A nuanced, poignant world premiere from playwright Christina Anderson reflects on a family’s campaign to integrate their hometown swimming pool.
Emily S. Mendel
Emily S. Mendel reviews Berkeley’s vibrant theater scene for Berkeleyside. As a native New Yorker (although an East Bay resident for most of her life), Emily grew up loving and studying theater, from Off-Off to On Broadway, as her multi-volume Playbill collection attests. Ending her law practice has given Emily the time to indulge in her love of the arts and travel.
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Adolescent girls fight their peeping pastor in Shotgun Players comedy ‘Man of God’
The astute comic revenge fantasy at the Ashby Stage has a somber, realistic ending.
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Thinking fast and thinking slow in Aurora Theatre’s ‘This Much I Know’
This adaptation of a best-selling nonfiction book is a thoughtful play about a psychology professor, his wife, an accident, Joseph Stalin’s daughter, and a white supremacist’s son.
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Young politico falls for jazz-singing ‘Goddess’ in jubilant Berkeley Rep musical
Ten years in the making, this world premiere at Berkeley Rep combines a Kenyan myth with a modern twist.
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Shotgun Players’ dark comedy ‘Dream Hou$e’ explores the meaning of home
After seeing ‘Dream Hou$e’ at the Ashby Stage, our reviewer dreamed about the two sisters packing up their childhood home. “The performance lingered in my subconscious,” she writes.
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Review: ‘Sanctuary’ is elusive for DREAMers in Berkeley Rep play
Playwright Martyna Majok’s ‘Sanctuary City’ is an unsentimental drama that will seep into your soul.
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Tom Parrish appointed Berkeley Rep’s new managing director
For 19 years, he has been a theater executive or senior leader in organizations ranging from multi-venue performing arts centers to Tony Award-winning theater companies.
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At Berkeley’s Central Works stage, mothers and daughters are ‘Dreaming in Cuban’
An adaptation of Christina García’s 1992 novel, the play is about love, loneliness, suspicion, autonomy, patriotism, phantoms and spirituality.
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Women through the ages spar comically in Aurora Theatre’s ‘Wives’ but play fails to coalesce
The West Coast premiere of Jaclyn Backhaus’ play tries to jam four skits into one comedic show. The result lacks structure and cohesiveness.
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‘Dana H.’ is the real-life recitation of a kidnap victim’s horrifying experience: Berkeley Rep
The true story is not theater to be lightly enjoyed but rather intensely, sorrowfully, and deeply felt.
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In ‘The Mojo and the Sayso,’ family’s love takes a turn after boy is killed by police
The Oakland Theater Project’s one-act production follows the Benjamin family, three years to the day after their 10-year-old son Linus was killed by an off-duty police officer.
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Cal Shakes’ bilingual ‘Romeo y Juliet’ is set in the Alta California of 1845
In the theater’s world premiere adaptation of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ the star-crossed lovers are portrayed as two daughters of the long-feuding Capulet and Montague families.