Sacramento Theater Reviews Page 4

Review: A CHRISTMAS CAROL at Sacramento Theatre Company
by Courtney Symes - December 04, 2022

As we reach the end of 2022, it’s time to pause and reflect on the past year. Have we been naughty or nice? Stingy or generous? While most of us can’t boast of being the best miser, like Scrooge, or the most innocent, like Tiny Tim, we can find solace that we are somewhere in the middle and most lik...

Review: LIFE SUCKS Doesn't Suck at Big Idea Theatre
by Courtney Symes - November 29, 2022

Thanksgiving this year was a wonderful gathering at home, enjoying the riches of food and family. Ironically, the next night was spent ruminating about how Life Sucks. This work by playwright Aaron Posner is a modern adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s 1898 play, Uncle Vanya. Big Idea Theatre has brought ...

Review: THE LOST CLAUS Finds Christmas Spirit at the B Street Theatre
by Courtney Symes - November 23, 2022

‘Tis the season to be jolly!  Unless you’re Santa, whose ancient body has compiled a laundry list of ailments. Playwright Buck Busfield has imagined a contemporary North Pole in this sweet and salty tale of Christmas hijinks at the B Street Theatre....

Review: THE LARAMIE PROJECT Sparks Dialogue at Sacramento State's Playwrights Theatre
by Courtney Symes - November 21, 2022

As I watched The Laramie Project at Sacramento State University on Saturday night, I thought to myself how far we’ve come as a society and how much progress we’ve made since 1998. That was the year Matthew Shepard was beaten and tied to a fence in rural Wyoming by two young men – left to die simply ...

Review: Sacramento Says Hello! And Welcome Back To THE BOOK OF MORMON
by Courtney Symes - November 03, 2022

Our favorite doorbell-ringing devotional devotees are back in Sacramento with a new and improved version of the Tony Award-winning hit, The Book of Mormon.  It’s been four years since they brought the good word of the creators of South Park (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) and Avenue Q (Robert Lopez), a...

Review: Come Aboard for MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS at Sacramento Theatre Company
by Courtney Symes - October 14, 2022

It’s the dawn of a titillating new season at Sacramento Theatre Company (STC) and this one may be the best yet!  The 2022-2023 Season of Curiosity, Intrigue, and Suspense kicked off with previews of the adaptation of Agatha Christie’s famous whodunit, Murder on the Orient Express.  Published in 1934...

Review: LOVE AND BASEBALL is a Grand Slam at B Street Theatre
by Courtney Symes - October 05, 2022

Two of my guilty pleasures-romantic comedies and baseball-are married in a hilarious one-act play showing now at the B Street Theatre.  Love and Baseball is the latest success by B Street Theatre playwright Jerry Montoya.  This clever take on gender stereotypes has also recently been made into a mov...

Review: COME FROM AWAY Comes To Broadway On Tour at the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center
by Courtney Symes - September 21, 2022

Once in a while, an event occurs that is so viscerally powerful that you will always remember exactly what you were doing when it happened.  Most people over 70 will remember what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  People my age remember the Challenger disaster vividly (I was in...

Review: Come Join the CHARADE at The B Street Theatre
by Courtney Symes - September 11, 2022

A beautiful woman, international espionage, a mysterious stranger, and so many twists that you’ll be dizzy-that’s what’s happening at the B Street Theatre this week.  Based on the 1963 film starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, Charade has been adapted for the stage by Dave Pierini, who is also a ...

Review: Say 'Hell Yes!' to THE COLOR PURPLE at Broadway At Music Circus
by Courtney Symes - August 24, 2022

For me, the end of summer in Sacramento is signaled by the same event every year-the last show of the Broadway at Music Circus season.  This summer’s end is particularly bittersweet, as it marks the finale of a return to the round after two years of being in the dark.  Fittingly, this show is the mo...

Review: IN THE HEIGHTS Dazzles at Woodland Opera House
by Courtney Symes - August 21, 2022

My first foray to the historical Woodland Opera House occurred this weekend to take a trip back to Washington Heights, the neighborhood that Lin-Manuel Miranda memorialized in In the Heights, his successful precursor to Hamilton.  It was written as an homage to the community that shaped him and the ...

Review: Come and Enter THE SECRET GARDEN at Broadway At Music Circus
by Courtney Symes - August 10, 2022

Broadway at Music Circus is taking us back to England again, not to a shoe factory or the Globe Theatre, but to a gloomy moor in Yorkshire.  Based upon the 1911 Frances Hodgson Burnett novel of the same name, The Secret Garden premiered on Broadway in 1991 and earned three Tony Awards, including Bes...

Review: CIRQUE DU SOLEIL Brings the Magic of ALEGRIA to Sutter Health Park
by Courtney Symes - July 29, 2022

Cirque du Soleil is back in Sacramento, this time under the big top at Sutter Health Park.  It brings to us its reimagined classic, Alegria, which features updated costumes, characters, and music.  Boasting a multi-cultural cast from over 20 countries, Alegria takes the best the world has to offer a...

Review: Nostradamus Predicts a Hit With SOMETHING ROTTEN! at Broadway At Music Circus
by Courtney Symes - July 27, 2022

Broadway at Music Circus welcomes you to the Renaissance with its newest resounding success, Something Rotten!  This is the first time the Tony Award-nominated musical is being performed at Music Circus and the round lends a special intimacy to the production that, I’ll admit, made it better than th...

Review: It's Another Op'nin, Another Show With KISS ME, KATE at Broadway At Music Circus
by Courtney Symes - July 15, 2022

Another classic from the 1940s is gracing the stage at Broadway at Music Circus.  This time, it’s Kiss Me, Kate, the musical-within-a-musical that cemented Cole Porter’s return to Broadway as a successful lyricist and composer.  It ended up being Porter’s longest-running Broadway show and won the ve...

Review: CAROUSEL Has June Bustin' Out All Over at Broadway At Music Circus
by Courtney Symes - June 30, 2022

The world has changed a lot since 1945, when Carousel opened on Broadway.  The Tony Awards hadn’t been established yet.  Interracial marriage was not yet legal.  Its score speaks of a bygone era when people comported themselves with a certain modesty and societal rules were very different.  One woul...

BWW Review: Transcendence Theatre's 'Let's Dance' Celebrates Diversity Through Dance
by Christina Mancuso - June 20, 2022

California Wine Country's award-winning Transcendence Theatre Company returned once again to the incomparable Jack London State Historic Park to celebrate its 11th season. And what better way to celebrate than through dance. Directed by acclaimed international director and choreographer Luis Salgado...

BWW Review: KINKY BOOTS Kicks Off Summer at Broadway At Music Circus
by Courtney Symes - June 15, 2022

After being dark for two years, Broadway at Music Circus opened its 2022 season with Kinky Boots, the glittery hit from Broadway legend Harvey Fierstein and 80s icon Cyndi Lauper.  After opening on Broadway in 2013, it surprised everyone by surpassing its competition and securing a season-high 13 To...

BWW Review: TOOTSIE Closes the Season at Broadway Sacramento
by Courtney Symes - May 18, 2022

Broadway Sacramento is closing out their 2022 Broadway on Tour season with the first national tour of Tootsie.  Based on the 1982 film of the same name, Tootsie features music and lyrics by David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and a Tony Award-winning book by Robert Horn.  Rollin...

BWW Review: WICKED is Decidedly 'Popular' at Broadway Sacramento
by Courtney Symes - April 03, 2022

It’s been almost 19 years since Wicked debuted on Broadway, but you would never know it by the reception Sacramento gave the national tour this week.  Read our critic's review of the show 'Wicked has lost none of its salability and the energy was palpable in the room in anticipation of the show that...

BWW Review: August Wilson's FENCES Enchants at Sacramento Theatre Company
by Courtney Symes - March 03, 2022

Fence (fens) n. 1. A structure that functions as a boundary or barrier, usually constructed of posts, boards, wire, or rails.  Or, as in August Wilson’s Fences, it can also be an allegory to keep the things out that you fear the most while locking all that is precious within its confines.  Is it eve...

BWW Review: ANASTASIA Holds the Key to our Hearts at Broadway Sacramento
by Courtney Symes - February 03, 2022

Broadway Sacramento has hit it out of the park again with Anastasia-The New Broadway Musical.  The 2022 Broadway on Tour season opened on Tuesday, satiating those who were eager for more after December’s hit run of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. ...

BWW Review: Enter a World of Pure Imagination with CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY at Broadway Sacramento
by Courtney Symes - December 30, 2021

That crazy, crafty confectioner is at it again.  This time in the new musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, playing through January 2 at the newly revamped Safe Credit Union Performing Arts Center.  That’s right, Willy Wonka is back with his national tour that was put on pause, and he’s ready t...

BWW Review: AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN Lifts Us Up at Broadway Sacramento
by Courtney Symes - November 04, 2021

Broadway Sacramento continues its phenomenal comeback season in the newly renovated SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center with An Officer and a Gentleman. Based on the Academy Award-winning 1982 film starring Richard Gere, the musical boasts an impressive 1980’s arrangement including the hit “Up ...

BWW Review: GLORIA: A LIFE Kicks Off a New Season at Sacramento Theatre Company
by Courtney Symes - October 14, 2021

After what Executive Director Michael Laun calls “the longest theatrical intermission ever on record,” Sacramento Theatre Company is back with its 77th season, which is aptly entitled WHO, WHAT & WHERE.  Really, do any of us know who, what, or where we are anymore?  I do know where you should be, th...