Joanne Engelhardt

TWELFTH NIGHT: By William Shakespeare. Conceived by Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub.  Music and lyrics by Shaina Taub. Los Altos Stage Company, Bus Barn Theater, 97 Hillview Ave., Los Altos, CA 94022. (650) 941-0551 Weds – Fri., www.losaltosstage.org May 29 June 22, 2025.

 When you combine a long-loved Shakespearean comedy like Twelfth Night with a terrific score of funny and sweet songs as well as a very talented cast, a small, but fine sounding orchestra and a director/choreographer who knows when to push her cast to even more hijinks – well, it’s a can’t miss production!

You say you’ve never seen a musical production of “Twelfth Night?”  Then it’s best to get tickets to LASC’s outstanding fabrication before it closes June 22.

The Pear Theatre’s new artistic director Sara K, Dean directs the LASC production with a light, comedic touch – exactly what is needed here.  She also serves as choreographer for the show which includes some first-rate musical numbers.

It’s difficult to list the best actors in this show because nearly all of the 17-member cast are excellent. Dean makes sure each member of her cast finds ways to stand out – both in their musical numbers as well as when they’re intentionally overacting in their roles.

The entire cast of “Twelfth Night” in all their colorful costumes

As Viola, petite Kristy Aquino shows her versatility both when playing the part of her brother, Sebastian, as well as when she can literally finally let her hair down and be herself.  As Feste, Melissa Mei Jones, is probably onstage more than any other actor.  She’s an excellent singer as well as a good comedic actress.

Sarah Thermond is also exceptional as the fool, Malvolio.  She wants so much to be loved, even resorting to wearing knee-high yellow socks covered over with what is described as “cross garters that are painful.”

If you’re somewhat familiar with Shakespeare’s play, you’ll likely remember that Viola and her twin brother Sebastian (played here by Rachel Rivera) are shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria.  But the twins have become separated and Viola believes that her brother has drowned.

As Olivia, Naomi Murray makes a formidable heroine.  Tall and assured, he wears long, black gowns with shimmering light summer shawls over them.  Her height makes it all the more amusing when she falls in love with the pint-sized Aquino dressed as her brother.

Big kudos to costume designer Katie Strawn who has come up with so many costumes – some in monochromatic hues of greens and blues.  But there’s also many dark black or black-and-white costumes as well.

From left: Ray D’Ambrosio and Dan Cardenas

It’s astounding how much musical sound music director Debra Lambert is able to get from her three-piece orchestra.  In addition to conducting, Lambert also plays the piano, while Adriano Tecson plays drums and Brandon Voss plays bass.

Remember that this “Twelfth Night” is a musical so there are a multitude of musical numbers.  Some of the best are “Play On,” “Word on the Street,” “Tell Her,” “If You Were My Beloved,” “You’re the Worst,” “Viola’s Soliloquy,” “Is This Not Love?” and “Eyes of Another,” which ends the show and is sung by the entire cast.

With so much talent amassed on the Bus Barn stage, this production clearly is a show worth seeing.

(“Twelfth Night” runs approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.)

 CAST:  Kristy Aquino, Naomi Murray, Joe Cloward, Sarah Thermond, Melissa Mei Jones, Ray D’Ambrosio, Dan Cardenas, Patty Reinhart, Rachel Rivera, Ralph Shehayed, Katherine Nails, Lauren D’Ambrosio, Sruthi Jayakumar, Corinna Laskin, Luna Lau, Kristen Soriano and Jen Yuan.

 ARTISTIC STAFF: Director and choreographer: Sara K. Dean;  music director: Debra Lambert; scenic designer: Camryn Lang; lighting designer: Aya Matsutomo; stage manager: Carla McCreight; props designer: Laura Merrill; costume designer: Katie Strawn.

Joanne Engelhardt is a former San Jose Mercury and Santa Cruz Sentinel writer and theatre critic and is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: joanneengelhardt@comcast.net.

PEAR SLICES 2025: Eight short (8 – 10 minutes each) plays written by Bay Area award-winning playwrights. The Pear Theatre, 1110 La Avenida, Suite A, Mountain View, CA 94043. (650) 254 – 1148. www.info@thepear.org. May 23 – June 6, 2025.

 Pear Slices 2025 is a mix of humorous and serious short plays that are presented each year at Pear Theatre [rating:4] Each year Pear Theatre  offers up a menu of eight short plays written by award-winning playwrights in the greater Bay Area.

 This year’s production was directed by Jasmine Lew and Bryan Moriarty. Two of the best short plays were written by Bay Area playwright Paul Braverman. Other local playwrights who have short plays in this year’s Pear Slices are Sophie Naylor, Greg Lam, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Erin Panttaja, Enrique (Henri) Munoz and Cheriellyn Ferguson.

Max Mahle as The Wall in “A Mysterious Demise.” Photo by Tim Garcia.

 In “A Mysterious Demise” by Braverman, there are so many egg-centric jokes because it’s about the mysterious demise of Humpty Dumpty who was sitting on a wall –- until he wasn’t.  Vanessa Alvarez does a fine job of portraying hard-boiled (pardon the pun) detective, Jo Sunday, while Max Mahle portrays the wall from which Humpty Dumpty fell.

Jaime Melendez plays the scramble-brained Henny Penny while Stephen Sherwood is Sunday’s assistant.

 In Braverman’s other short play, “Deuce Cooper: Full House,” he brings back some familiar characters, Deuce played with masculine panache by Dave Leon and later by Alvarez as Donna Cooper. It’s a convoluted story of protecting a witness (Guy Debalizi played by Sherwood) who may or may not be dead (he keeps falling over, but apparently still has a pulse).  Mahle plays Officer Ross while Jaime Melendez is Flo Ebbs.

 “Occupied” by Greg Lam is a funny take on the situation when there is only one bathroom in a building.  It’s labeled for he’s and she’s – and it’s occupied.  Leon is hilarious as the guy who really, REALLY has to pee, while the voice behind the located door is Sherwood. Sherwood insists that he also has to go – but the more he tries, the less happens.  This short has a surprise ending, which won’t be revealed here.

 Ferguson is the playwright of “Fair Play,” which has promise but still needs some work to make it a complete. Delaney Bantillo plays the clerk at the “Marriage Bureau” as well as Friar Lawrence, while Mahle as Juliet, Sherwood as Romeo and Leon as the Bard himself round out the cast of this shor

 Several of the other shorts (“Probably Not a Bag of Ears” by Naylor, “”Stargazers” by Portman, “Rossum’s Robot Truckers” by Panttaja and “Not in America” by Munoz) show promise but still need work to make them stand out.

 “Pear Slices 2025” runs approximately 1 hour, 45 minute including a 15-minute intermission.

 CAST: Vanessa Alvarez, Delaney Bantillo, Dave Leon, Max Mahle, Jaime Mellendez, Stephen Sherwood, Allison Starr. :

 ARTISTIC STAFF: Directors: Jasmine Lew and Bryan Moriarty; Stage and Production Manager: Kelly Weber Barraza; Producer: Robyn Ginsburg Braverman; Assistant Stage Manager: Bella Campos Hintzman; Sound Design: Carsten Koester; Set Design: Louis Stone-Collonge.

Joanne Engelhardt is a former San Jose Mercury and Santa Cruz Sentinel writer and theatre critic and is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: joanneengelhardt@comcast.net.

What happens when you take a play that was originally three acts, condense it into an 88-minute production with lackluster actors playing the roles?

You get a lackluster production that is difficult to keep the audience’s attention even for that short of a time.

Director Bruce McLeod needed to find more believable actors than the ones who took the stage at Foothill Theatre Arts in Lohman Theatre in Los Altos Hills last Friday night.  The production runs through June 8.

As Berenger, Caitie Clancey at times made the audience hope that she would get her act together, but most of her scenes seemed rote rather than real.  Her counterpart and boss, Liam Malla as John, also has his moments, especially whenever he went into his bathroom and then came out with a larger horn on his forehead as he turned into a rhinoceros before the audience’s eyes.

But even that gets old fast.

Tiffany Walters as Papillion also has a few good scenes, as does Daniel Spiteri Sr. as Corey, but the rest of the cast is easily forgettable.

Laura Merrill’s scenic design consists of some photos that are enlarged across the sides and back of the stage and about 20 feet from the floor.  There’s also a slanted table with a tablecloth, some containers of fruit, a sign that says “Boeuf’s” and another sign that says “Eggs $1.99.”  On the other side of the stage is a table and two chairs, and a high counter with a sign that says “Doggies.”

As far as costumes go, most of the actors look as if they are wearing their own clothes, although it’s possible costume designer Julie Engelbrecht selected some of the actor’s clothing.  She likely also created the rhino horns that appear on Hogsett’s forehead.

One of the most authentic sounds in this show are the rhinoceros sounds emanating from offstage.  At times it did, indeed, sound as if there were a herd of rhinos outside.

Edward Hunter’s lighting filled the stage so that the audience could see all that was going on.

Another problem with this production is that some of the actors and what they were doing just weren’t all that interesting.  Do we care when an older woman comes in, sits down to have some coffee and carries her little dog in a basket?  Do we care when a young man wearing a beige-and-black vest portends to be a “know-it-all” and pontificates to the audience?

A resounding no.

When Eugene Ionesco wrote “Rhinoceros,” his three-act play in 1959, it supposedly was considered a criticism of the sudden upsurge of Nazism prior to the beginning of World War II.  It explored the themes of conformity, mob mentality, morality and logic.

So with all that is happening in the United States now, perhaps director McLeod felt it was a good time to offer up a condensed version of “Rhinoceros.”  If that was his intent, it was a good one.

But this production just seems too banal to be what he wanted it to be.

Foothill Theatre Arts, Lohman Theatre, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills.  Shows: Thursdays, May 29 and June 5 at 7:39 p.m.; Fridays, May 30 and June 6 at 8 p.m.; Saturdays, May 31 and June 7, at 8 p.m. and Sundays, June 1 and June 8 at 2 p.m.  For tickets ($5 – $20), call (650) 949-7360 or visit www.foothill.edu/theater

Joanne Engelhardt is a former San Jose Mercury and Santa Cruz Sentinel writer and theatre critic, and is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact: joanneengelhardt@comcast.net.

Theater review: An overly complicated JERSEY BOYS at Palo Alto Players offers danceable music, too many scene changes but a fine quartet of singers

By JOANNE ENGELHARDT on March 10, 2025

 The opening night audience for the Palo Alto Players’ production of “Jersey Boys” had to try hard not to get up and start dancing in the aisles as the very likeable foursome that eventually became known as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons went through a lot of iterations before becoming the quartet that was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Director Doug Santana found the right combination of singers when he selected James M. Jones to play Frankie Valli, Justin Kerekes to be Nick Massi, Andrew Cope as Bob Gaudio and Tyler Savin as Tommy DeVito.  They split up many times, tried out other singers, but never found the sound they had together.

But sometimes all the quick scene changes and constant movement of props and people (17 actors, many of whom play multiple roles) gets in the way of the storyline and the songs.

Choreographer Witney Janssen kept busy with so many musical numbers, yet both the full production numbers and the small snippets of numbers are done well.  Nick Kenbrandt keeps busy leading his large orchestra from the back of the stage – the better to enjoy all of “Jersey Boys’” wonderful musical numbers.

Costume designer Jenny Garcia also had her hands full creating costumes for the large cast.  The costumes, especially for the dancers, are flashy, colorful and fun. One example: Danny Martin as Bob Crewe, a big-time music producer. (Martin’s outfit was made out of shinny satin bright yellow pants and a white satin shirt.)

John Mannion makes a commanding presence as a judge in a black robe as well as Gyp DeCarlo, a gangster, who makes life tough for several of the singers who owe the mob big time.  (Every time DeCarlo shows up, several of the Jersey Boys owe him more money than they did in the previous scene!)

Melissa Momboisse also impresses in several roles, most especially as Lorraine (Frankie’s second wife).  Skylar Riordan also plays a number of roles – including Joe Pesci!  And he always seems to get on people’s nerves.  The T also shows up in several roles – and each is memorable.

Finally, Samantha Kenbrandt is memorable in her role as Mary Delgado, although she also has several other roles as well.

At times there seems to be too many walks up one stairway to the catwalk by several actors, only to walk to the other side of the stage and down the other stairway.  It just seems like filler.

Despite these shortcomings, the PAP production of “Jersey Boys” is definitely worth seeing.  Especially if you’re of an age to remember all that wonderful “juke box music”  like “Silhouettes,” “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,”  “Earth Angel,” “Short Shorts,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “My Boyfriend’s Back, “Bye Bye Baby” and so many more!

”Runtime for “Jersey Boys” is approximately two hours with one intermission.

Palo Alto Players at Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto 94301. Shows: Fridays and Saturdays: 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sundays: 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Closes: Sunday, May 4. For tickets, call 650.329.0891 or visit www.paplayers.org

Theater review: Los Altos Stage Company’s CYRANO offers a different, somewhat odd and slow-moving take on Edmond Rostand’s play

By JOANNE ENGELHARDT on March 10, 2025

 Why anyone involved in the current production of “Cyrano” at Los Altos Stage Company thought it would be a good idea to make Cyrano a woman (without a large proboscis) is somewhat puzzling.  This version of “Cyrano,” called a new adaption by Jeffrey Lo and Max Tachis, has some things to recommend it – including several excellent performances.

Yet it drags at times, and the constant “ins and outs” of set changes, curtains and people become confusing to an audience who is likely there to better understand a new version of Rostand’s play.

Director Tachis found several excellent actors to cast for this production. Vivienne Truong stands out as the fair Roxane. When she’s on stage, the play moves along at a fast clip.  Equally adept at commanding the stage (although rarely using his own words) is Jonathan Covey as the tongue-tied young man anxious to impress Roxane.  As Cyrano, Maria Giere Marquis as Cyrano provides the glue that weaves the story together, though why the director had her walk off the stage and stand in the dark for a long scene is puzzling.

Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” to this day remains a wildly popular and much beloved play based loosely on the life of the title character who in fact famously sported in the early 17th century a large nose and a swift sword. To the long list of both rhymed and blank verse translated adaptations of the original work in French now comes a new, gender-bending version by Jeffrey Lo and Max Tachis staged with a number of character changes and updates to give an old tale still set in 1640 France a modern-day feel.

Humor and heart continue to reign in this story of a strange but deeply loyal love triangle, yet some of the twists and turns inserted sometimes pull this “Cyrano” in directions that are a bit plot puzzling and pace slowing.

There are a number of new characters including a four-person ensemble that acts somewhat like a Greek Chorus, often making sardonic or witty comments. Brittney Mignano stands out as a “reporter-type” who is usually angry about something or someone.  Jeremy Ryan as Montfleury/Ragueneau is sweet and charming as the poet-chef who loves to cook up new things and share his edible goodies with whoever is around to try them. (The actors get to eat the food he brings out on trays – a nice touch of reality.)

At the beginning of the play, Gabriella Goldstein as the Countess de Guiche kowtows to her husband, Count de Guiche (Emery Mullligan), but she eventually breaks free from his overbearing personality and provides a sympathetic courageous counterpoint in Act 2.

Zachary Vaughn-Munck offers up many humorous asides, though he is just listed as a member of the Ensemble in the program. He plays the role of a town crier, loyal to the corrupt count who frequently provides fake news that the count loves to hear.   As Diana, Lisa Burton Guevara usually has a look of dislike and distrust whenever Cyrano and Roxane are around, but she suddenly gets all aflutter whenever Ragueneau is around.

There are a number of big battles with various enemy armies, but none of them are shown here.  Instead, Cyrano and many of the other characters dart behind the back curtain, but do not return.  Cyrano does, of course, so that she dies onstage with Roxane holding her.

Costume designer Lisa Claybaugh has created some extraordinarily beautiful gowns for the women in the cast to wear – most notably the gorgeous one worn by Roxane. But some of the ones worn by men such as Covey as Christian are equally as lovely.

Interesting lighting designs frequently appear during the play, including a giant “C” as the audience enters.  Later, large lights play across the stage and float into the nether, thanks to the efforts of lighting designer Carol Fischer.  Most of the words were easy to hear thanks to sound designer Connor Diaz.

Due to many sexual innuendos and some swear words, this production is best seen only by older teenagers and adults.

Runtime for “Cyrano” is approximately 2 ½ hours with one intermission.

Los Altos Stage Company, 97 Hillview Ave., Los Altos. Shows: Fridays and Saturdays: 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sundays: 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Closes: Sunday, May 4. For tickets, call 650.941.0551 or visit www.losaltosstage.org

It likely takes someone like Jeffrey Lo, a Filipino himself and someone who writes, directs and also works with several Peninsula theaters in various capacities, to create such a warm, thoughtful play as “Writing Fragments Home” that tugs at our heartstrings.  The near-capacity opening night audience at Hillbarn Theater last Friday night not only gave it a standing ovation but found so much to love about this special story.

What’s exceptional about this production is not only the story itself, but also the care with which Hillbarn Theater has produced it.  Five fine actors (most especially Jen Cuevas as the mother, Mary Gwen, as well as Jomar Tagatac as her son, Jay) top the list for their strong, meaningful performances.

Director Reed Flores does an exceptional job of pushing his actors to find the right emotion throughout the play, while scenic designer Christopher Fitzer creates a warm and inviting set (the entryway and living and dining room of Mary Gwen’s home).

Nolan Miranda has come up with the right clothes for all of the actors to wear, most especially Mary Gwen’s many different nurse outfits that she wears to work each day. Both Pamila Gray’s lighting and Alan Chang’s sound add a lot to “Home” as well.

The crux of the storyline is that both Mary Gwen and her late husband, Ronaldo (nicely underplayed by Jepoy Ramos) sarificed a lot to leave the Philippines and their families to move to the United States.  As Mary frequently reminds her son, “We did it for you.  We wanted you to have a better life. This is when our story began: When we came to America.”

That’s why Mary is so concerned that their only child, Jay, has spent his life trying to write plays that have not been chosen to be produced.  “You’re 40 now – the same age I was when we moved here,” she tells him.  “You have a bachelor’s degree in playwriting – and now you’ve come back home.  Why?”

Jay admits that he’s come back to his family home because he’s lost his job and has nowhere else to go.  While allowing him to stay (for two months only, she says), he has to sleep on the living room couch so he doesn’t get too comfy!  She also admonishes him that he should have considered a different kind of profession – like hers: Nursing.  “You know what never goes away? Sickness!!” she declares.

If possible, take the time to go see this wonderful production before it ends on Sunday, May 4.

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Runtime for Writing Fragments Home is approximately two hours with one intermission.

Hillbarn Theater, 1285 E. Hillsdale Blvd., Foster City, CA 94404 Shows: Tuesdays: 7:30 p.m.; Wednesdays: 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays: 8 p.m. Saturdays: 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sundays: 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Closes: Sunday, May 4. For tickets, call 650.349.6411 or visit www.hillbarntheatre.org

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