San Francisco Theater Reviews

BWW Review: A SMALL FIRE at Shotgun Players
by Steve Murray - May 23, 2022

Adam Bock's fifth production at Shotgun Players involves a poignant story of a powerful woman losing control and the effects on her immediate family. Its tough stuff and will appeal to almost every audience member. Notwithstanding a stellar performance by Desiree Rogers, the play as presented here i...

BWW Review: DEAR SAN FRANCISCO: A HIGH FLYING LOVE STORY at Club Fugazi
by Steve Murray - May 22, 2022

How can the historic Club Fugazi follow up on Beach Blanket Babylon, the world's longest-running musical revue, which played for more than 17,200 performances and to over 6.5 million? With yet another crowd-pleasing San Francisco specific immersive experience currently packing em in and likely to ru...

BWW Review: HART'S DESIRE at Theatre Rhino
by Steve Murray - May 16, 2022

Award-winning entertainer Mark Nadler (2015 Broadway World Editor's Choice Award for Entertainer of the Year) blew into town for a brief 4-performance run of his new show Hart's Desire, a very gay imagined collaboration between Moss Hart and Lorenz Hart had they not been closeted in the 1930's and 4...

BWW Review: THE PAPER DREAMS OF HARRY CHIN at SF Playhouse
by Steve Murray - May 12, 2022

Award-winning playwright Jessica Huang's powerful story of the repercussions of the Chinese Exclusion Act is superbly realized by Director Jeffrey Lo (The Language Archive, The Santaland Diaries, Vietgone) and a stellar cast including my local fave Jomar Tagatac in another outstanding performance. M...

BWW Review: FUN HOME at 42nd Street Moon Beautifully Explores a Daughter's Longing to Come to Terms with Her Family History
by Jim Munson - May 06, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews 42nd Street Moon's gloriously heart-rending and humorous new production of the Tony-winning musical 'Fun Home' running live in San Francisco through May 8th only....

BWW Review: SWAN LAKE at San Francisco Ballet Brings the 2022 Season to a Spectacular Close
by Jim Munson - May 02, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews San Francisco Ballet's glorious production of Helgi Tomasson's 'Swan Lake' running through May 8th. It also marks the end of Tomasson's wildly successful 37-year run as SFB Artistic Director....

BWW Review: AIROTIC SOIREE at Great Star Theatre
by Steve Murray - May 01, 2022

Built in 1925, the revived 500-seat Great Star Theater is the only remaining theater in San Francisco's Chinatown and now has the hottest show in town with AirOtic Soiree, a sensationally seductive evening of aerial circus artistry and burlesque cabaret at its finest....

BWW Review: OCTET at Berkeley Rep Finds the Humanity in Our Technology-Obsessed Culture
by Jim Munson - April 29, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews Berkeley Rep's pitch-perfect production of Dave Malloy's beguiling acapella musical 'Octet' running live through May 29th...

BWW Review: TOOTSIE at Broadway San Jose
by Linda Hodges - April 21, 2022

Tootsie made its Northern California premiere at San Jose's Center for the Performing Arts and will be there now through April 24. With a Tony-winning book by Robert Horn, and with music and lyrics by the clever David Yazbek (The Band's Visit, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) Tootsie garnered eleven Tony no...

BWW Review: GEM OF THE OCEAN at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
by Steve Murray - April 14, 2022

August Wilson's powerful drama of racial unrest in Pittsburgh circa 1905 seems exceptionally prescient these days, confirming that the struggle for equality and freedom are a constant for African Americans that shapes their everyday lives in ways both subtle and overt. ...

BWW Review: FEFU AND HER FRIENDS at A.C.T. Delivers a Uniquely Compelling Theatrical Experience
by Jim Munson - April 11, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews A.C.T.'s funny and moving new production of Maria Irene Fornes' multi-layered feminist classic, 'Fefu and Her Friends,' running through May 1st at the Strand Theater....

BWW Review: Broadway San Jose's Limited Run of RENT is Glorious
by Linda Hodges - April 09, 2022

Broadway San Jose's limited run of Jonathan Larson's RENT is a glorious time of raw-energy rock, as well as a heartrending reminder to measure your life in love. Billed as the 'Farewell Tour,' supposedly being the final time the original Michael Greif staging will travel North America, the show pack...

BWW Review: PROGRAM 6 at San Francisco Ballet Shows Off the Range of This Remarkable Company
by Jim Munson - April 08, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews San Francisco Ballet's stunningly varied Program 6. This final mixed rep program of SFB's 2022 season includes 2 world premieres that show off the incredible range of this world-class company....

BWW Review: PROGRAM 5 at San Francisco Ballet Showcases Its Dazzling Dancers
by Jim Munson - April 05, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews San Francisco Ballet's dazzling new Program 5 running through April 16th, which includes a world premiere by Helgi Tomasson and a reprise of Yuri Possokhov's popular 'Magrittomania.'...

BWW Review: Betty Buckley And Christian Jacob Take the Stage at Feinstein's At The Nikko
by Steve Murray - April 01, 2022

Betty Buckley is in a league all by herself, perhaps the greatest interpreter of a lyric performing today. Fresh off her smash eight-night engagement at Joe's Pub in NYC, Betty transfixed her fans at Feinstein's with an eclectic selection of tunes each becoming indelibly her own. Backed only by the ...

BWW Review: CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION at Phoenix Theatre
by Steve Murray - March 28, 2022

Annie Baker said she wanted to explore her characters through artificial acting exercises in a dull, windowless little space involving excruciating silences. Through the vehicle of a 6-week Adult Creative Drama class the students become trees, inanimate objects, perform modern dance and vocalize usi...

BWW Review: WATER BY THE SPOONFUL at SF Playhouse
by Steve Murray - March 24, 2022

Park your baggage at the door before experiencing Quiara Alegria Hudes' 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning drama Water by the Spoonful, because the characters presented here are plenty wounded, damaged, and extremely fragile. Not for the faint of heart, this is the tough stuff of addictions both physical a...

BWW Review: PASSING STRANGE at Shotgun Players
by Steve Murray - March 17, 2022

The Bay Area is enjoying a renaissance of black theatre, perhaps in conjunction with Black History Month: NCTC's Dot, MTC's Pass Over and now Shotgun Players' spectacular revival of Passing Strange, the Tony, Obie, and Drama Critics Circle Award winning musical. First premiered by Berkeley Rep in 20...

BWW Review: PROGRAM 4 at San Francisco Ballet Makes Everything Old Feel New Again
by Jim Munson - March 17, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews San Francisco Ballet's richly-rewarding Program 4, which runs lives onstage at the War Memorial Opera House through Sunday, March 20th. The dazzling program pairs the Bournonville Romantic-era classic 'La Sylphide' with Alexei Ratmansky's 'The Seasons,' a rambunctious, contempo...

BWW Review: Jeanna De Waal at Feinstein's At The Nikko Celebrates Life's Highs and Lows and Everything in Between
by Jim Munson - March 15, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews Jeanna de Waal's new cabaret show at Feinstein's at the Nikko in San Francisco. The star of 'Diana, the Musical' explores life's highs and lows in an entertaining 60 minutes....

BWW Review: SENSE AND SENSIBILITY at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
by Steve Murray - March 14, 2022

So very nice to be able to write Directed by Robert Kelley. The TheatreWorks founder retired in 2020 after being awarded a well-deserved 2019 Regional Tony award and given his long history with Paul Gordon, he's back at the helm of this sumptuous, meticulously crafted production. No stranger to Thea...

BWW Review: A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING at 42nd Street Moon
by Steve Murray - March 14, 2022

42nd Street Moon opens their 21-22 season with a tribute to one of the greatest songwriting teams in American musical theatre - Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Musical revues live and die on two factors: the choice of material and the talent of the presenters. This Tony-nominated revue, fi...

BWW Review: DOT at New Conservatory Theatre Center
by Steve Murray - March 13, 2022

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BWW Review: Brian Stokes Mitchell in Concert at Lesher Center Leaves the Audience Floating on Air
by Jim Munson - March 01, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews Brian Stokes Mitchell's glorious concert at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek on February 25th. When Mitchell announces at the top of his show that his hope is for you to leave the theater feeling better than you did when you came in, you had better believe he means it. By the ...

BWW Review: DON QUIXOTE at San Francisco Ballet Celebrates the Joy of Dancing
by Jim Munson - February 28, 2022

BroadwayWorld reviews San Francisco Ballet's fizzy production of the classic 'Don Quixote' running live onstage at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House through March 6th. The whole thing feels like a big ol' party....