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Joe Cillo

Aug 17 2026
Love0

Julius Caesar

By Joseph Cillo


Julius Caesar - Marin Shakespeare CompanyAncient Rome. Modern tensions. Terrific theater.

Under the summer sky at Forest Meadows, Julius Caesar is big, bold, sometimes funny, frequently violent — and thoroughly entertaining.

Director Jon Tracy takes Shakespeare’s familiar tragedy and makes us look at it anew.

Caesar has a Walkman and a guitar. Brutus and Cassius are sisters. Rome lives somewhere between the late 1960s and early 1980s. A massive wall dominates the stage, while helicopters, gunfire and military activity tell us that trouble is never far away.

This isn’t Shakespeare preserved under glass.

It’s alive.

This isn’t Caesar in modern dress. It’s Rome reimagined from the inside out.

The Story — In Brief

Julius Caesar returns to Rome enormously popular and increasingly powerful. Cassius fears he will become a tyrant and persuades Brutus and other senators that Caesar must die to save the Republic.

They assassinate him.

Mark Antony turns Caesar’s funeral into a devastating act of persuasion, the Roman people turn against the conspirators, and the struggle to save the Republic becomes civil war.

They kill Caesar to save Rome — and help destroy it instead.

That’s Shakespeare’s story.

What Tracy does with it is something else.

Johnny Moreno’s Caesar is the first surprise.

He appears in casual attire, headphones connected to a Walkman, acoustic guitar in hand. He takes his pills and struggles with a chord.

So much for the marble statue.

Moreno gives us an aging, vulnerable Caesar increasingly captivated by his own public image. The music grows. The crowds gather. Adoration builds.

The private man becomes the public Caesar.

Tracy makes Brutus and Cassius sisters, played by real-life sisters Bridgette Loriaux and Charisse Loriaux.

It’s an inspired choice.

And the Loriaux sisters are very good.

Their scenes together give the conspiracy an emotional dimension that goes well beyond politics. Cassius pushes. Brutus struggles. Family loyalty collides with political conviction.

Brutus isn’t simply at war with Caesar.

She’s at war with herself.

Politics starts the conspiracy. The sisters make it personal.

Everyone has a reason.

Caesar believes in his greatness. Brutus believes in honor. Cassius believes Caesar must be stopped. Antony believes in vengeance.

Nobody thinks they’re the villain.

That’s what makes them dangerous.

Tracy’s real subject isn’t simply assassination. It’s how people get there — how fear becomes conviction, conviction becomes certainty, and eventually something unthinkable begins to seem necessary.

Then comes Brady Morales-Woolery’s Mark Antony and the speech everyone knows.

Morales-Woolery makes the moment less about hearing famous words and more about watching persuasion happen.

Antony works the crowd, and before our eyes public opinion begins to turn.

The words haven’t changed. The crowd has.

Forest Meadows is a wonderful setting for all of this. Daylight fades. The hillside darkens. Tracy’s strange new Rome gradually takes over.

And somehow ancient Rome doesn’t seem very ancient anymore.

The result is accessible, imaginative, visually exciting and enormously entertaining Shakespeare — with something unsettling just beneath the surface.

More than four centuries later, Tracy makes the story feel immediate again.

That’s quite an accomplishment.

And perhaps that’s why Shakespeare survives.

We keep returning.

He keeps surprising us.

And this Julius Caesar leaves us with one particularly good question:

Who is telling our story?

Historical Footnote: What Happened After Caesar?


The great irony of Caesar’s assassination is that it accomplished almost exactly the opposite of what his killers intended.


Brutus, Cassius and their fellow conspirators believed killing Caesar would save the Roman Republic. Instead, his death unleashed another series of civil wars. Mark Antony survived the assassination and initially joined forces with Caesar’s young heir, Octavian, to defeat Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi. Both Brutus and Cassius died by suicide.


Antony and Octavian then became rivals. Antony allied himself with Cleopatra of Egypt, but their forces were defeated by Octavian at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE. Antony and Cleopatra subsequently died by suicide. Octavian emerged as Rome’s undisputed ruler and, in 27 BCE, became Augustus, generally regarded as Rome’s first emperor.

They killed Caesar to save the Republic. Instead, Caesar’s death helped bring the Republic to an end.

JULIUS CAESAR
Marin Shakespeare Company
Forest Meadows Amphitheatre
Dominican University, San Rafael

Through September 13

Performance Schedule:
Thursday–Saturday at 7:30 PM
Sunday at 5:00 PM

Tickets: $22–$70
Youth: $10, ages 25 and under
Thursdays: Pay What You Will
Box Office: (415) 499-4488

Tickets & Information:

Marin Shakespeare Company — Tickets

Recommended for audiences who enjoy bold, imaginative theater, strong performances and Shakespeare that feels fresh, accessible and thoroughly entertaining.

Joe Cillo

Aug 14 2026
Love0

MAMMA MIA!

By Joe Cillo, Joseph Cillo




A Greek island, a Sonoma summer night, three possible fathers, a wedding — and ABBA. What could possibly go wrong?

MAMMA MIA! arrives at Transcendence Theatre Company’s Field of Dreams with one enormous advantage.

We already know the music.

But knowing the songs isn’t enough. The trick is making us want to hear them all over again.

Transcendence does much more than that.

This is a virtually flawless production — terrific voices, exhilarating dancing, comedy, romance, heart and a company that seems to be having every bit as much fun as the audience.

From beginning to end, it works.


A Greek island may be the setting. Under the Sonoma sky, the Field of Dreams feels pretty close.

The Story

Sophie is about to be married on a Greek island. There’s only one problem.

She doesn’t know who her father is.

After discovering her mother Donna’s old diary, Sophie secretly invites three possibilities from Donna’s past to the wedding.

All three show up.

What follows is a joyful collision of old romances, new relationships, friendship, family — and ABBA.

The women provide the heart

Allison Pearce gives Donna Sheridan strength, humor and vulnerability, while Karsten Lane Flake makes Sophie appealingly confident and uncertain at the same time.

Then Donna’s old friends arrive.

Tiffani Barbour brings glamour and terrific comic timing to Tanya, while Lori Haley Fox is a delight as Rosie.

Fox has a special connection to MAMMA MIA!: she was in the original London cast, later performed on Broadway and appeared in the movie.

That’s not merely a résumé credit.

That’s practically ABBA citizenship.



And the men are every bit as good

The three possible fathers aren’t merely there to provide the mystery.

They are terrific.

Each creates a distinct character, each finds the comedy without forcing it, and together they give the story much of its warmth.

There isn’t a weak link here.


The women provide the heart. The men provide the mystery. And this cast provides the magic.

Thank them for the music

Director Tony Gonzalez knows MAMMA MIA! from Broadway, touring and Las Vegas productions. Choreographer Monica Kapoor also performed in the Broadway production, and Music Director Susan Draus spent four years music-directing its Broadway National Tour.

That experience shows.

And then there are the songs.

“Dancing Queen,” “Super Trouper,” “SOS,” “Take a Chance on Me” and “The Winner Takes It All” are everything we want them to be.

But several numbers go beyond simply being good.

They stop the show.

“Money, Money, Money” is one. “Voulez-Vous” is another.

The combination of voices, choreography, musicians and sheer theatrical energy turns familiar songs into genuine production numbers.

The live band drives the score, while the ensemble fills the stage with infectious movement.

Soon feet are tapping.

Then shoulders.

And sometimes the audience simply erupts.

By the finale, sitting still seems almost unreasonable.

And apparently, neither was stopping.

After the finale brought the audience to its feet in a standing ovation, the entire cast came roaring back onto the stage.

Not simply for a curtain call.

For two more rousing, full-production numbers.

The energy went right back through the roof.

It was the perfect exclamation point on the evening.


The show was over. The celebration wasn’t.

Broadway meets Wine Country

And Transcendence has one advantage no ordinary theater can reproduce.

Sonoma.

You arrive early. You picnic. The sun begins to disappear. Then the lights come up and Broadway meets Wine Country under the summer sky.

But on this night, even that description seems inadequate.

The picnic, the setting, the music, the performances and the production all become part of one experience.

You’re not simply going to a show.

You’re having a total theatrical evening.




You don’t leave MAMMA MIA! quietly.

What it adds up to

Beneath all that ABBA is a warm story about mothers and daughters, fathers and children, old friends, old loves, and families that don’t always form the way we expect.

Transcendence wraps it in a production in which virtually everything works — the principals, the ensemble, the band, the choreography, the comedy, the staging and that incomparable Sonoma setting.

There are good productions.

There are terrific productions.

And every once in a while, everything comes together.

This is one of those times.

Sometimes theater challenges us.

Sometimes it simply reminds us how good it feels to laugh, sing along and enjoy the ride.

Take a chance on it.

How to see it / Get tickets

Transcendence Theatre Company
MAMMA MIA!

August 13–30, 2026
Thursdays through Sundays

Field of Dreams
Sonoma, California

Pre-Show Picnic: 5:00 PM
Performance: 7:00 PM

Tickets: $44–$165
Gold, Premium and General Reserved seating available

Tickets & Information:
TranscendenceTheatre.org

Jun 21 2026
Love0

 As You Like It

By Joseph Cillo




I arrived expecting a traditional Shakespeare comedy.

About 20 minutes later, something unexpected happened.

I stopped thinking about Shakespeare.

I was listening to the music, laughing at the jokes and having far more fun than I expected.

By intermission, I wasn’t wondering what Shakespeare meant.

I was wondering when Lady Zen was going to sing again.

Adapted and directed by Evren Odcikin, this production takes one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies and gives it fresh energy without losing the heart of the original story.

What I discovered was a production that uses music, movement, humor and strong performances to make Shakespeare feel surprisingly approachable.

The answer was Lady Zen.

I’ve seen plenty of productions that include music.

Usually the songs help bridge scenes or provide atmosphere.

Not here.

Her songs became an essential part of the storytelling.

Each musical number pulled the audience deeper into the emotional world of the play. Her voice carried warmth, humor, soul and mischief. Rather than interrupting the action, the songs expanded it.

More than once I found myself looking forward to the next song as much as the next scene.

Lady Zen’s songs were performances within a performance.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Rosalind is banished from court and escapes into the Forest of Arden disguised as the young Ganymede. There she encounters Orlando, who has been searching for Rosalind without realizing she is standing right in front of him disguised as a young man. Around them swirl lovers, fools, philosophers, exiles and dreamers, all searching for connection, acceptance and happiness.

Fortunately, you don’t need a degree in Shakespeare to enjoy any of it.

The production keeps the story moving, the comedy lands and the relationships remain easy to follow.

Jeunée Simon brings intelligence, confidence and charm to Rosalind, while Adam Magill makes an appealing Orlando. Together they provide the emotional center of the evening and give us two characters worth rooting for.

Another surprise was the set.

Or perhaps more accurately, the lack of one.

There isn’t much scenery.

The production places much of the storytelling burden on the actors, and they respond with abundant physicality, movement and commitment. Through gesture, energy and imagination they create forests, journeys, romances, conflicts and entire emotional landscapes.

The set may be sparse, but the stage never feels empty.

The outdoor setting at Forest Meadows Amphitheatre adds another layer to the experience. As daylight gradually fades and evening settles over the hillside, the Forest of Arden begins to feel surprisingly real.

The combination of live music, natural surroundings and energetic performances creates an atmosphere that is both intimate and inviting.

Whether you arrived as a Shakespeare enthusiast or someone who normally approaches Shakespeare with caution, there was room for you in this Forest of Arden.

The themes of love, identity, acceptance and belonging emerge naturally through the story. They are present throughout the evening, but never delivered with a heavy hand. The production trusts us to discover them for ourselves.

I came expecting Shakespeare. I left remembering the music, the laughter and the people.

As You Like It?

I certainly did.

AS YOU LIKE IT
Marin Shakespeare Company
Forest Meadows Amphitheatre
Dominican University, San Rafael

Now Playing Through July 19

Performance Schedule:
Thursday–Saturday at 7:30 PM
Sunday at 5:00 PM

Running Time:
Approximately 2 hours, 30 minutes including intermission

Tickets & Information:
www.marinshakespeare.org/as-you-like-it


Recommended for audiences who enjoy outdoor theater, live music, strong ensemble performances and Shakespeare that feels fresh, welcoming and thoroughly entertaining.

Jun 13 2026
Love0

Ain’t Too Proud

By Joseph Cillo



Last night I swam in a sea of Motown classics.

Not just a handful of familiar tunes, but wave after wave of songs that have been part of America’s musical soundtrack for more than half a century. By evening’s end, the audience at Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations was on its feet, happily carried along by the music, energy, and heart of the production.

Most people arrive knowing the music. What they may not expect is how compelling the story behind that music can be.


By intermission, I found myself wondering whether there were any Motown classics left unplayed.

Storyline

Ain’t Too Proud follows The Temptations from their humble beginnings in Detroit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Along the way, the group achieves extraordinary success while navigating fame, friendship, conflict, and the pressures that accompany life in the spotlight.

The result is more than a musical biography. It is a story about loyalty, perseverance, and the challenge of staying together when success threatens to pull people apart.

The music is, of course, the evening’s greatest asset.

The hits arrive in rapid succession—My Girl, Get Ready, Just My Imagination, Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone, I Can’t Get Next To You, Cloud Nine, Ball of Confusion, The Way You Do the Things You Do, and many more. Nearly 30 songs are featured during the evening.

What surprised me was not the music—everyone expects that.

What surprised me was the emotional depth behind the songs.

The musical reveals the personal struggles, disappointments, rivalries, and triumphs that shaped one of America’s most successful vocal groups.


The songs never overwhelm the story. Instead, they help tell it.

More than a jukebox musical, Ain’t Too Proud reveals the triumphs, tensions, and enduring friendships behind one of America’s most beloved vocal groups.

The cast captures not only the sound of The Temptations but also the charisma and chemistry that made them legends. The choreography is sharp, energetic, and beautifully synchronized, drawing enthusiastic applause throughout the evening.The audience responded exactly as you might expect. Heads nodded to familiar rhythms. Smiles appeared instantly when favorite songs began. More than a few people quietly sang along.

By final curtain, the crowd was fully invested in both the music and the men who created it.

For Motown fans, the show is a joyful trip down memory lane. For everyone else, it is an entertaining and often moving introduction to one of the most influential groups in popular music history.

As final notes faded and the audience rose for a standing ovation, one thing became clear.

Beneath the music lies a story of friendship, ambition, loyalty, and perseverance. Those themes resonate today just as strongly as they did when The Temptations first stepped onto a Detroit stage more than 60 years ago.


You may come for the music — but you may also leave remembering the men behind it.

The Temptations By the Numbers

Founded: 1961 in Detroit
Official Members Since 1961: 27
Original Members: 5
Surviving Original Member: Otis Williams
Top Ten Hits: 42
Number One Singles: 14
Grammy Awards: 4
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: 1989
Years Performing: 65+

Bottom Line

Filled with iconic songs, dynamic choreography, strong performances, and genuine emotional resonance, Ain’t Too Proud delivers an evening that is both entertaining and unexpectedly moving.

Highly Recommended.

How to See It / Get Tickets

Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations
June 12–28
Field of Dreams
Sonoma, California
Rating: PG-13

Transcendence Theatre Company
(877) 424-1414
transcendencetheatre.org

May 24 2026
Love2

Mamma Mia

By Joseph Cillo

Mamma Mia cast


A Greek island, three possible fathers, a wedding, and enough ABBA songs to remind us why these melodies never left.

MAMMA MIA! arrives with one built-in advantage: most of us already know the music. Before the lights even dim, people are smiling, recognizing songs they’ve carried around for years.

But the show works because it offers more than nostalgia.

Beneath the dancing, romance, and comic confusion is a warm story about family, friendship, and finding where we belong.


Families can be complicated. Especially when three men show up and any one of them might be Dad.

The Story

Sophie is preparing for her wedding on a beautiful Greek island, but she has one unanswered question before walking down the aisle: Who is her father?

After discovering her mother Donna’s old diary, Sophie secretly invites three men from Donna’s past, hoping one of them will finally provide the answer.

Instead, she creates a joyful collision of old relationships, unexpected reunions, awkward moments, and discoveries that become less about biology and more about understanding the people we love.

Joy becomes contagious

Director Lisa Morse understands exactly what makes MAMMA MIA! work: energy, heart, and fun.

Marilyn Izdebski’s outstanding choreography keeps the stage moving with energy and personality. The dance numbers feel vibrant and playful, creating the kind of energy that naturally spills into the audience.

Nick Brown’s musical direction gives the familiar songs warmth and momentum.

What keeps the production from becoming simply a concert of ABBA hits is the emotional heart beneath the music. Donna and Sophie’s relationship grounds the comedy and spectacle in emotions we instantly recognize.


Lauren Sutton-Beattie, Julianne Bretan, Jane Harrington



Lauren Sutton-Beattie, Julianne Bretan, Jane Harrington
Photo credit: Jere Torkelsen


Outstanding choreography doesn’t simply fill a stage. It turns music into movement and joy into something we can feel.

A feel-good experience

Some productions challenge audiences.

Some leave us emotionally drained.

MAMMA MIA! does something simpler.

It sends us home smiling.

The music, humor, and emotional moments combine into the kind of evening where audiences are still humming songs on the drive home.


You don’t leave MAMMA MIA! quietly.

What it adds up to

MAMMA MIA! reminds us that life rarely unfolds according to plan.

Families form in unexpected ways.

Love arrives unexpectedly.

And sometimes happiness appears where we least expect it.

Sometimes theater doesn’t need to change our lives.

Sometimes it simply reminds us how good it feels to laugh, sing along, and enjoy the ride.

How to see it / Get tickets

Novato Theater Company
5420 Nave Drive
Novato, CA 94949

May 15 – June 7, 2026

Showtimes
Fridays — 7:30 p.m.
Saturdays May 16, 23 & June 6 — 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, May 30 — 2:00 p.m.
Sundays — 2:00 p.m.

Tickets: NovatoTheaterCompany.org
Box Office: Tickets@NovatoTheaterCompany.org

May 21 2026
Love2

Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really

By Joseph Cillo




A seduction built on performance — and the danger of mistaking charm for truth.

Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really moves between gothic satire and theatrical provocation, pulling dark comedy and social critique into the mix along the way. The evening rarely settles into a single identity for very long.

One moment it feels playful and theatrical. The next, confrontational, seductive, absurd, or unexpectedly sharp. That instability becomes part of the experience itself, and honestly, it often feels like different sections of the audience are watching entirely different plays.


Not every audience member experiences the same Dracula tonight.

Kate Hamill’s adaptation has no interest in preserving the seductive mythology surrounding Dracula. This version strips away romance almost immediately. Dracula is not tragic; he is practiced — socially fluent and charming in the way dangerous people often are before anyone decides to call them dangerous.

That idea hangs over nearly every scene. A charismatic outsider enters a rigid Victorian world. Desire follows almost immediately. Attention shifts. Power reorganizes itself around attraction, manipulation, and social performance. What begins as gothic fantasy gradually evolves into something more contemporary — a story about influence, complicity, and who society chooses to protect.

What unfolds becomes less about vampires and more about the stories people tell themselves — the identities they project and the narratives they desperately want confirmed. Seduction rarely announces itself as danger. It arrives looking confident. Desired. Invited.

Fascinating dynamic

Johnny Moreno plays Dracula with enough effortless charisma to explain why everyone keeps allowing him space inside the story. Moreno avoids exaggerated villainy and instead leans into something more recognizable: confidence weaponized as charm. His performance works best in stillness. A glance lingers slightly too long. A smile settles carefully into place. Even moments of apparent ease carry traces of calculation underneath them.

Across from him, Susi Damilano grounds the evening as Van Helsing — not merely as Dracula’s opponent, but as a relentless adversary who refuses intimidation, refuses seduction, and ultimately succeeds by seeing the monster clearly long before others do. Her restraint gives the show stability whenever things threaten to spiral too far into chaos.

Meanwhile, Stacy Ross pushes Renfield toward something delightfully unstable, matching the constantly shifting tone. Together, these performances anchor the evening.


Danger rarely arrives looking dangerous.

Mesmerizing experience

Director Bill English stages the evening with constant physical momentum. Bodies circle Dracula cautiously before drifting back toward him again as if pulled by gravity. Conversations feel choreographed around shifting control rather than realism.

At times, the show almost slips into dance. Movements repeat rhythmically. Characters advance and retreat with choreographed precision. Seduction, confrontation, and fear are expressed physically long before dialogue confirms them. Entire scenes unfold with a flowing, dance-like quality that gives the staging much of its tension and beauty.

The choreography becomes emotional architecture. Smoke drifts through scenes almost like a living presence. Lighting abruptly shifts from seductive warmth to nightmare intensity. Illusions appear unexpectedly. Blood effects punctuate scenes with sudden shock, while sound and movement continuously reshape the emotional temperature of the room.

At times, the experience feels less like realism and more like an elaborate theatrical séance unfolding in front of the audience.


You can feel the audience negotiating with the play in real time.

Visually, the staging creates striking stage pictures. Red arches frame scenes almost like warning signs. Blood appears suddenly against white fabric. Lighting stretches moments into something halfway between nightmare and satire.

At one point, it becomes obvious the room is laughing for completely different reasons. Some viewers seem energized by the show’s certainty. Others appear less comfortable with how directly it pushes its themes. That tension becomes impossible to ignore — and honestly, far more interesting than if everyone simply agreed with each other.

What it adds up to

What lingers afterward is not whether every scene works perfectly. It’s that the evening refuses neutrality.

The play can be experienced several ways at once: as sharp feminist reclamation, as theatrical provocation, or as a deliberately messy cultural argument staged through vampire mythology. Depending on the moment, all three interpretations feel valid.

It begins feeling like a vampire story and ends feeling like something much closer to home.

You leave carrying more than plot. You leave thinking about how easily persuasion works — and how willingly people surrender to narratives that flatter them while they are inside them.

By the end, Dracula no longer feels supernatural.

That may be what makes him unsettling.

How to see it / Get tickets

San Francisco Playhouse
450 Post Street, San Francisco

May 14 – June 27

Tickets: $52–$145


sfplayhouse.org

415-677-9596

Includes intermission

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May 16 2026
Love2

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B

By Joseph Cillo


Smart, Funny, Surprisingly Moving

Kate Hamill’s wildly inventive reimagining of Sherlock Holmes tosses the deerstalker hat aside and replaces it with modern anxieties, emotional baggage, sharp feminist humor, and enough rapid-fire dialogue to keep us fully engaged from curtain to curtain. Under the lively direction of Mary Ann Rodgers, the production moves with confidence and comic precision while still making room for genuine emotional connection.

From the moment Adrian Deane storms onto the stage as the brilliant but emotionally unraveling Sherlock Holmes, there’s electricity in the room. Deane doesn’t simply play eccentricity for laughs — although there are plenty of them — but reveals the loneliness and vulnerability underneath Holmes’ chaotic brilliance. Jennifer Le Blanc’s Watson becomes the perfect counterbalance: grounded, compassionate, quietly wounded, and endlessly relatable. Together, the pair create the kind of chemistry that keeps us leaning forward, eager for every exchange.

 

Jennifer Le Blanc as Dr. Joan Watson, Adrian Deane as Sherlock Holmes – photo credit Robin Jackson

The laughs come quickly and often, but what sneaks up on you is the emotional honesty underneath all the cleverness.

Story Line / Plot

The familiar world of Sherlock Holmes flips into a wildly contemporary, emotionally layered comedy-mystery centered on two damaged but brilliant women trying to survive life, loneliness, and each other in a cramped apartment.

Sherlock Holmes is no elegant Victorian detective here. She’s impulsive, obsessive, socially volatile, and often emotionally unraveling — a woman whose staggering intelligence is matched only by her inability to connect with people in ordinary ways.

Watson arrives carrying wounds of her own. Recently separated and searching for stability, she becomes Holmes’ reluctant roommate and eventual emotional anchor. Watson’s practicality and compassion constantly collide with Holmes’ chaos, creating a friendship that becomes the true heart of the story.

As Holmes and Watson settle uneasily into life together, increasingly strange encounters begin circling their apartment — including the arrival of Irene Adler and the dangerously magnetic Moriarty. What begins as an eccentric detective comedy gradually spirals into a tangled psychological mystery involving manipulation, hidden identities, emotional trauma, shifting loyalties, and emotional dependency.

The plot twists through deception, emotional revelations, detective-story misdirection, and rapid tonal shifts. Hamill intentionally keeps audiences slightly off-balance, blending screwball comedy with darker themes involving trust, abandonment, obsession, and human connection.

Hamill’s script occasionally becomes so clever for its own good, asking the audience to keep pace with whirlwind plotting and rapid tonal shifts. The denouement may leave some sorting through its many twists rather than arriving at a perfectly tidy resolution. Still, Rodgers’ confident direction and the cast’s wonderfully grounded performances carry us through the complexity with charm, humor, and emotional honesty to spare.

Sarah McKereghan’s Irene Adler arrives with confidence and intrigue, while Moriarty’s appearance shifts the evening into darker and more psychologically charged territory. Steve Price’s Inspector Lestrade provides several wonderfully timed comedic moments that drew some of the evening’s biggest laughs.

Visually, the production makes excellent use of The Barn Theatre’s intimate setting. Mikiko Uesugi’s set design supports the fast-moving action beautifully, while Valera Coble’s costumes help establish the production’s playful contemporary tone. Lighting by Frank Sarubbi and sound design by Billie Cox add polish and atmosphere throughout the evening.

Ross Valley Players finds the sweet spot here: a comedy that entertains wholeheartedly while still providing something meaningful to hold onto afterward.

Especially refreshing is how naturally the comedy lands. Nothing feels forced. Rodgers trusts both the material and her cast, allowing humor to emerge organically from character rather than gimmickry. The result is lively, contemporary, deeply human.

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B is funny, fast-paced, smartly staged, and unexpectedly touching. Exactly the kind of show we love discovering: entertaining enough for a fun night out, but thoughtful enough to stay with you afterward.

Tickets Available Now

Ross Valley Players
Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B
May 15 – June 14
The Barn Theatre, Marin Art & Garden Center
30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, CA

Performances:
Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.
Sundays at 2:00 p.m.

Tickets: rossvalleyplayers.com

(707) 523-4185

Includes intermission

Joe Cillo banner

May 14 2026
Love2

Pictures from Home

By Joseph Cillo
Some families preserve memories. Others quietly perform them.

Sharr White’s Pictures from Home, now receiving its West Coast premiere at Marin Theatre, becomes something far more intimate than a conventional family drama. Adapted from Marin photographer Larry Sultan’s celebrated photo memoir, the production explores the uneasy overlap between photography, family mythology, and the fragile stories people quietly construct around the people they love.

Directed with warmth and emotional precision by Jonathan Moscone, the play unfolds less like a traditional narrative and more like an ongoing emotional excavation. Conversations drift naturally between affection, irritation, humor, and regret as Larry Sultan attempts to understand not only his parents, but also the emotional mythology his family has built around itself over decades.

Story Line

Photographer Larry Sultan repeatedly returns to his parents’ San Fernando Valley home, using interviews and carefully staged photographs to better understand both his family and himself.

As the years pass, the line between observation and performance slowly begins to blur. What emerges is not simply a portrait of aging parents, but of a son searching for meaning inside family stories that continue evolving long after facts begin to soften.

What makes Pictures from Home so compelling is its refusal to simplify its characters. Irving Sultan is proud, stubborn, charming, occasionally exasperating, yet deeply vulnerable beneath the surface. Jean quietly steadies the emotional rhythms of the household while often understanding far more than she openly reveals. Larry himself becomes both loving son and relentless observer, simultaneously participating in and documenting family life.

Daniel Cantor gives Larry a thoughtful emotional intelligence that allows the audience to see both the artist’s curiosity and his uncertainty. Victor Talmadge delivers a beautifully layered performance as Irving, balancing humor, pride, resistance, and sadness without ever reducing the character to caricature. Susan Koozin brings warmth and emotional steadiness to Jean, grounding many of the production’s most affecting moments.

Beneath the production’s quiet naturalism lies remarkably disciplined technical work. The cast manages an unusually heavy line load while maintaining precise movement choreography tied closely to Larry Sultan’s projected photography. Some of the evening’s most effective moments occur when the actors break the fourth wall, addressing both the audience and the unseen projectionist, allowing memory, performance, and documentation to collide in real time.


Pictures from Home projection staging

Susan Koozin as Jean, Victor Talmadge as Irving, and Daniel Cantor as Larry in Marin Theatre’s Pictures from Home. Photo credit: David Allen.

One of the evening’s strongest scenes arrives almost quietly: Irving resists yet another staged family photograph, joking defensively while revealing, beneath the humor, a growing discomfort with aging and being observed. Moscone allows the silence surrounding the exchange to linger. The moment says more about the family dynamic than pages of exposition ever could.

Photography freezes a moment. Families keep rewriting it.

Moscone’s direction trusts stillness and conversation rather than theatrical excess. The production moves with an almost reflective rhythm, allowing emotional truths to emerge gradually through pauses, disagreements, small observations, and moments of reluctant honesty.

The staging becomes especially effective through the use of Larry Sultan’s projected photographs, which hover above the action like fragmented pieces of memory suspended in time. These images remind the audience that the play is not simply inspired by family history — it is actively wrestling with the meaning of preserving it.

What begins as an artist documenting his parents slowly evolves into something much more personal: a son confronting the impossibility of ever fully understanding the people who shaped him.

When Art Meets Memory

Larry Sultan’s original Pictures from Home photography series became one of the defining explorations of American domestic life, blending documentary realism with carefully staged imagery. The play embraces that same ambiguity, asking whether photographs reveal truth — or quietly reshape it.

Rather than offering clear answers, the production gently suggests that family history itself is constantly edited, revised, softened, and emotionally reframed over time.

What lingers most after the final scene is not nostalgia, but recognition. Nearly everyone understands the complicated experience of looking back at parents and realizing how much remains unresolved — how much affection exists alongside misunderstanding, silence, disappointment, and reinvention.

Pictures from Home succeeds because it approaches those questions with intelligence, compassion, humor, and emotional honesty. It is thoughtful theatre that earns its emotional impact quietly, allowing the audience to discover its depth gradually rather than forcing sentimentality.


The past doesn’t disappear. It waits patiently inside the stories we keep telling.

Final Thoughts

Warm, reflective, and deeply human, Pictures from Home transforms a personal artistic journey into something universally recognizable. Marin Theatre’s production captures both the intimacy of family life and the larger questions surrounding identity, observation, and emotional inheritance.

Like Sultan’s photographs themselves, the production captures people trying to hold onto moments already beginning to fade. The result is a quietly powerful evening of theatre that lingers long after the final image disappears.

Info & Tickets

Pictures from Home
Marin Theatre
397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA
Through May 31, 2026

Tickets: MarinTheatre.org
Box Office: 415-388-5208

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Apr 25 2026
Love2

The Light in the Piazza

By Joseph Cillo


A sunlit Italian romance deepens into a tender, quietly powerful, almost operatic musical about how—and when—we let go of the people we love.

What starts as a chance meeting in an Italian piazza gradually reveals itself as something more layered—a story about a mother’s fear, a daughter’s awakening, and the fragile persistence of love.

At first, everything feels easy. Clara falls quickly, completely, and without hesitation for Fabrizio. But beneath that openness lies a complication her mother Margaret understands all too well. Clara’s past—an accident that altered her development—casts a long shadow, shaping how Margaret sees the world and how tightly she holds on.

As the relationship deepens, the real question emerges: not whether love exists, but whether it will be trusted.

Set in 1950s Italy, The Light in the Piazza follows Margaret Johnson and her daughter Clara as they travel abroad. When Clara falls in love with Fabrizio, a young Italian, Margaret must confront the limits she has quietly placed on her daughter’s future.

The story unfolds gently, guided more by emotional shifts than by action. Margaret’s internal struggle—between protection and release—becomes the engine of the piece.

Around them, the Naccarelli family brings warmth, humor, and a sense of lived-in reality that keeps the story grounded even as emotions rise.

The Score Lifts the Story
The music by Adam Guettel is lush, expressive, and closer to opera than traditional musical theater.

Rather than pushing the story forward in obvious ways, the score reveals what the characters cannot easily say. Emotions rise and resolve in waves, sometimes demanding patience, but often delivering moments of striking beauty.

More a continuous emotional current than a collection of songs.

A Notable Choice
A significant portion of the dialogue and lyrics is delivered in Italian, reflecting the cultural setting and enhancing authenticity—a mixed blessing.

For many of us in the audience, meaning must often be inferred through context and performance. Unlike opera, where surtitles guide understanding, the Italian here is left untranslated—requiring us to rely on tone, gesture, and staging to follow the meaning.

At its best, this deepens immersion; at times, it creates distance.

Performances
The production is anchored by a strong emotional core.

Clara (Emma Sutherland) is portrayed with openness and sincerity, capturing both innocence and resolve, while Margaret (Daniela Innocenti Beem) carries the greater dramatic weight, navigating the difficult space between love and control with credibility and restraint.

The cast is uniformly excellent, with rich voices and a striking combination of physicality and expressiveness.

Fabrizio (Malcolm March) brings warmth and conviction to the romantic center, while the Naccarelli family adds energy and texture, providing both humor and contrast to the more introspective moments.

Uniformly excellent—vocally assured, physically engaged, and fully expressive. 

Direction & Design
Sonoma Arts Live keeps the staging intimate and suggestive rather than elaborate. The design leans on atmosphere—lighting, costumes, and carefully chosen scenic elements—to evoke Italy without overwhelming the story.

The approach works. Nothing feels overdone, and the focus remains where it belongs—on the relationships.

Final Thoughts
The Light in the Piazza is not a conventional musical. It moves at its own pace, asking the audience to lean in rather than sit back.

In return, it offers something quieter but more lasting: a story about trust, vulnerability, and the difficult grace of letting go.

A quiet, lingering story about the courage it takes to let go.

How to See

The Light in the Piazza
Sonoma Arts Live
Andrews Hall Theatre, Sonoma Community Center
276 E Napa St, Sonoma, CA

April 24 – May 10

  • Thu–Sat at 7:30 PM
  • Sun at 2:00 PM
  • approximately 2 hours — one intermission

Tickets

  • $42 (Riser / Opening Night)
  • $37 (Floor)
  • $25 (Balcony / select performances)

Info & Tickets
sonomaartslive.org | 707-204-9990

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Mar 28 2026
Love2

Value Over Replacement

By Joseph Cillo


performance + consequence—and the stories we tell to justify both

Quiet, sharp observeations about ambition, ethics, and the uneasy realization that effort alone may not be enough.

Imagine a career spent just outside the spotlight—close enough to feel it, never close enough to own it. Now imagine the slow temptation to close that gap, not through persistence, but by bending the rules that define the game.

That’s the entry point. But this moves quickly past scandal into something more unsettling and equivocal: how we construct stories that allow us to live with our choices.

Story Line

Edward “Chip” Fuller is a former professional baseball player who never quite made it. Now a drive-time host on KSFP Sports Radio, he lives in the long shadow of what might have been.

When he learns his name will appear on a list of players linked to performance-enhancing drugs, the fallout doesn’t explode—it seeps in. Conversations with colleagues, listeners, and family begin to reshape the narrative.

As Chip revisits his past, the question shifts. It’s no longer just what happened, but how he explains it. Each version edges slightly closer to justification.

What emerges is not a confession, but a reckoning—one that stops short of resolution.

What’s in a Title?
Value over Replacement comes from a baseball metric: how much better a player is than a replaceable substitute. It’s a cold calculation—and that’s the point.
(Value Over Replacement Player is a complex baseball statistic that measures a player’s performance relative to an imagined “replacement player,” who is an average fielder and slightly below average hitter.)

Here, the idea lands beyond the field. Chip’s struggle isn’t just about performance; it’s about relevance. To fall short is to risk becoming interchangeable.

In that light, the temptation to enhance performance isn’t just about winning. It’s about proving you matter.

The Radio Booth: Performance as Identity
Particularly effective is Chip’s role on KSFP Sports Radio.

On-air, he is decisive, controlled, authoritative. The voice is confident because it has to be. Sports media doesn’t reward hesitation. Off-air, that certainty unravels.

Woody Harper as Chip Fuller makes that divide unmistakable. Behind the mic, his delivery is tight and assured; away from it, small fractures appear—hesitations, recalibrations, moments where the narrative slips. It’s a precise, controlled performance that reveals how much of Chip’s identity is constructed.

Across from him, David Kudler as Dan Drake anchors the world of the station. Practical, composed, and unshaken, he embodies the expectation of certainty. His steadiness sharpens the contrast as Chip begins to lose control of his own story.

The KSFP studio becomes a stage within the stage—where truth is shaped, repeated, and made to sound convincing. Until it isn’t.

Ambition rarely announces itself as compromise—it arrives as justification..

Ensemble Performances
This production is carried by a disciplined, well-balanced ensemble, led by a performance that understands the power of restraint.

Woody Harper as Chip Fuller anchors the play with quiet precision. Rather than pushing emotion outward, he lets it surface in fragments—pauses, hesitations, subtle shifts in tone. Confidence and doubt coexist, never fully resolving.

David Kudler as Dan Drake provides the essential counterweight. Grounded and direct, his presence gives the radio scenes their structure and tension.

Production photos from Value Over Replacement

The supporting ensemble adds depth and clarification.
Rachel Ka’iulani Kennealy (Emily Fuller) brings emotional clarity and restraint, while Amelia Stafford (Alex Fuller) introduces a generational perspective that raises the stakes without overstating them.

Meanwhile, Eric Forst, David Schiller, and Jennifer Reimer move fluidly between roles, including younger counterparts that echo and reframe Chip’s story. These transitions reinforce the idea that identity is not fixed—it is revised over time.

Direction
Director Ken Sonkin keeps the production focused and controlled.

The staging is clean, pacing deliberate. Nothing is forced — sometimes almost to a fault, as a few moments feel like they’re waiting to crest but never quite do.

Unsettling Final Thoughts
Value Over Replacement doesn’t offer easy answers, and it’s stronger for it.

Instead, it shows how compromise rarely arrives as a single decision. It builds slowly, through small adjustments, reasonable explanations, and the quiet need to make sense of ourselves.

What lingers is not judgment, but awareness of how complex life choices can be. And the heretical conclusion that sometimes the contract with the devil is worth it.

Tickets Available Now
Ross Valley Players
The Barn Theatre, Ross

March 27 – April 12

Tickets: rossvalleyplayers.com

(707) 523-4185

Includes intermission

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