Matthew Ozawa Modernizes Beethoven’s Ode to Justice by Jennifer Ann Charron Beethoven, with help from friends like Matthew Ozawa and the cast, orchestra, and crew of SF Opera gave me two-plus hours of unadulterated joy. Ozawa’s new “Fidelio” updates Beethoven’s opera about triumph over tyranny—delivering a contemporary win over political injustice. Ozawa’s modern detention…
Millennial Notes Lin-Manuel Miranda Revives Revolution in Living Color by Evelyn Arevalo The touring company of “Hamilton” in San Francisco boasts an exciting diversity of singers and dancers. Much like the Bay Area, the cast is multi-cultural and phenomenal—like Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical, itself. Miranda’s ground-breaking show about the American Revolution—in rap, jazz, and ballad–has…
Reflections “Essential Services Project” Offers Free Thrills by Patricia L. Morin Imagine the creativity, stamina, and drive it takes for one person to write, act, direct, and produce, a solo play every week for over a year. John Fisher, Executive Artistic Director of Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco, took on this mind-boggling feat in his…
Neil LaBute Parallels 9/11 Attack & Lovers’ Psychodrama by Patricia L. Morin “The Mercy Seat,” under the creative direction of Allie Bailey at Los Altos Stage Company, cleverly exposes a caustic relationship between a younger man and an older woman. And she is his boss. Playwright Neil LaBute highlights gender differences that spill over…