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Steve Murray

Steve Murray

Steve Murray is a writer for Cabaret Scenes magazine, contributor to ForAllEvents and now BroadwayWorld. He started writing rock reviews for his college newspaper in the 1970’s, produced a variety show in San Francisco for 6 years and staged comedy, theatre and music performances in the Bay Area. An avid tennis player and competitive swimmer, Steve worked in Biotech till retiring in January 2024.

 






MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

Review: DO YOU FEEL ANGER? at Marin Theatre
Review: DO YOU FEEL ANGER? at Marin Theatre
June 18, 2025

Marin Theatre concludes its 24-25 season with Mara Nelson Greenberg’s Do You Feel Anger?, about an empathy coach hired to train workers at a debt collection agency facing major lawsuits for their abusive communication skills.

Review: DOODLER at The Marsh
Review: DOODLER at The Marsh
June 15, 2025

Developed during the COVID pandemic lockdown, this one-man show has Fisher playing about a dozen characters and running the technical aspects of the show as well.

Review: CO-FOUNDERS at American Conservatory Theatre
Review: CO-FOUNDERS at American Conservatory Theatre
June 13, 2025

There was a palpable buzz pre-show at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater for the world premiere of a new hip-hop musical, a buzz that turned to excitement and joy once the curtain rose and the opening number commenced. Wildly creative, bristling with kinetic energy, beautifully staged and excellently acted, Co-Founders successfully merges the sounds and movements of hip hop with an engaging story of AI entrepreneurship.

Review: NEXT TO NORMAL at Victoria Theatre
Review: NEXT TO NORMAL at Victoria Theatre
June 9, 2025

A musically gifted daughter feeling neglected and invisible. A dutiful husband struggling to cope, and the ghost of a dead child waiting for recognition before ascending. These are the emotionally devastated characters orbiting Diana Goodman, wife, and mother coping with mental illness.

Review: JUSTIN VIVIAN BOND: OH WELL at Feinstein's At The Nikko
Review: JUSTIN VIVIAN BOND: OH WELL at Feinstein's At The Nikko
June 7, 2025

Before JVB was a sensation in New York City ( Tony-nomination (2007) GLAAD (2000), Obie (2001), Bessie (2004), Ethyl (2007), and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists (2012) awards, and 2024  MacArthur Fellow), they were a cherished counterculture  icon in San Francisco.

Review: PARADE at Orpheum Theatre
Review: PARADE at Orpheum Theatre
May 23, 2025

A true story of unspeakable injustice is beautifully realized in Parade, deservedly winner of the 2023 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. Like its dramatic courtroom cousins Inherit then Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird, Parade brings humanity to a tragedy, faces to the pictures projected on a huge backdrop screen, and a heightened emotional realism through Jason Robert Browns’ Tony winning score. Gorgeously stage by Michael Arden, its huge cast is always in motion, amazingly lit to create an atmosphere of hot and dusty 1913 Georgia.

Review: TO MY GIRLS at New Conservatory Theatre Center
Review: TO MY GIRLS at New Conservatory Theatre Center
May 18, 2025

JC Lee’s 2022 To My Girls continues the tradition of a group of gay guys getting together to trade snarky barbs, renew friendships and uncover hidden grudges.

Review: THE RADICALIZATION OF ROLFE at Safehouse Arts
Review: THE RADICALIZATION OF ROLFE at Safehouse Arts
May 11, 2025

Andrew Bergh’s The Radicalization of Rolfe, winner of a 2016 FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award, might have had its germination by observing the naïve American white males joining the MAGA movement of our current president.

Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME at SF Playhouse
Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME at SF Playhouse
May 11, 2025

San Francisco Producing Director and co-founder Susi Damilano has done a remarkable job of imagining the world of fifteen-year-old mathematics genius Christopher who just happens to be autistic.

Review: COST OF FREE- A CONVERSATION WITH SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE'S MICHAEL GENE SULLIVAN
Review: COST OF FREE- A CONVERSATION WITH SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE'S MICHAEL GENE SULLIVAN
May 9, 2025

The San Francisco Mime Troupe, founded in 1959, started with movement 'Events' with visual art elements and music, segued to commedia dell’arte, and now presents fully fledged outdoor political musical theatre with a decidedly “left” bent.

Review: THE AVES at Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Review: THE AVES at Berkeley Repertory Theatre
May 9, 2025

Jiehae Park’s World Premiere of her memory play the aves is gorgeously presented with a remarkable scenic design by visual artist Marsha Ginsberg. That the setting, and some fanciful avian puppetry by Erik Sanko becomes the focal point of the play is problematic. The story, set in a number of vignettes, involves two elders (Bill Buell, Mia Katigbak), apparently partners for fifty years, sitting on a park bench having a mundane conversation about pigeons and the weather.

Review: MAMMA MIA at Orpheum Theatre
Review: MAMMA MIA at Orpheum Theatre
May 2, 2025

It’s hard not to be swept up in the Mamma Mia juggernaut. Since its Broadway premiere in 2001, it’s grossed over $4.5 billion,  been seen by 70 million people, turned into two record-breaking movies with productions in 16 different languages.

Review: IT'S TRUE, IT'S TRUE, IT'S TRUE at Marin Theatre
Review: IT'S TRUE, IT'S TRUE, IT'S TRUE at Marin Theatre
April 20, 2025

A sensational rape trial with high profile participants, the female accuser’s reputation besmirched, the alleged rapists’ pals piling on the dirt - a he said, she said scenario being played out in the male dominated courts.

Review: TWO TRAINS RUNNING at American Conservatory Theatre
Review: TWO TRAINS RUNNING at American Conservatory Theatre
April 17, 2025

Two Trains Running is the seventh work in two-time Pulitzer winning author August Wilsons Pittsburg Cycle and continued his chronicling of the Black experience post migration to the North. Set in Pittsburgh’s once prosperous Hill District, the play focuses on diner owner Memphis Lee, facing the pressures of economic decline caused by segregation, industrial restructuring, and suburbanization in the 1960s. With Wilson’s signature poetic voice and vivid character development, this production, produced by the Tony Award-winning The Acting Company, sparkles with beautiful acting and a spirit of resilience and hopefulness.

Review: DAVID MILLS RIOT ACT! at Martuni's San Francisco
Review: DAVID MILLS RIOT ACT! at Martuni's San Francisco
April 7, 2025

The apocalypse just wouldn’t be any fun without the rapier wit ruminations of actor/comic/performance artists David Mills, here in San Francisco for two shows as part of his ‘four-show national tour.’ After decades in London, Mills is back in NYC and his acclimation isn’t as joyous as you’d think. With his silver-tongued signature and very droll manner, he launches into a nightmarish description of a stroll uptown replete with rats, feces, homeless drug addicts and children selling Chicklets. The harangue is intermixed with “Native New Yorker,” a 1977 soul dance hit.

Review: THE HEART SELLERS at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
Review: THE HEART SELLERS at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
April 6, 2025

What did our critic think of THE HEART SELLERS at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley?



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