Drama

The arts did not beckon when Ron Nash was a young man—far from it. “I was in trouble mentally in high school. I was angry, angry, angry,” he said. He even got kicked out of school, but his athletic ability—he was a hurdlers champion in track—earned him a scholarship to college.

To enjoy a Ken Ludwig farce, one must fully engage one’s suspension of disbelief as miraculous coincidences, ridiculous impersonations and preposterous behaviors take center stage. Doubly so for this particular production of 'Lovely Ladies' in Cloverdale.

This coming weekend sees three shows hit the floorboards, with another in the wings. From Cloverdale to Windsor, and back to Healdsburg.

Quality-of-life issues onstage in Cloverdale Two men converse while one of them fishes off of a Chesapeake Bay dock. The fisherman regales the stranger with tales of fishing with his son. The stranger seems somewhat confused by the conversation. A woman soon approaches. As they...

Even those who haven’t read the book or watched the movie probably know the plot: Francesca Johnson (Katie Watts-Whitaker) is a disillusioned Italian war bride now stuck in an Iowa farmhouse with a stereotypical American farmer (Matthew T. Witthaus) as a husband. Her husband and the kids have gone to the fair, leaving Francesca alone for four days... Entanglements ensue.

:Every Sunday matinee we do a post-show discussion with the audience, so they get a chance to make comments and ask questions of the actors. We saw there were a lot of people who were quite moved and quite touched by the play. So the opening weekend could not have gone better, as far as I’m concerned," said director Steven David Martin.

Reviewer Harry Duke last spent time with The Sugar Bean Sisters eight years ago at a production by the Spreckels Theatre Company in Rohnert Park. His general reaction at the time was that it was a very strange show. If anything, now it's stranger.

"Macbeth stomped about the stage more concerned with his manly swagger than any of the events taking place in the play. If his desire was to make Macbeth a raging, petulant symbol of toxic masculinity, then Witthaus was quite effective. I hope this was the intention," says critic Caitlin Strom-Martin

“We were down to 'Man of La Mancha' and this show,” director Joe Gellura said. “And Bridges of Madison County' was a show that I personally wanted to do since I saw it on Broadway 11 years ago, with the original cast.” That production won two Tony Awards, including for Best Original Score and Best Orchestration for the composer, Jason Robert Brown.

It’s that time of year when critics look back and attempt to encapsulate an entire year’s worth of productions into one easy-to-read list of the “best of” the year. Why? Because ...