CONTRA COSTA CIVIC THEATRE

by Steve Murray - March 09, 2026

TheatreWorks and director Jeffrey Lo must have been licking their chops with the chance to produce the regional premiere of Eboni Booth’s Pulitzer Prize winning Primary Trust. In Lo’s skillful hands, and with a seasoned powerful cast, Primary Trust is a winner – both deeply emotional and full ...

by Steve Murray - March 06, 2026

For every lover of Ibsen, Arthur Miller and Stephen Sondheim, there’s a lover of The Three Stooges, Abbott & Costello and of course, Monty Python. Back in the 1970’s Monty Python’s Flying circus was a sensation with their irreverent and risqué observational comedy. If you couldn’t recite th...

by Steve Murray - March 02, 2026

There’s a giant dynamo inside the petite frame of Marilyn Maye that propels her constantly forward, now approaching her 98th birthday, and eighth decade of performances. She’s a national treasure and receives adulation befitting her status wherever she performs....

by Steve Murray - March 02, 2026

The late AIDS activist Larry Kramer meets Pete Buttigieg in John Fisher’s wild political fantasia Left Field, now occupying the full stage at Theatre Rhino. Written and directed by Fisher, Left Field follows an angry radical f****t who rises from mayor to supervisor, to VP candidate, to potential ...

by Steve Murray - February 26, 2026

Arthur Miller needed after his disastrous Broadway debut with the four-performance The Man Who Had All the Luck, and an article in an Ohio newspaper would provide the basis for All My Sons which would on to win two Tony awards for Best Author and Direction of a Play....

by Steve Murray - February 25, 2026

The Paranormal Activity franchise (seven films from 2007 -21), while critically panned, proved people love to be scared, then laugh at their foolishness. Now a theatre piece, the crowd anticipated the expected thrills of supernatural goings on in a live experience....

by Steve Murray - February 14, 2026

What did our critic think of THE NOTEBOOK at Orpheum Theatre?...

by Steve Murray - February 12, 2026

What did our critic think of M. BUTTERFLY at SF Playhouse?...

by Kelly Rogers Flynt - February 11, 2026

IMPROBABLE FICTION at Masquers Playhouse is a tale of two parts. Don’t let the easy-going first half lull you into complacency. When the action hits, it comes in quick succession with quippy lines, funny costumes, over the top dramatics, and plenty of belly laughs....

by Steve Murray - February 04, 2026

Change is hard, we all know that. We get stuck in patterns and the comfortable, even if that inertia is destructive. Watching Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, brilliantly directed by American Conservatory Theatre Artistic Director emerita Carey Perloff and starring an all-star cast of local legends, will...