-
3 weeks ago | 
stageandcinema.com | Barry Willis
MUSICAL SATIRE SUPREMENapa’s Lucky Penny Productions closes out its 2024-25 season with a screamingly funny spoof of an inexplicably popular TV franchise, in which five rich boozy women can’t stop bickering when their reality show is threatened with cancellation. A reboot – and rewrite – of a show that debuted last year, The Real Housewives of Napa Valley is even funnier and more outrageous that its first iteration.
-
3 weeks ago | 
stageandcinema.com | Barry Willis
THE RUMOR THAT RUMORS IS A SCREAM IS NO RUMORThe late playwright/screenwriter Neil Simon remains one of America’s most beloved creators of comedy. His plays often hinge on ludicrous setups, as in his classic Rumors, directed by Larry Williams at Sonoma Arts Live. Covering up evidence of poor judgment is a foolproof gambit that works beautifully in this 1988 slamming-door farce.
-
3 weeks ago | 
hifinews.com | Barry Willis
Hi-fi manufacturer MSB has a boutique offering of high-end DACs and power amplifiers, all designed, assembled and evaluated at its California HQ. Barry Willis went behind the scenesThe simple white building in Watsonville, California offers not a hint about what takes place inside – the design and production of some of the world’s most advanced audio gear, including three models of digital-to-analogue converters, four models of power amplifiers, and various accessories.
-
4 weeks ago | 
marinij.com | Barry Willis
This past year, Marin Theatre’s been all over the map — and all over the history books — with an amazing range of productions. The Mill Valley theater company comes back to the here and now with the Bay Area premiere of workplace comedy “Do You Feel Anger?” by Mara Nelson-Greenberg, opening Thursday. Directed by Becca Wolff, the show closes an adventurous, ambitious season.
-
1 month ago | 
hifinews.com | Barry Willis
Why does Barry Willis count himself as a ‘reformed record collector’? Because he can’t see past what he sees as the vinyl format’s inherent flaws, from groove distortion to velocity concernsAnalogue fans are in general agreement that the professional open-reel tape speed (linear velocity) of 30in per second (30ips, or 72cm/s) is unexcelled when it comes to capturing both musical detail and dynamics. It can sound really impressive with 1in or 2in tape.
-
1 month ago | 
marinij.com | Barry Willis
The tragic Greek legend of young lovers Orpheus and Eurydice has inspired innumerable creations across all the arts: paintings and sculptures, ballets and operas. The 1959 film “Black Orpheus” reset the tale in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and introduced Brazilian jazz to the world. Anaïs Mitchell’s “Hadestown” reinterprets the story as a large-scale contemporary musical where the underworld is a walled city at the end of a long, lonely railroad.
-
1 month ago | 
marinij.com | Barry Willis
Tradition, whimsy, audacity and inventiveness all combine in a new sculpture exhibit at the Sausalito Center for the Arts. A collaboration by the National Sculpture Society and the Sausalito Center for the Arts, “The Art of Form” opened with a well-attended reception last Saturday. Running through June 15, the exhibit features more than 50 sculptures from a couple dozen artists, plus many arresting portraits by painter Paul Morin and others working in two dimensions.
-
1 month ago | 
marinij.com | Barry Willis
Among the most popular children’s stories since its 1988 publication, Roald Dahl’s novel “Matilda” was adapted into a stage musical by Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin. It launched to great acclaim in 2010 and enjoyed long runs in London, New York and elsewhere, garnering many awards. For several years, the play has been available to regional theater companies. Marin theatergoers are lucky that Novato Theater Company landed the rights.
-
1 month ago | 
marinij.com | Barry Willis
Prolific playwright Lauren Gunderson is a national treasure. She excels at bringing historical events (“Silent Sky”) and historical fiction (“Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley”) to life. Through June 8, Ross Valley Players presents a stunning production of Gunderson’s “The Book of Will,” a riotous tale of a group of Shakespeare’s favorite actors trying to piece together a compendium of the Bard’s works from diverse sources. It’s a few years after Shakespeare’s death in 1616.
-
1 month ago | 
marinij.com | Barry Willis
Now more than 50 years old, the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons has millions of followers. From its introduction in 1974, the game attracted droves of players whose ranks swelled in the 1980s and ‘90s, the bulk of them middle school and high school students. According to Wikipedia, there were as many as 15 million players in North America alone in 2017, and sales of the game surged by 52% the following year.
