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May 25 2026

Ross Valley Players ridicule Sherlock Holmes and sidekick in gender-bending farce in Ross

By Woody Weingarten Woody Weingarten No Comments

Sarah McKeregham hams it up as I-reen-ee Adler in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B while Adrian Deane, as Ms. Sherlock Holmes, tries to figure out what’s going on.
Photo by Robin Jackson.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B is often clever, and as might be expected from the mind of a veteran, feminist comedy writer, delightful and funny.

The problem is that the Ross Valley Players farce is occasionally too clever, bogging down in exposition, verbiage, and some punchlines that are repeatedly repeated until they’re no longer delightful or funny.

Rising above that avalanche of words, despite having to learn about a gazillion of them each, are four extraordinarily fine actors: Adrian Deane (as a marvelously ultra-pompous Ms. Sherlock Holmes); Steve Price (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle villain Professor Moriarty, Inspector Lestrade, and Elliot Monk; Sarah McKereghan (Irene Adler, Mrs. Hudson, and others); and Jennifer La Blanc (an ever-collapsing Ms. Joan Watson).

Although Deane’s purposely robotic characterization may be the sharpest acting job, it’s not the funniest because of the writing by Kate Hamill, who’s penned a batch of successful parodies and in 2017 was named “playwright of the year” by the Wall Street Journal. The writer’s wit is occasionally too cerebral and difficult to access.

Steve Price comically portrays Inspector Lestrade. Photo by Robin Jackson.

Steve Price, whose face is so mobile and voice so cartoonish he makes it impossible to not chuckle frequently, and Sarah McKereghan, whose clowning chops precisely fit the wonder-to-behold cliché, top the laugh-ometer.

Mary Ann Rodgers must be a better-than-good director, having staged the show so most of those rocket-fast words and concepts are understandable (especially considering the multiple foreign accents).

In truth, a prize should be awarded to those in the crowd who can keep the storyline straight, since it’s rife with subplots and subplots of the subplots. Killings, and faux killings, seemingly come even faster than the gags and character-reveals.

Although the idea of turning the classic detective and his sidekick into females may be intrinsically amusing, the gender-bending device feels underused as a slapstick tool (except in a lesbian scene that’s wonderfully over-the-top).

Sarah McKeregham hams it up as I-reen-ee Adler in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B while Adrian Deane, as Ms. Sherlock Holmes, tries to figure out what’s going on. Photo by Robin Jackson.

But a piece of the purposely cluttered set — a souvenir skeleton of “I’m-not-a-doctor” Watson — isn’t used at all. Why bother mounting it if you’re going to keep theatergoers futilely waiting for its involvement in one murder or another?

Still, be certain to keep an eye out for Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, and her multi-replicated fumble-fingers. They should ensure laughter.

Don’t miss the buckets of blood either. Third-grade hilarious.

Or the corpse in the tub. Pubescent boy sidesplitting.

Enjoy pop culture and literary references in quip form? It feels as though about 400 of them about yesteryear — mainly books and television shows circa Laverne and Shirley and earlier — are inserted. Some feel especially anachronistic because they belie the fact that Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson — Apt. 2B is only four years old.

Not incidentally, the title of the “today-ish” comedy may have affected the box office. A recent matinee in Ross found the jam-packed, white-haired audience made up of roughly 20 women to each man. And yet there’s not even a Superbowl, no World Cup.

Billie Cox, who’s earned praise for years for her work with sound, is clearly at the top of her game — everything being timed exquisitely, everything perfectly fitting the action. Also praiseworthy is Valera Coble, who apparently was happy to design costumes that depicted Hamill’s 2021 London rather than the original setting, the 1880s. The garb is so right-on and so much fun that a lot of it would be great to stash away and wear on Halloween.

The two-hour show is long. It could do with half an hour of paring and the removal of excess jokes that relentlessly resemble AK-47 rifle scattershot.

A final note: Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B is peppered with short political and satirical digs at today’s America. But they’re scattered, almost purposely buried among other quick gags, so they don’t stand out.

It’s unlikely that anyone left the Barn discussing the Trump Administration. They were undoubtedly too busy talking about all the verbal and physical silliness. And whether they liked the show.

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B will run at the Barn, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. on the grounds of the Marin Art and Garden Center, Ross, through June 15. Tickets: $30 to $45. Info: www.RossValleyPlayers.com or 415-456-9555.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.comand https://vitalitypress.com. His books include Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer, aimed at male caregivers; MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of his newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that he co-authored with his then 8-year-old granddaughter.

May 24 2026

Love2

Mamma Mia

By Joe Cillo Joseph Cillo No Comments

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
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

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Marilyn Izdebski’s choreography shines in Novato Theater’s upbeat ‘Mamma Mia!’

By Woody Weingarten Joe Cillo, Woody Weingarten No Comments

Julianne Bretan, center, and an exuberant chorus appear in Novato Theater Company’s “Mamma Mia!” at the Novato Playhouse. (Jere Torkelsen/Novato Theater Company via Bay City News)

by Woody Weingarten, Bay City News

Novato Theater Company’s Marilyn Izdebski’s choreography and lighting design increase in excellence with each musical she works on. She’s been at it for 50 years, and critics are simply running out of words for “incomparable.”

Her light-hearted choreography in “Mamma Mia!” onstage in the Novato Playhouse through June 7 guarantees smiles. She once again has turned community theater thespians of all shapes and sizes into a cohesive chorus. Her choreography is the star of the show; she’s nicely assisted by conductor-keyboardist Nick Brown.

Izdebski — president of Novato Theater Company and a recent winner of the San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle’s Gene Price Award “for embodying superlative professionalism and passion for Bay Area theater” — dares patrons not to tap their toes to ABBA’s 1970s hits.

In addition, her smooth lighting design nicely parallels the range of moods in playwright Catherine Johnson’s flimsy and illogical storyline.

Marilyn Izdebski, choreographer extraordinaire, works her magic in Novato Theater Company’s “Mamma Mia!” onstage through June 7. (San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle via Bay City News)

Gia Mirra is excellent as Sophie, who switches emotions on a dime from joyous to confused; as are Lauren Sutton-Beattie and Jane Harrington as Rosie and Tanya, Donna’s oldest and best friends. The same goes for the dads: Lorenzo Alviso as Sam, Cordell Wesselink as Bill and David Cole as Harry.

The minimal set and props provide plenty of room for the large cast, who seem to be having as much fun as the audience. All members of the company are wearing mikes, so the song lyrics are clear, even when the chorus is dancing; that can’t be said of many local theaters.

Huda al Jamal’s terrific costumes range from sparkly for chorus lines to pure black for a nightmarish fantasy. And director Lisa Morse does a great job making the show’s bizarre action feel natural (except when the hoofing is appropriately extra-silly).

Notable numbers range from the flirting in “Take a Chance on Me to the bouncy “Knowing Me, Knowing You” and the especially poignant “Our Last Summer.”

The crowd, however, saved up its noisiest enthusiasm for chartbusters like “I Have a Dream,” “S.O.S.,” and “The Winner Takes All,” and kept up the spirit after the bows to sway and clap along to “Dancing Queen” and “Mamma Mia.”

In the lobby after, one elderly man couldn’t wait to tell a friend, “This show could pull you out of a depression.”

“Mamma Mia!” runs through June 7 at Novato Theater Company, 5420 Nave Drive, Novato. Tickets are $25 to $37 at novatotheatercompany.org.

Reach Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net, https://woodyweingarten.com or https://vitalitypress.com.

May 21 2026

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In Refugia Marin gardens, environmental retiree nurtures plants and community

By Woody Weingarten Joe Cillo, Woody Weingarten No Comments

Kristen Gregoriev with a crowd pleaser at Hall Middle School in Larkspur during an eco garden tour on Saturday, May 9, 2026. Gregoriev, a retiree, volunteers with nonprofit Refugia Marin, helping to replace invasive plant species with native plants to cultivate havens for local pollinators. (John Waters via Bay City News)

Kristen Gregoriev may have erred leaving her San Anselmo home accessible to birds and beasts. She walked into her living room a while ago “to find a mama deer had left a fawn the size of a large Chihuahua there, wedged between two flowerpots.”

The “mama had gone off to graze,” she remembers, “but the baby woke up and started screaming. Mama came bounding down the hill and immediately retrieved her.”

Gregoriev swiftly got out of the way, knowing not to interfere with a beast and its offspring, and just let the “rescue” happen.

The incident, she says, was probably the most surprising thing that’s happened in her late-in-life life as an environmentalist.

Gregoriev, retired since 2016, is now immersed in gardening at home as well as varied public sites of Refugia Marin, where she helps replace “invasive plant species” with native plants, and “cultivates a haven for local pollinators.”

She loves it.

The “spiritual nature of gardens can be really soothing in this time of chaos,” she says.

But she doesn’t love it all the time.

“Gardening is a real leap of faith that something’s going to work, that critters aren’t going to get to it, that there isn’t going to be a lethal heat spell no matter how much you’ve watered.

“Nature’s a bitch. Something you’ve been nurturing gets eaten. Something’s always dying.”

It wasn’t long after Gregoriev joined Refugia Marin in 2023, she says, that “they pounced” because of her 40-plus years in nature-centric small businesses. So she’s become the nonprofit’s treasurer, putting in about 30 volunteer hours a month working with gardens and numbers.

(Brian B. Beard via Bay City News)

The nonprofit was founded in 2021 in Corte Madera’s Town Park by its then-and-now executive director, Dana Swisher, an award-winning, longtime second-grade teacher at the Neil Cummins Elementary School in Corte Madera.

“She kept looking on the other side of a fence and seeing a fallow strip of weeds,” explains Gregoriev, who knew her through the Marin Monarch Working Group. So, Swisher finally stopped thinking about it and instead spent the requisite time — with the ultimate help of about eight board members and about 80 volunteers — to transform the strip into a thriving native plant habitat.

Refugia Marin’s purpose now, according to its website —www.refugiamarin.org — “extends beyond conservation; we strive to educate the community about the myriad benefits of native plants while creating thriving wildlife habitats.

“By forging strong partnerships with schools, community leaders, and like-minded organizations, we work together towards our shared goal of enhancing the natural beauty of our community and creating spaces for people to enjoy.”

Refugia (a plural word that means safe havens) is a volunteer organization except for three paid employees whose public spaces include the Pollinator Garden at the Dominican University of California in San Rafael and the People’s Garden in Cove Park, Corte Madera.

Its latest project is Habitat Garden, behind the new Larkspur Library, that’s intended, according to the website, to “serve as a visible demonstration of climate-resilient planting and local biodiversity.”

Gregoria has gardened at all the sites except the library and Hall Middle School’s outdoor classroom in Larkspur. “I’ve done a lot of weeding, lots of pruning, planted a couple of trees, planted seeds, and weed-whacked with a new, lighter electric machine,” she says. “It’s very rewarding to see an area that you’ve tended.”

The Refugia Marin Habitat Garden blooms in Corte Madera Town Park in Corte Madera on Saturday, May 9, 2026. (Kristen Gregoriev via Bay City News)

She’s also “done outreach, staffed tables set up at events like May 9’s Eco-Friendly Garden Tour and other community events.”

She’s been engrossed, too, in Refugia Marin’s highly successful April 28 fund-raiser, An Evening in Conversation at the Lark Theater with best-selling journalist and CNN series host Kara Swisher, Dana Swisher’s sister-in-law, and acclaimed Fairfax author Anne Lamott.

Gregoriev maintains that she’s “super-fortunate” to be able to work with the organization’s volunteer nature enthusiasts, a “wonderful group of people — bright, funny, smart, diligent. I’m the Old One, going to be 70 in September; everyone’s younger than me, the youngest in the mid-30s.”

Though happy, she regrets coming “pretty much late to the party. I was a passive environmentalist who only became active after I retired (although I’d designed environmental T-shirts that kids would want to wear).”

She says it’s “nice to work in areas other than my own because I have too many deer here.” But she still revels in changing her backyard into a pollinator paradise.

Gregoriev prefers working with plants native to California “because they’re more suited to our climate and they’re more beneficial to the pollinators — bees and butterflies — because they’ve evolved over time to have a beneficial relationship with each other.”

Her favorite public site is “the original town park, because I’ve seen the most evolution, watching one-gallon plants really take off and become more beautiful.”

Her favorite plants? “The Ceanothus, a shrub with beautiful purple flowers that butterflies really go for; the Pitcher Sage, another shrub that smells unbelievably good to me, that has beautiful bell-like delicate pink flowers, and, as for a tree, the California buckeye, which supports all the caterpillars which in turn support the songbirds, the small birds that snatch the caterpillars to feed their babies.”

The gardening she’s doing, she says, brings her “delights and quiet satisfaction. I’ve done this kind of gardening since I was in college at U.C. Davis.”

As for toiling behind her own place, she says, “When we first moved in, we tried to plant anything that the deer wouldn’t eat. Now, I’m really trying to plant native, and I am finding some things the deer are not so fond of.”

Asked what the favorite plants in her yard are, first she answers flippantly, “Anything that grows,” then more seriously adds, “I have a lot of Milkweed for the Monarch butterflies.”

Gardening, she muses with obvious joy, “is a dialogue. You do something and then it does something. It’s not a one-way thing.”

This article was first published onLocalNewsMatters.org, a nonprofit site supported by Bay City News Foundation http://www.baycitynews.org/contact/.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.comand https://vitalitypress.com. His books include Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer, aimed at male caregivers; MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of his newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that he co-authored with his then 8-year-old granddaughter.

May 21 2026

Love2

Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really

By Joe Cillo Joseph Cillo No Comments

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 Joe Cillo Joseph Cillo No Comments

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

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May 15 2026

Love0

‘Fascinatingly different’ Mill Valley dramedy spotlights divide between parents and son, reality and fiction

By Woody Weingarten Woody Weingarten No Comments

Jean (left), Irv (center) and Larry discuss old photo of Irv in Pictures from Home. Photo by David Allen.

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

Check out the upscale, retirement-age parents in their San Fernando Valley tract home where the wife’s real estate commissions have kept them afloat for years while the husband’s played golf thrice weekly and continually raged.

In Pictures from Home at the Marin Theatre through May 31, the lives and personalities of the Sultan parents — Irv and Jean — are methodically deconstructed by their demi-adult photographer son, Larry, who frequently sleeps over on weekends after traveling down from Greenbrae. Instead of a stuffed animal, he’s long been caressing a camera and recorder apparently borrowed from the San Francisco Art Institute and California College of the Arts, where he’s been teaching.

All three performers are Equity pros; all three easily bring their real-life characters to life on a cluttered stage set dominated by a large screen onto which still-photo after still-photo extracted from home-movie reels is projected.

Larry, as play’s narrator, has fond memory of portrait of his dad. Photo by David Allen.

Irv, a razor salesman and Schick V.P. who bears only a slight resemblance to everyman Willie Loman and who’s depressed because no one seemingly can afford “hopes and dreams” anymore, firmly believes photos depict events as they are. Larry, the son who’s decidedly more artistic, has spent the last 10 years working on a photo-cum-book project to prove that pictures can show more than bare reality, that they can judiciously recall memories in a way that some might label fiction or exaggeration.

He also acts as the 105-minute, intermission-less, fascinatingly different play’s narrator.

Jean, meanwhile, tries to skirt the ongoing debate, has convinced herself she’s “in charge,” and grumbles that she’d “just like a couple of nice photos for the fridge.”

The one-act Pictures from Home is sprinkled with lots of verbal and physical humor, so much you might think it would be enough to leaven the extremely weighty drama. Not quite.

That’s because what they’re discussing is too personal, too intimate, too raw. It’s visceral rather than cerebral, even when comparing generations.

The problem, if it is any problem, is that playwright Sharr White and director Jonathan Moscone have re-created a family that’s virtually everybody’s, regardless of ethnicity, socio-economic status, or geography. “That was my father up there,” one exiting theatergoer was heard to say.

Dad is played brilliantly by Victor Talmadge as a sad, vulnerable loudmouth who talks over everybody and tries to emasculate his son because he feels powerless himself. Though he appears to lack empathy, he contends that the “key to success is empathy.” Mom, portrayed by Suzan Koosin, flawlessly spends a good part of the play flitting from one edge of the stage to another while trying to get her husband and son to put down their verbal swords. Larry is well-crafted by Dan Cantor as an immature, cowed offspring unlikely ever to grow up.

The dramedy, which is based on a photo memoir by the real Larry Sultan, opened to critical acclaim on Broadway in 2023, with Nathan Lane as Irv.

No matter who’s in the role, though, when Larry’s proposal becomes a reality, Irv neither understands nor accepts the artsy concept and still feels invaded. “I see you’ve got pretty much every photo I don’t like in the book,” he bemoans.

Pictures from Home will run at the Marin Theatre, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through May 31. Tickets: $38 to $94, plus a $6 handling fee per total order. Info: 415-388-5208 or www.MarinTheatre.org.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or via his websites,https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com

May 14 2026

Love2

Pictures from Home

By Joe Cillo Joseph Cillo No Comments

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.

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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May 11 2026

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Santa Rosa dramedy probes whether facts must be accurate

By Woody Weingarten Woody Weingarten

By WOODY WEINGARTEN

If you want to guess how many facts, including fake ones, can dance humorously and philosophically on the head of a pin, scoot over to the 6th St. Playhouse in Santa Rosa.

There you’ll find Lifespan of a Fact, a cerebral 95-minute play that may test your patience for nit-picking and a sluggish first act but is sure to reward you with tons of snarky-based chuckles minutes later. The acting, meanwhile, morphs from wimpy and tough-to-hear into robust and boisterous.

Crisp dialogue. A little slapstick, including a character at war with his backpack. Farce-like slamming of doors. All are tossed in for good measure and laughs.

The basic plotline? It’s all about truth vs. lies.

John D’Agata, a Norman Mailer-type veteran writer played arrogantly and gruffly by Marty Pistone, has penned a career-best “legacy” essay about a teen suicide for a prestigious but fiscally challenged New York magazine.

Egocentric enough to list himself along the great essayists of all time, he’s taken more than a few liberties with the facts. A lifelong habit? Clearly.

Jim Fingal, an energetic young intern portrayed by Noah Vondralee-Sternhill, struts his Harvard grad cockiness once he gets into the work — after awkwardly beginning the bizarre series of fact checks. If not careful, his over-the-top corrections will diminish the essay by erasing its color.

D’Agata, always protective of his reputation, nastily chides him about overestimating his “importance in the entire process.”

John D’Agata (Marty Pistone) unsuccessfully tries to sweet-talk Emily Penrose (Shanay Howell). Photo by Eric Chazankin.

It takes no time at all for Emily Penrose, the editor who tasks Fingal, to recognize the pair’s polarized views (Shanay Howell alternates with Emily Lynn Cornelius, the troupe’s executive artistic director, in the role).

She listens to them swapping insults, attempts to mediate — and then, with resignation, asks them “not to kill each other” (the outcome of which remains in doubt for some time).

Though the dramedy’s director, Libby Oberlin, has a tsunami of words to deal with, she keeps Act II at a pace that sprints — zingy enough to cause the audience to applaud between scenes.

The play (written by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell) is based on a 2012 book crafted by the real-life D’Agata and Fingal.

Lifespan of a Fact debuted on Broadway in 2018 starring Daniel Radcliffe, Bobby Cannavale, and Cherry Jones. Critics praised its cleverness.

And its timeliness.

When the play’s over, you might try thinking of someone out there today who might stretch the truth just a teeny bit to serve his own purposes?

Lifespan of a Fact will run at the Monroe Stage of the 6th St. Playhouse, 52 W. 6th St., Santa Rosa, through May 31. Tickets: $26.95 to $47.95. Info: 707-523-4185 or boxoffice@6thstreetplayhouse.com.

Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com.

Apr 28 2026

Love0

“Million Dollar Quartet” presented by Meadow Brook Theatre, Rochester Hills MI

By Suzanne Angeo Greg & Suzanne Angeo

Reviewed by Suzanne Angeo (Member, American Theatre Critics Association)

and Greg Angeo (Member Emeritus, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle)

Photos courtesy of Sean Carter Photography (2026) and George Pierce, Memphis Press Scimitar (1956)

Cast-Million Dollar Quartet

A show so good, you may want to see it twice!

In December 1956, at the Sun Records studio in Memphis, Tennessee, four of rock and roll’s biggest stars assembled just to sit around and sing some gospel songs, making history in the process. “Million Dollar Quartet” is loosely based on this event from 70 years ago. While the show’s creators, Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux, took artistic liberties with some of the facts, they also infuse the action onstage with genuine history. It’s all strung together with style and dynamic pacing, a great set and lighting, and of course the best rock and roll music the world has ever heard on one stage. Dance-in-the-aisles numbers include “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Who Do You Love” and “Great Balls of Fire” among many, many others. It’s a kind of theatrical alchemy, turning a simple session into musical gold.

A memorable moment: each artist strikes a pose, frozen in the spotlight with dramatic shading, in front of their microphones in the tiny studio. The whole world is before them – fame and fortune and the adoration of millions.

The actors all sing and play their own instruments with exceptional flair and are totally believable in their roles. The casting is ideal, especially Tyler Michael Breeding as Elvis. He captures Presley’s moves and charisma to perfection. Alex Burnette is all frenzied energy as Jerry Lee Lewis, showcasing his unique rock n’ roll piano playing and providing lots of laughs. Johnny Cash’s deep baritone and moody persona are embodied in Nathan Robert’s studied delivery. Sam C Jones gives a fine, multi-layered emotional performance as musical trailblazer Carl Perkins.

Session musicians Fluke (on drums) played by Brady Jacot, and Jay (on bass fiddle), played by Chris Blisset, lend an authentic studio feel along with personal interactions with the rest of the cast.

An unexpected guest that day is Elvis’s girlfriend Dyanne, who also (wouldn’t you know it) happens to be a really great singer. Kasie Buono Roberts flirts with everyone and steams up the stage from time to time with numbers like “Fever” and “I Hear You Knocking”.

Stephen Blackwell as Sam Phillips more than holds his own onstage alongside such commanding performers. In between songs, we hear him talk passionately about his studio, the music of the times, and his nurturing relationships with the four very special artists that came to his studio that day.

Near the end, in a beautiful footnote to the show, we get to hear part of the actual tape of the session recorded at Sun Records by Cash, Lewis, Perkins and Presley, along with a projection of the now-legendary photograph snapped by local newspaper Memphis Press Scimitar photographer George Pierce.

Million Dollar Quartet – photo by George Pierce

There needs to be a special shout-out to: Lighting Designer Scott Ross; Sound Designer Brendan Eaton; Music Director Chris Blisset (the guy on bass fiddle); Scenic Designer Mia Irwin and Costume Designer Karen Kangas-Preston. They truly bring this spectacular show to life, transporting us back to that December day in 1956.

Director Travis Walter has outdone himself once again, if that’s even possible. The show is so vivid, the characters so lively, and the story so riveting that the 105 minutes pass like a dream. A dream where you keep hearing “Memories Are Made of This” and “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man”, long after you awaken.

There is no intermission for this performance.

Please note new 7:30 PM evening start times for this season!

When: Now through May 17, 2026

Tickets $40 to $48

Where: Meadow Brook Theatre at Wilson Hall

Oakland University

378 Meadow Brook Rd

Rochester Hills, MI 48309

(248) 377-3300

www.mbtheatre.com

his production is made possible through the generous support of the Fred and Barbara Erb Family Foundation, the Shubert Foundation and the Meadow Brook Theatre Guild.

Meadow Brook Theatre is a professional theatre located on the campus of Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. MBT is a nonprofit cultural institution serving southeast Michigan for 59 years