Juliana Lustenader

San Francisco’s 42nd Street Moon has announced the full cast and creative team for MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, which features a book by George Furth and music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Broadway by the Bay continues their 2019 season with INTO THE WOODS - the thrilling masterpiece about wishes, what can happen when they come true, and what happens after they come true. This all-new production is on stage November 8 to 24 and features the countless unforgettable songs from the Tony Award-winning score including “Agony,” “It Takes Two,” “No One Is Alone,” “Children Will Listen,” and many more. With a book by multiple Tony Award-winner James Lapine (Falsettos, Passion, Sunday in the Park with George) and music and lyrics by multiple Tony Award-winner and musical theatre titan Stephen Sondheim (Company, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, to name a few), this is one adventure you won't want to miss!

Broadway by the Bay continues their 2019 season with INTO THE WOODS - the thrilling masterpiece about wishes, what can happen when they come true, and what happens after they come true. This all-new production is on stage November 8 to 24 and features the countless unforgettable songs from the Tony Award-winning score including a?oeAgony,a?? a?oeIt Takes Two,a?? a?oeNo One Is Alone,a?? a?oeChildren Will Listen,a?? and many more. With a book by multiple Tony Award-winner James Lapine (Falsettos, Passion, Sunday in the Park with George) and music and lyrics by multiple Tony Award-winner and musical theatre titan Stephen Sondheim (Company, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, to name a few), this is one adventure you won't want to miss!

Theatre Bay Area, one of the largest regional performing arts service organizations in North America, has announced the finalists of the 2019 TBA Awards. The sixth-annual TBA Awards Celebration will take place on Monday, Nov. 4 at the Herbst Theatre (401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco).

Watching Stephen Sondheim & James Lapine's "Passion" recently at San Francisco's Custom Made Theatre reminded me what a difficult show it is to pull off. Although it contains several of the most rapturous songs Sondheim has ever composed, there is an underlying earnestness that can be unsettling to a post-modern audience inured to a world that is constantly commenting on itself. When the leading lady sings the plainspoken lyrics "Loving you is not a choice, it's who I am" she means it with all her heart and soul. Unusually for a Sondheim score, she doesn't follow that up with a complicated rhyme or self-lacerating zinger. Nope, this show is thrillingly about nothing more nor less than the nature of true love.

Bay Area Musicals presents the Tony Award-nominated VIOLET. Inspired by the short story 'The Ugliest Pilgrim' by Doris Betts, the World Premiere 1997 Off-Broadway production of VIOLET won the Drama Critics' Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, and the revised version that debuted on Broadway in 2014 was Tony Award-nominated. Featuring a folk/bluegrass/gospel-flavored score from Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori (CAROLINE, OR CHANGE; THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE; SHREK; FUN HOME) and book and lyrics by the acclaimed Brian Crawley (A LITTLE PRINCESS), VIOLET has been astounding critics and audiences alike for over two decades.

Bay Area Musicals presents the Tony Award-nominated VIOLET. Inspired by the short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim" by Doris Betts, the World Premiere 1997 Off-Broadway production of VIOLET won the Drama Critics' Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, and the revised version that debuted on Broadway in 2014 was Tony Award-nominated. Featuring a folk/bluegrass/gospel-flavored score from Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori (CAROLINE, OR CHANGE; THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE; SHREK; FUN HOME) and book and lyrics by the acclaimed Brian Crawley (A LITTLE PRINCESS), VIOLET has been astounding critics and audiences alike for over two decades.

Bay Area Musicals presents the Tony Award-nominated VIOLET. Inspired by the short story 'The Ugliest Pilgrim' by Doris Betts, the World Premiere 1997 Off-Broadway production of VIOLET won the Drama Critics' Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, and the revised version that debuted on Broadway in 2014 was Tony Award-nominated.

Cast members of Bay Area Musicals' VIOLET - Juliana Lustenader ("Violet') and Jon-David Randle ("Flick") - were on KRON4 today discussing the show. Watch the video below!

Bay Area Musicals (Matthew McCoy, Founder & Artistic Director, and AeJay Mitchell, Managing Director) has announced the full cast and creative team for the Company's first 2019 production, the Tony Award-nominated VIOLET. Inspired by the short story 'The Ugliest Pilgrim' by Doris Betts, the World Premiere 1997 Off-Broadway production of VIOLET won the Drama Critics' Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, and the revised version that debuted on Broadway in 2014 was Tony Award-nominated. Featuring a folk/bluegrass/gospel-flavored score from Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori (CAROLINE, OR CHANGE; THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE; SHREK; FUN HOME) and book and lyrics by the acclaimed Brian Crawley (A LITTLE PRINCESS), VIOLET has been astounding critics and audiences alike for over two decades.

Bay Area Musicals (Matthew McCoy, Founder & Artistic Director, and AeJay Mitchell, Managing Director) has announced the full cast and creative team for the Company's first 2019 production, the Tony Award-nominated VIOLET. Inspired by the short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim" by Doris Betts, the World Premiere 1997 Off-Broadway production of VIOLET won the Drama Critics' Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, and the revised version that debuted on Broadway in 2014 was Tony Award-nominated. Featuring a folk/bluegrass/gospel-flavored score from Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori (CAROLINE, OR CHANGE; THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE; SHREK; FUN HOME) and book and lyrics by the acclaimed Brian Crawley (A LITTLE PRINCESS), VIOLET has been astounding critics and audiences alike for over two decades.

Cinderella meets Tinder in this modern musical. Our princess, Meg, longs for true love, but she can barely get a "like." Her fairy-god-roommate reveals the magic of Tinder, and suddenly prince charming is only a swipe away. But Meg still must get to the ball, catch BART before midnight, and reconcile her fairytale dreams with reality-all without losing her slippers.

This December, New Conservatory Theatre Center delivers the ultimate holiday present with the 5th anniversary of its award-winning production of Avenue Q.

Subtitled "A Suburban Jacobean Play," MacLeod's shocking The House of Yes is most famous for being a critically acclaimed indie film starring Parker Posey. Custom Made proudly presents a new look at this modern classic. Directed by Stuart Bousel (Grey Gardens, the Musical) and featuring Caitlin Evenson, Shelley Lynn Johnson*, Elliot Lieberman, Juliana Lustenader*, and Casey Robbins. The House of Yes runs March 30 - April 29 at Custom Made Theatre, 533 Sutter Street in San Francisco.

This December, NCTC brings the holiday cheer with everyone's favorite foul-mouthed, feel-good musical: the return of NCTC's award-winning production of Avenue Q, with music, lyrics and original concept by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marxand book by Jeff Whitty. Proclaimed by San Francisco Travel Magazine as "a local tradition," this "year-in, year-out hilarious, high-energy, and heart-warming production" (Theatre Eddys) won over critics and audiences alike in its previous engagements in NCTC's intimate Decker Theatre. Declares the San Francisco Examiner, "only the Grinch could prevent the laughter-filled show from selling out night after night."

Custom Made Theatre Company opens its 18th season in San Francisco with Chess, the legendary rock opera from Tim Rice ("Evita","Jesus Christ Superstar") and Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, members of the celebrated pop group, ABBA. Set towards the end of the cold war, Chess uses politics and sport as metaphor for a love triangle between an enfant-terrible American superstar (loosely modeled on Bobby Fisher), his Hungarian-born lover/second, and a Soviet player looking to start a new life.  

This March, Harper Lee's beloved novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, comes to life at Hillbarn Theatre. Set in Alabama during The Great Depression, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel sees racial injustice envelop a small-town community. Through courage and compassion, lawyer Atticus Finch seeks the truth, and his feisty daughter, Scout - a young girl on the cusp of adulthood - brings new hope to a neighborhood in turmoil. This timeless classic compels audiences to take an honest look at our nation's past and humanities moral responsibility to each other.

In 1975, filmmakers Albert and David Maysles brought their cameras into the crumbling, palatial estate of Edith Bouvier Beale (the aunt of Jackie Kennedy) and her daughter, Little Edie. There they found two women ostracized from their community, hanging on to reality by a thread, and surrounded by dozens of cats and raccoons. Grey Gardens, the Musical examines both the back-story of this fascinating family and the fate they couldn't possibly have imagined. It was the first musical on Broadway ever to be adapted from a documentary.

In 1975, filmmakers Albert and David Maysles brought their cameras into the crumbling, palatial estate of Edith Bouvier Beale (the aunt of Jackie Kennedy) and her daughter, Little Edie. There they found two women ostracized from their community, hanging on to reality by a thread, and surrounded by dozens of cats and raccoons. Grey Gardens, the Musical examines both the back-story of this fascinating family and the fate they couldn't possibly have imagined. It was the first musical on Broadway ever to be adapted from a documentary.

EVITA, the story of political powerhouse Eva Peron, runs from March 28th through April 13th at the historic Fox Theatre in Redwood City (2215 Broadway Street, Redwood City, CA).