sunday through August 19 at the Cloverdale Performing Arts Center in Cloverdale. Friday and Saturday evening performances at 7:30pm; the Sunday matinee is at 2pm.

For more information, go to cloverdaleperformingarts.com

Healdsburg’s Raven Players have converted the cavernous Raven Theatre into an intimate black box performance space and are presenting an updated version of 1996’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. The Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts musical revue holds the record as the second-longest running Off-Broadway show.

It consists of a series of comedic vignettes that follow the arc of human relationships from dating, sex, and marriage through children and aging. Four versatile performers (Bohn Connor, Kelly Considine, Troy Evans, and Tika Moon) sing and dance their way through eighteen scenes with songs like “Better Things to Do”, “Single Man Drought”, and “I Can Live with That”. Recent revisions include 21st century additions like sexting (“A Picture of His…”) and same-sex families (“The Baby Song”).

It’s a very entertaining show helped immensely by the talented cast. All do well by the multiple roles they play, but the rubber-faced Connor really makes an impression with characters ranging from an incarcerated mass murderer giving dating tips to a hapless husband trying to put the kids to bed so he and the missus can get it on.

‘I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change’ runs Thursday through Sunday through August 19 at the Raven Performing Arts Theater in Healdsburg. Thursday through Saturday performances are at 8pm; the Sunday matinee is at 2pm.

For more information, go to raventheater.org.

Transcendence Theatre Company’s seventh season of “Broadway Under the Stars” continues with a dance-centric production entitled, appropriately enough, Shall We Dance. The show runs through August 19 at the Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen.

Transcendence imports Broadway and national touring professionals to populate their productions so the caliber of performance is always quite high. Director Leslie McDonel and choreographer Marc Kimelman guide a cast of seventeen talented artists through a program featuring songs from eighteen Broadway shows like The King and I and Hamilton as well as pop hits from artists like Madonna and Ed Sheeran.

The show opened, as is tradition, with a passage from the writings of Jack London as introduced by a coterie of tap dancers. The audience was then welcomed by the full company with an amusing adaptation of “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast that replaced banquet table staples with wine varietals, though I’m not quite sure what dancing strawberries were doing on the stage.

The (mostly) fast-paced, forty minute first act included numbers from In the Heights, West Side Story, My Fair Lady and Kiss Me, Kate. The highlight of the act was an energetic production of Louis Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” which incorporated a variety of dance styles that complimented its swing roots. Things then slowed down with “Mama Who Bore Me” from Spring Awakening, which seemed tonally out of step in a mostly joyous program, before concluding on a lighter note with the hilarious “A Musical” from Something Rotten.

Act two featured dancing set to numbers from a diverse group of artists ranging from Janelle Monae (“Tightrope”) to Madonna (“Vogue”). The evening’s most visually striking moment came courtesy of a tango-infused production of Sting’s “Roxanne” from Moulin Rouge with the winery ruins bathed in red.

The juxtaposition between the diversity in dance styles and music selection in this production with the lack of diversity among the cast is noticeable. For a company that imports a great deal of its talent from New York and the world, the relatively small number of artists of color utilized is disappointing. Simply put, it’s jarring to have Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” and Michael Jackson’s “Bad” sung and danced by a bunch of white guys, talented as they may be.

It’s time for Transcendence’s casts to be as colorful as the costumes they wear.

‘Shall We Dance’ runs Friday through Sunday through August 19 at the Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen. Doors open for picnicking at 5pm; the show starts at 7:30pm.

For more information, go to transcendencetheatre.org

‘Tis the season for Shakespeare al fresco so pack a picnic, grab a blanket and check out these North Bay productions:

Marin Shakespeare closes out its season under the stars with Pericles, a play whose authorship by Shakespeare has fostered many a debate. Plot points include incest, assassination, famine, a shipwreck, marriage, maternal death, familial separation, attempted murder, kidnapping, pirates, prostitution, and a seemingly dead person rising from a watery grave. Who knew Shakespeare wrote a zombie play? And this is a comedy.

Director Lesley Currier and her design team have taken all these elements, dressed them up in modern garb, added a few topical references, and come up with the theatrical equivalent of a “B” movie. It’s entertaining and even moving at the end, but it evaporates quickly in the night air.

Artist-in-residence Dameion Brown brings his commanding stage presence to the title role. Fine supporting work is done by Cathleen Ridley as the loving Queen Simonedes and the treacherous Dionyza; Eliza Boivin as Marina, Pericles’s daughter; Rod Gnapp and Richard Pallaziol in a variety of roles; and Diane Wasnak, who is very engaging as the puckish storyteller Gower.

'Pericles' runs Thursday–Sunday through August 5 at Forest Meadows Amphitheater at Dominican University in San Rafael. The showtimes vary and the venue opens one hour before curtain for picnicking.

For more information, go to marinshakespeare.org

Santa Rosa’s Shakespeare in the Cannery ceases to exist after this season’s production as the property is being “repurposed.” Co-founder/director David Lear decided to go out on a lighter note so they’re presenting Shakespeare in Love, the stage adaptation of 1998’s Best Picture Oscar winner.

Poor Will Shakespeare (John Browning) has writer’s block and can’t seem to finish his latest opus, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter. A muse arrives in the person of Viola (Sydney McNulty), who disguises herself as ‘Thomas Kent’ so as to get around the ‘no women on stage’ rule. Shifty theatre producers, a loathsome Lord, a treacherous boy and a haughty queen all come into play before Romeo and Juliet sees the light of day.

It’s a piffle but the cast has fun, with good comedic support from Alan Kaplan and Liz Jahren. Isiah Carter impresses in two roles and keep an eye out for Isabella, one of the moodiest, scene-stealing “bitch” characters I’ve seen on a North Bay Stage.

'Shakespeare in Love' runs Friday through Sunday through August 5 at the Cannery in Railroad Square in Santa Rosa. Show time is at 7pm with the gate opening at 5pm for picnicking.

For more information, go to shakespeareinthecannery.com

Jukebox musicals have become the bread and butter for a lot of community theatre groups. Minimal casts, simple sets and the built-in audience that comes with a popular singer or musical group is tough for an artistic director to resist. Around since the 1970’s, the genre really exploded onto the scene with the success of the ABBA-themed “Mamma Mia!” and continues with the recent Broadway opening of the Go-Go’s-themed “Head Over Heels”.

Back in 1988, playwright Ted Swindley took 27 songs recorded by Patsy Cline and created “Always… Patsy Cline”, which is running now at Sonoma Arts Live through July 29. It’s not so much a musical biography as a snippet of Cline’s career as seen through the eyes of one of her biggest fans. It covers the six years from her appearance on Arthur Godfrey’s television program till her untimely death at age 30 in an aviation accident.

Louise Seger (Karen Pinomaki) fell in love with Cline’s music the moment she heard it on a Texas radio station. When she hears that Patsy (Danielle DeBow) will be making a local appearance, she and some friends hightail it to the Empire Ballroom to discover no one’s there yet but Patsy. They strike up a conversation and become fast friends. Patsy ends up spending the night at Louise’s before heading back out on her tour. They regularly corresponded with each other after that night and it’s those letters that are the basis for the show.

DeBow is a gifted vocalist who, in conjunction with her backup singers “The Jordanaires” (Sean O’Brien, F. James Raasche, Michael Scott Wells, Ted Von Pohle) and musical director Ellen Patterson and a six-piece band, delivers a quality evening of Cline’s greatest hits including “Sweet Dreams” and “Crazy”. The songs are interspersed with Louise’s musings about her life and her love for Patsy. Pinomaki is very entertaining as the bombastic, big-haired Louise, though there were moments where less would be more.

Director Michael Ross, who’s directed a few female-centric musicals in his day (“Gypsy”, “Little Women”, “Sister Act” for example) shows a real mastery of the material here. Also responsible for costumes and some of the set design, he gets almost everything right. Costume work is stellar as DeBow must go through a dozen changes throughout the evening with each one colorfully evoking period and personality. The two-level set/three-sided audience design is interesting, but it leads to some awkward blocking and audience perspectives.

Terrific performances, colorful design work, and classic Americana combine to make “Always… Patsy Cline” one of the better jukebox musicals I’ve seen on a North Bay Stage.

“Always… Patsy Cline” plays Thursday through Sunday on the Rotary Stage of Andrews Hall in the Sonoma Community Center. Thursday through Saturday performances are at 7:30 pm; the Sunday matinee is at 2:00 pm.

For more information, got to sonomartslive.org.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame was originally scheduled as the closing production of the Spreckels Theatre Company’s 2017-2018 season. The musical, whose development by Walt Disney’s theatrical arm started in Germany and ended in New Jersey (having never made it to Broadway), is an atypical Disney production. More Les Miserables than The Little Mermaid, it’s an interesting amalgam of Victor Hugo’s original gothic novel with music and elements from Disney’s 1996 animated adaptation. Far darker than one would expect from a production with the Disney named semi-attached, Spreckels’ decision to replace it in their season with a more ‘family-friendly’ production of the classic Peter Pan is understandable. It’s also regrettable, because as the production running now in San Francisco produced by Bay Area Musicals reveals, it’s a very good show.

Hugo’s 15th century-set tale of Quasimodo (Alex Rodriguez), the bell ringer at Paris’s Cathedral of Notre Dame, his guardian (and uncle) Archdeacon Frollo (Clay David), and a gypsy girl named Esmeralda (Aysia Beltran) contains enough thematic elements for a half-dozen shows. Religious extremism, class differences, bigotry, love vs. lust, lookism, repression and oppression are all explored in Hugo’s story and Peter Parnell’s book and through the score with music by Alan Menken (Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast) and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Pippin, Wicked).

It’s grand opening number “The Bells of Notre Dame” provides the somewhat lengthy backstory before the main narrative kicks in. A band of gypsies has come to Paris and its newest member Esmeralda has caught the eye of both Quasimodo and Archdeacon Frollo. Quasimodo is taken by her kindness while Frollo is taken by ‘impure thoughts’. Add a dashing French soldier to the mix (Jack O’Reilly) and you have one helluva triangle.

Music director Jon Gallo and the nine-piece orchestra do well by the score, which runs from the light (“Topsy Turvy”, “Tavern Song) to the dark (“Hellfire”). The choral numbers are particularly powerful with tremendous vocal work done by the entire cast.

Alex Rodriguez makes for a fine Quasimodo and Clay David is excellent as the conflicted Frollo, who utters a few comments about immigrants and borders that might seem rather prescient. Both bring substantial vocal power to their musical moments.

Director/Choreographer/Scenic Designer Matthew McCoy and his team do a pretty good job with the show’s technical aspects and the limitations imposed by the venue. Narration eliminates many of the challenges, but the solution to how to present a flood of molten lead poured over a rioting crowd was ingenious.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is no children’s show, talking gargoyles to the contrary. Operatic at times, classic American musical at others, it’s a worthy addition to the season of any company with the talent, facility and budget to do it as well as this production.

'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' runs Thursday through Sunday through August 5 at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco. Thursday and Friday evening performances at 7:30 pm, Saturday evening performances at 8:00 pm. Saturday and Sunday matiness at 2:00 pm.

For more information, go to bamsf.org

One might think that the talents behind Downtown Abbey and Phantom of the Opera would be odd choices to make a Broadway musical out of a 2003 comedy starring Jack Black.

One would be correct. School of Rock, now on the San Francisco stop of its National Tour, is Julian Fellowes and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s overblown take on that modest film whose charm relied mostly on one’s appreciation of its star.

Dewey Finn (Rob Colletti, doing Jack Black-light) has been kicked out of his band, has no visible means of support and is months behind on the rent due his best friend Ned (Matt Bittner). After receiving an ultimatum from Ned’s girlfriend (a shrewish Emily Borromeo) to raise the money or get out, he answers a phone call seeking Ned’s services as a substitute teacher. Since subbing obviously requires no skills at all, Dewey decides he can impersonate Ned and make some quick money.

Soon it’s off to the toney Horace Green Academy where Dewey takes charge of an elementary class whose students have one thing in common – their parents all ignore them. When Dewey discovers he’s got a musically gifted group of kids, he hits upon the idea of creating a band and entering them in a competition. How long can he fool the stern headmistress (Lexie Dorsett Sharp, doing Joan Cusack-light) and bring his plan to fruition? Well, almost to the end of the show’s two hour and 40 minute running time, which is about an hour longer than the film took to tell the story, albeit with less music – which isn’t a bad thing.

Webber’s score is his least memorable as may be this entire production. The characters are all one dimensional. Every adult comes off poorly (except, of course, Dewey, who is not what one would think of as a role model) with every parent self-absorbed, every educator an idiot and every child a prodigy. The kids are talented musicians – yes, they play their own instruments – but when it comes to acting, not so much. To be fair, they’re on stage a lot, the choreography requires them to jump up and down a great deal, and they spend a fair amount of time moving set pieces. Maybe that’s a lot to ask of a group of pre-teens.

The best parts of the show, beyond the kids’ musical performances, are drawn straight from Mike White’s film script. There are laughs, but kids deserve a better School than this. This School simply doesn’t make the grade.

'School of Rock' runs Tuesday through Sunday through July 22 at the SHN Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco. Show times vary.

For more information, go to SHNSF.com

In a world of theatre based on movies and television shows, why not Shakespeare? Such is Illyria, a musical adaptation of Twelfth Night first produced Off-Broadway in 2002 and now running at Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse. Don’t let the words ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘musical’ chase you away. Peter Mills has written a book and score that takes the plotline of the Bard’s 17th century comedy, modernizes it a bit in speech and time period, sets it to music and comes up with a terrifically entertaining piece of theatre. Shakespeare’s tale involves shipwrecked and separated twins Viola and Sebastian (played by Carmen Mitchell and Lorenzo Alviso), Duke Orsino, the lovelorn leader of the isle of Illyria (played by Burton Thomas), and Olivia, the in-mourning object of his affection (as played by Tracy Hinman.) There’s also Andrew Aguecheek, a silly suitor for Olivia’s hand, Sir Toby Belch, Olivia’s soused uncle, Malvolio, a stuffed-shirt steward, Maria, a servant with eyes on Sir Toby, and Feste, a fool who narrates the tale. Impersonation, mistaken identity, gender confusion, and trickery all come into play before things get sorted out and everyone ends up with his or her intended. Well, most everyone. To fully enjoy this production, more than the usual suspension of belief is required in a couple of areas. One must accept Ms. Mitchell being regularly mistaken for a male and Ms. Hinman is a more mature Olivia than one usually sees in the role, but just go with it. Mills’s 20+ songs vary in style from a lilting ballad (the beautiful “Save One”) to English Musical Hall numbers like the hilarious “Cakes and Ale”. Musical director Lucas Sherman has a six-piece band delivering the beguiling score flawlessly while director Craig Miller’s cast brings superb vocal talents to bear. As strong a group of voices I’ve heard on a North Bay stage, this may be the best sounding musical 6th Street has produced. It’s gratifying that the characterizations provided by the performers match their vocal quality. Mitchell charms as the gender-bending Viola and is matched by Burton’s flustered Orsino. Orsino’s musical confession of love to Alviso’s Sebastian (whom Viola was impersonating) shows Shakespeare was a couple of centuries ahead of society when it came to same-sex relationships. Ample comedic support is provided by Seth Dahlgren as Toby Belch, Larry Williams as Malvolio, and Stephen Kanaski as the foppish Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Tim Setzer’s clowning and dancing as Feste was rakishly amusing. Craig Miller ends his tenure at 6th Street Playhouse on a high note with this delightful production. 'Illyria' runs Friday through Sunday through July 8 at 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa; Friday and Saturday performances are at 7:30pm; there are Saturday & Sunday matinees are at 2pm. For more information, go to 6thstreetplayhouse.com

Sonoma’s Transcendence Theatre Company opened its seventh season of “Broadway Under the Stars” in Jack London State Park with Stairway to Paradise, the first of four staged concert events scheduled this year.

The company takes performers with Broadway, touring company, film and television experience and creates an original themed musical revue around them. This year’s theme is ‘Every Moment Counts’ and director/choreographer Tony Gonzalez has designed 20+ production numbers full of memorable moments. Along with Broadway show tunes, the Transcendence play list includes a mix of recent and past pop hits, classic rock, and specialty numbers. They’re all done ‘Broadway style’ and occasionally with a twist. It often works well, but sometimes it doesn’t.

The first act ran the gamut from numbers from Sunday in the Park with George, South Pacific, The Wiz, and Victor/Victoria to “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” and “Feelin’ Groovy” by Paul Simon. Highlights included a recreation of the famous Judy Garland/Barbra Streisand duet of “Get Happy/Happy Days are Here Again” with Courtney Markowitz and Shaleah Adkisson, Christine Lavin’s popular “Air Conditioner” song, also done by Adkisson with Tim Roller, and a large-scale production number of “Blue Skies” with the entire company led by Joey Khoury singing and dancing to the Irving Berlin classic.

In an amusing bit that allowed the performers (and audience) a break, the cast played a round of ‘Transcendence Family Feud’ with contestants pulled from the crowd. The act ended on a local note with a performance of “Everything”, a tribute song written by Sonoma County songwriters Mark Beynon and Joe Label and the Transcendence version of “Oklahoma!” which morphed the Rogers and Hammerstein classic into “Oh, Sonoma!”

The second act included numbers from Cabaret, Into the Woods, and The Sound of Music mixed with Justin Timberlake, Van Halen and, in the evening’s one clear misstep, Don McLean’s “American Pie”. Sorry guys, but perky, Cheshire cat-like smiling performers singing “This’ll be the day that I die” just doesn’t work for me. It actually came off a little creepy.

Things snapped back with a jaunty Michael Linden performing Drew Gasparini’s “A Little Bit” and large-scale numbers with Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” and Van Halen’s “Right Now” before concluding with “Finale B’ from Rent.

Dress in layers, pack a picnic, indulge in some wine or food purchased from local food trucks and vintners serving on-site, then sit back and enjoy a unique north bay entertainment experience.

'Stairway to Paradise' runs Friday through Sunday through July 1 at Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen. Doors open for picnicking at 5pm; the show starts at 7:30pm.

For more info on this and the other three “Broadway Under the Stars” productions running this season, go to bestnightever.com

Two community theatre workhorses have galloped onto North Bay stages.

Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater is presenting The Fantasticks, the 1960 musical that ran for a record 42 years Off-Broadway and then had a revival in 2006 that ran for another eleven years. It’s a modest production with a sweet score and engaging performances.

It’s a simple tale of two neighboring families. Mrs. Hucklebee (Krista Wigle) and Mr. Bellomy (Michael van Why) each have a child they wish to fall in love with the other. They figure the best way to achieve that is to start a pseudo-feud between the families and make it clear to them they don’t want them to see each other. When Luisa (Carolyn Bacon) and Matt (Lucas Brandt) do fall in love, how do they end the “feud” so all may live happily ever after? Well, they hire a mysterious stranger who goes by the name “El Gallo” (Sergey Khalikulov) and some players (James Pelican, Brandon Wilson) to stage a phony abduction of Luisa to allow Matt to rescue her so all may be forgiven between the families, of course! Act One ends on a happy note as all seems rosy for the couple. Act Two makes it clear the bloom has fallen off the rose.

The Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical can trace its roots back to Shakespeare and even further back to Greek and Roman mythology and yet if often feels more dated than that. Director Elly Lichenstein utilizes several authorized revisions to make some of the show’s more problematic elements more palatable to today’s audience and it mostly works. The music is nostalgic (“Try to Remember” opens the show), the staging is colorful, and the cast is excellent with Ms. Bacon and Mr. Khalikulov in fine voice and Messrs. Pelican and Wilson providing welcome comedy relief.

'The Fantasticks' runs through June 24 at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 8pm; there’s a Sunday matinee at 2pm.

For more information, go to cinnabartheater.org

Curtain Call Theatre in Monte Rio is presenting Bullshot Crummond, a 45-year-old parody of a 100-year-old pretty-much-forgotten British literary character. Running through June 23, it’s the type of show where you’re encouraged to boo the villain and cheer the hero as he rescues a damsel in distress.

An ambitious undertaking for the small theatre company in terms of staging, its technical elements are somewhat lacking but the steampunk-style costumed cast is game and director Avi Lind puts them through their paces. There are some nice bits of physical comedy and inventive sight gags that at the very least will have you cracking a smile and shaking your head. It’s silly and it’s stupid, but that’s what it’s supposed to be.

'Bullshot Crummond' runs through June 23 at the Russian River Hall in Monte Rio.

Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 8pm.

For more information, go to curtaincallrussianriver.com

“Everyone’s a little bit racist” sing the puppets in the musical Avenue Q. Playwright Greg Kalleres takes that thought and runs with it in Honky, running now at Left Edge Theatre.

It opens up with a commercial for Skymax 16’s, the latest craze in athletic footwear. It ends with the tag line “S’up now?” which we soon learn is the last thing said to a black teen before he’s killed for the shoes.

Lights up on the office of Davis Tallison (Mike Pavone), the white president of a company that makes footwear “by black people for black people.” Thomas Hodge (Trey G. Riley) is there to unveil his latest design and is aghast to learn that sales of the 16’s have exploded in the white youth community since the shooting. Tallison announces the new 17’s will now be marketed to them. Hodge is furious that something he created for “his people” has become bastardized and seeks some sort of retribution on the creator of the commercial he thinks is responsible.

Enter Peter Trammel (Mark Bradbury), whose issues about the commercial’s impact have led him to a therapist (Liz Rogers-Beckley) with her own issues. In a coincidence that only occurs to writers, she happens to be Hodge’s sister. Credulity is further strained when Hodge runs into Peter’s fiancé (Lydia Revelos) and sees a way for some payback, but credulity really shouldn’t be an issue in a play with a sublot involving a new pharmaceutical cure for racism whose side effects lead to visions of a lusty Abraham Lincoln (Nick Christenson) and a foul-mouthed Frederick Douglass (Julius Rea).

Part absurdist farce and part blistering social commentary, Honky will make you laugh and uncomfortable. More about racial identity than racism, the feelings of being “too white” or “not black enough” are deftly combined with swipes at our consumerist society where discrimination is masked as “marketing” and stereotypes are just “demographics.”

Director Argo Thompson has a terrific cast with California-newcomer Riley outstanding as the conflicted Hodge. The opening scene with veteran Pavone crackles and sets the tone for the duration. Excellent work is done by all with an extra shout out to Julius Rea and Jim Kaskey for their work as a variety of ‘urban’ youth the other characters encounter.

Funny, infuriating, profane and profound, shows like Honky don’t play on wine country stages that often. Catch it while you can.

‘Honky’ runs through July 1 at Left Edge Theatre located in the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 8pm.

There’s a Sunday matinee at 2pm.

For more information, go to leftedgetheatre.com