Barry Willis

23 hours 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.

2 days 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.

4 days ago | stageandcinema.com | Barry Willis

ANOTHER WORTHY WAY TO WONDER AT THE WORLDOn rare occasions even the most seasoned reviewers are confounded by the inadequacy of language to describe a production so beautiful and transcendent that words fail to do it justice. Such a production is multiple award-winning The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time which opened May 7 at San Francisco Playhouse. It’s enjoying a deservedly long run through June 21.

1 week ago | marinij.com | Barry Willis

Hard-rock drama is trending in Marin County. The same weekend that Marin Theatre closed “It’s True, It’s True, It’s True,” a punk-rock 1612 courtroom confrontation, Marin Shakespeare Company opened a related interpretation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” the enduringly popular tragedy about a pair of doomed, star-crossed young lovers. The production is part of Marin Shakes’ “Shakespeare for Student Audiences” series.

1 week ago | stageandcinema.com | Barry Willis

The pleasure lies not in the cookies, but in the pattern the crumbs make when the cookies crumble. ~ Michael KordaPlaywright Lynn Nottage is a national treasure—a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for drama, and among the very best storytellers in mining nuance from ordinary circumstances and historical facts. Her heart-rending Intimate Apparel and Sweat have long been a staple of the American stage; her sly comedy Clyde’s is a must-see.