BAY AREA THEATER

By Kathy McCarty

 

When the SISTERS MATSUMOTO return home after internment in an Arkansas camp, like 100,000 other Japanese Americans incarcerated during WW2, they discover resuming pre-war life is complicated.  Renowned playwright Philip Kan Gotanda pens a heartwarming story balancing comedy, romance and suspense in this Center REP production. DETAILS: March 31-April 29, Walnut Creek, lesherartscenter.org.

 

Peter Quilter’s Tony Award nominated END OF THE RAINBOW, produced by OMG, I Love That Show, features songs performed by Judy Garland during her 1968 “come-back" concerts when she attempted to rekindle her career in the months before her death. DETAILS:  March 31 - April 23, Walnut Creek, lesherartscenter.org.

 

GREASE is the word. Start your engines, grab your bobby socks and gear up for a 50s rock ‘n roll extravaganza. Jive to one of Broadway's longest running musicals when Contra Costa Musical Theatre brings this nostalgic blast from the past to stage. DETAILS: March 31-April 30, Walnut Creek, lesherartscenter.org.

 

It’s the hottest ticket in town. Tony Award winning HAMILTON comes to San Francisco’s SHN with a score blending hip-hop, jazz, blues, rap, and R&B by Lin-Manuel Miranda who has created one of the most remarkable musicals in American theatre history. DETAILS: Through August 5, San Francisco, shnsf.com.

 

Berkeley’s Shotgun Players perform NORA, a work that delves into gender dynamics, deceit, and courage illustrating the inherent patriarchy of American culture and its impact on society, with themes as pertinent today as they were when the story was first penned in 1879.  DETAILS: Through April 16, Berkeley, shotgunplayers.org

 

Georgia Engel, most notable for her role as Georgette in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, stars in JOHN as an eccentric landlady who boards a couple in her Gettysburg bed-and-breakfast in this ghost story with a millennial twist. DETAILS:  Through April 23, San Francisco, ACT-sf.org.

 

Summer stock becomes a LAUGHING STOCK when a struggling theatre company, short on time and money, produces “Dracula,” “Hamlet,” and “Charlie’s Aunt” in a performance that celebrates all the things we love about theatre and everything that can go wrong making it. DETAILS:  April 14-30, Danville, villagetheatreshows.com.

     

Internationally acclaimed pianist Hershey Felder returns to Berkeley Rep for a tour-de-force performance tracing Irving Berlin’s trajectory from Czarist Russia to New York’s Lower East Side.  HERSHEY FELDER AS IRVING BERLIN, a play-with-music written and performed by the award-winning actor and musician, epitomizes the American Dream. DETAILS: April 4 - 30, Berkeley, berkeleyrep.org.

 

Based on the true story of National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre's 1969 expedition into the Amazon rainforest, THE ENCOUNTER, reveals his discovery of a little known tribe. State-of-the-art sound technology creates a three-dimensional audience experience. DETAILS: April 25-May 7, San Francisco, sfcurran.com

 

Aurora Theatre continues its 25th Anniversary celebration with Sarah Greenman’s LENI based on the life of Leni Riefenstahl, a German filmmaker notorious for her Nazi Propaganda, in this work directed by Jon Tracy. DETAILS: Through May 7, Berkeley, auroratheatre.org.