SACRAMENTO THEATER REVIEWS

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.  On...

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...

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 T...

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.  Ro...

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...

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...

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. ...

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 r...

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 �...

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 ...

After a year and a half hiatus, Broadway Sacramento is back in a big way!  Their 2021 season opened on Wednesday in the newly renovated SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center with the most revered piece of theatre in recent memory-Hamilton. Patrons were treated to a beautifully redesigned venue t...

There’s something truly extraordinary that happens when you step onto the grounds of Jack London State Historic Park.  It’s not just any park.  You are whisked away into a magical land of beauty, passion, exuberance -- and immersed in spellbinding talent that is known as the Transcendence Thea...

When I started writing for BroadwayWorld, never did I think that I would be an audience of one.  Then 2020 happened and here I am, the lone spectator, reviewing a one-act play-the first live performance I've seen in over a year.  Maybe fittingly, it is a play about death.  More specifically, it's...

Growing up unscathed in the Bronx in the 1960s was not easy. Young men had to deal with racial tensions as well as violent crime. Academy Award-nominated actor Chazz Palminteri somehow made it out successfully and, in 1989, wrote a one-man play chronicling his experiences. It did so well that Robert...

It is said that Shakespeare's Hamlet is being performed every minute somewhere in the world. Now, you can see it at the Sacramento Theatre Company (STC). BroadwayWorld Award-winning director Casey McClellan teams up with Greg Foro to create a modern-day version of the play that focuses on the intric...

Once in a while, you're lucky enough to witness something so special that you are forever changed. I've stared at this computer screen for hours trying to verbalize what is still swirling around in my head, impressions that are seemingly impossible to solidify into communicable thoughts. Last night'...

In a place somewhere between Frog Level and Smyrna, NC, lies the Double Cupp Diner and Pump Boys Filling Station. Go on in and grab yourself a piece of pie! Rhetta and Prudie will take good care of you while Jim, L.M., Jackson, and Eddie top off your car. If you're lucky, you may even bear witness t...

Now that Christmas is over, we have only 364 days to wait until next year's festivities! Even less than that to begin thinking about attending all of the holiday activities that contribute to making the season so special. I will definitely be starting a new tradition of seeing the show, Irish Chris...

One of my favorite holiday traditions is going to the theatre to see shows that celebrate the magic of the season. For the past three years, I've been fortunate enough to experience that with the Sacramento Theatre Company (STC) and their unique production of A Christmas Carol. This adaptation was w...

Deathtrap, the longest-running comedy/thriller on Broadway, brings tantalizing twists and shocking turns to Sacramento Theatre Company (STC) this month. This 1978 play-within-a-play by Ira Levin (Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives) was nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Play. Directed b...

a?oeYou'll shoot your eye out, kid!a?? can mean one thing and one thing only. A Christmas Story, the Musical is on the first stop of its holiday tour here in Sacramento. Based on the 1983 movie, the musical boasts songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the duo responsible for Dear Evan Hansen and La L...

What better way to kick off the fall season and Sacramento Theatre Company's (STC) 75th season than with a satirical homage to Gothic romance? Jane Austen's first completed novel, Northanger Abbey, is the much-anticipated opener of this season of Decades, Divas, and Diamonds. Local playwright and ac...

Davis Shakespeare Festival (DSF) is closing out their 2019 season with Comedy of Errors, one of Shakespeare's earliest and shortest works. This adaptation was born of a project by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival called Play On Shakespeare in which playwrights are challenged with making the Bard's wo...

In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda's love letter to the New York neighborhood in which he grew up, is finally at Broadway at Music Circus after a summer of anticipation. The first draft was written in 1999, when he was a sophomore at Wesleyan University. After being accepted by the student theatre c...

Wizard of Oz lovers can rejoice, for The Wiz has arrived! Take the original, add soul and catchy dance numbers, pepper it with one-liners, and you have a version that makes the whole family happy. The Wiz was created to give a voice to the urban African-American and the song styles reflect that with...