It’s been almost fifty years since Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. Those heady summer days of 1969—Woodstock, Vietnam, protests, Nixon, and the first human landing and walk on the moon—still reverberate today. Especially in San Francisc …Read more

The question of graffiti’s status as expression or vandalism has served as a point of contention for decades of urban history. While modern New Yorkers may regularly encounter such works without a second thought, closer inspection of graffiti’s conte …Read more

THE BOTTOM LINE: With a fine cast and a lovely little theater, this New Lamps production of The Glass Menagerie is an enjoyable way either to see the classic play for the first time, or to revisit it again. WHAT IT’S ABOUT: This Tennessee Williams pl …Read more

Nearly 30 years ago, Marlene Dietrich — a German actress who rose to stardom via the 1930 film Blue Angel — left Berlin for Hollywood. There, and later in Paris, she spent years charming moviegoers, making free love, and being an international icon …Read more

The Property, produced by New Light Theater Project and now playing at The Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row is an innocent light-hearted play with a bubbling cauldron of simmering rage just below the surface. Written by Ben Josephson and efficiently di …Read more

Apartheid and succulents might seem like odd bedfellows, but centuries of racial oppression and violence can make metaphors reverberate. Athol Fugard’s 1980 three-character drama, A Lesson From Aloes, now playing through June 29th at San Francisco’s …Read more

Shakespeare’s King Lear is one of the greatest roles in the Western canon, and the true test of any Lear production is how convincingly (and how devastatingly) the lead actor can portray Lear’s fall from the first to final scene. So when I read in th …Read more

Long before Nas rapped the line, “Life’s a bitch and then you die,” Edward Albee percolated on similar sentiments, resulting in his Pulitzer Prize winning work Three Tall Women, which was first staged in New York in 1994. The, dare I describe it, tow …Read more

I would pay to see any production that features 87-year-old actress Lois Smith, even if she were only reading the telephone book. In her latest role, Smith plays 90-year-old Mary Frances who, having lived a long good life, is now ready to die, surrou …Read more

Women on Fire: Stories from the Frontline, produced by Royal Family Productions, has a vibrant message to impart to young women today — vibrant, but tricky too, because it is as complex as it is compelling. It’s an energizing evening, a well directe …Read more