Joan Mankin News

Sweet Can Productions presents an intimate theatrical circus experience for the holidays with the fourth edition of MITTENS AND MISTLETOE: A WINTER CIRCUS CABARET from December 20-24, at the Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St. (at Mission).

Sweet Can Productions presents an intimate theatrical circus experience for the holidays with the fourth edition of MITTENS AND MISTLETOE: A WINTER CIRCUS CABARET.

Cutting Ball Theater opens its 15th season with the World Premiere of SIDEWINDERS by Basil Kreimendahl. M. Graham Smith makes his main stage directing debut at Cutting Ball with SIDEWINDERS, featuring DavEnd, Sara Moore, Donald Currie, and Norman Muñoz. SIDEWINDERS plays October 18 through November 17 (Press opening: October 24) at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor Street) in San Francisco. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the star below!

Cutting Ball Theater opens its 15th season with the World Premiere of SIDEWINDERS by Basil Kreimendahl. M. Graham Smith makes his main stage directing debut at Cutting Ball with SIDEWINDERS, featuring DavEnd, Sara Moore,Donald Currie, and Norman Muñoz. SIDEWINDERS plays October 18 through November 17 at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor Street) in San Francisco. For tickets ($10-50) and more information, the public may visitcuttingball.com or call 415-525-1205.

The Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe (SFMT) opens its 54th season with OIL & WATER - Two New One Act Musical Productions. After a successful grassroots fundraising effort, SFMT fans rallied to underwrite the SFMT's 54th season. This summer SFMT is doing something different. Within a larger musical/comedic frame, OIL & WATER is actually two shorter plays - CRUDE INTENTIONS and DEAL WITH THE DEVIL - each stylistically unique but topically linked and musically interwoven. True to the SFMT's theatrical grassroots of exaggerated genre and oversized characters, the plays challenge the dangerous energy practices of both corporations and the rest of us. In addition SFMT is committed to creating a smaller carbon footprint with this 2013 production.

Bay Area Theatrical powerhouses Sara Moore and Michael Phillis have teamed up to pen and star in Wunderworld - A World-Premiere Human Cartoon that tells the story of an 80-year-old Alice going back down the rabbit hole for another adventure.

Bay Area playwright/producer Tom Bruett of marriageequalityplays.com and BATS Improv, the Bay Area's premiere nonprofit improv theatre company, are busily preparing for a special event featuring new short plays by prominent Bay Area playwrights and an improvised short play by BATS Improv on the theme of marriage equality, to benefit the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER).

Bay Area playwright/producer Tom Bruett of marriageequalityplays.com and BATS Improv, the Bay Area's premiere nonprofit improv theatre company, are busily preparing for a special event featuring new short plays by prominent Bay Area playwrights and an improvised short play by BATS Improv on the theme of marriage equality, to benefit the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER).

Actors of all ages and experience levels are welcome at the award-winning American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) Conservatory for world-class training, and the New Year brings many opportunities to take part.

Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company presents the second Aurora Script Club meeting of the season with playwright Bill Cain's (Equivocation, Nine Circles) Stand-Up Tragedy. Cain introduced Stand-Up Tragedy to the American stage 20 years ago, telling a story in music and dance through characters who feel like puppets gambling with their fate in an 'ecology of evil.'

The puppet and its master are one. Gracefully and poetically, they move together. The puppet's face remains still, but seems to convey a hundred emotions. The puppeteer's face changes with the puppet's character, mimicking what the character feels. Yet the character has another master. The Devil has made a deal with this character and will manipulate him like a puppet until he owns him. No, this puppet's name is not Pinnochio, and his master is not Gepetto. Prima ballerina Muriel Maffre controls Joseph the puppet in Aurora Theatre Company's innovative production of "The Soldier's Tale," which follows a soldier and his deals with the Devil and includes music by Igor Stravinsky (known for "The Rite of Spring" and "The Firebird Suite").

Berkeley's acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company presents the second Aurora Script Club meeting of the season with playwright Bill Cain's (Equivocation, Nine Circles) Stand-Up Tragedy. Cain introduced Stand-Up Tragedy to the American stage 20 years ago, telling a story in music and dance through characters who feel like puppets gambling with their fate in an 'ecology of evil.'

NCTC is proud to present Show Ho starring Sara Moore. The show will close on October 9, 2011.

NCTC is proud to present Show Ho starring Sara Moore. The show previews September 8, 2011. Press Night /Opening Night will be Friday, September 9, 2011 at 8pm.

Aurora Theatre Company continues its 20th season celebration with an enchanting, one-of-a-kind collaboration between Artistic Director Tom Ross and former San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Muriel Maffre with a re-imagined production of Igor Stravinsky's THE SOLDIER'S TALE.

NCTC is proud to present Show Ho starring Sara Moore. The show previews September 8, 2011. Press Night /Opening Night will be Friday, September 9, 2011 at 8pm.

Marin Theatre Company presents Fuddy Meers by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire March 31 through April 24. MTC Producing Director Ryan Rilette directs this 'deftly zany absurdist comedy' (New York Magazine) that is 'dark, sweet and thoroughly engaging... surprisingly touching' (The New York Times). Opening night is on April 5.

Marin Theatre Company presents Fuddy Meers by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire March 31 through April 24. MTC Producing Director Ryan Rilette directs this 'deftly zany absurdist comedy' (New York Magazine) that is 'dark, sweet and thoroughly engaging... surprisingly touching' (The New York Times). Opening night is on April 5.

SUPERIOR DONUTS, the fresh-baked tale of friendship and redemption in a Chicago donut dispensary, makes its regional premiere at TheatreWorks, the nationally acclaimed theater of Silicon Valley

SUPERIOR DONUTS, the fresh-baked tale of friendship and redemption in a Chicago donut dispensary, makes its regional premiere at TheatreWorks, the nationally acclaimed theater of Silicon Valley