Stark Insider Broadway Review by Jeanne Powell: Hamilton at the SHN Orpheum Theatre San Francisco. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s remarkable Broadway stage musical Hamilton celebrating America’s founding fathers, but especially Alexander Hamilton, is back in San Francisco on its third national tour. The long-running popularity of this ground-breaking history lesson, composed in hip-hop...

I don’t usually cry throughout a show. At the climactic tragic moment perhaps, but not all the way through. Watching Come From Away (SHN Golden Gate Theatre, San Francisco), I had tears streaming down my face for 100 solid minutes. This is the kind of story – and storytelling...

This month the amazing Kim Nalley performed her Christmas show in Feinstein’s at the Nikko, and filled the intimate club with musical joy. Feinstein’s nightclub is located in the Nikko Hotel, just off historic Union Square in San Francisco. Founder and cabaret singer Michael Feinstein is an interpreter of the...

Is truth more important than democracy? In Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, a doctor discovers that a spa town’s water source is polluted. He makes enemies as he tries to spread the news, which is sure to hurt the town economy. The attacks make him realize that the problem...

The world of Lynn Nottage’s Sweat (American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco) is unfamiliar to many coastal theater-goers (certainly to me). It’s a steel town where factory jobs are passed down through the generations. Most people go straight from the factory to the line, where hard work is rewarded with...

Extreme sports under the Big Top.

The San Francisco Symphony will launch its bold new 2018-2019 season with an opening night gala on September 5th, featuring violinist Itzhak Perlman. Proceeds from that gala will benefit the Symphony’s many artistic, education and community programs. The first week of September also will include the “All San Francisco...

Shakespeare’s Richard III is sometimes classified as a history, sometimes as a tragedy. The political subject matter is historical. The plot is tragedy-like in its high drama and high body count. The play lacks a tragic hero, though. Instead, we get a tragic villain: the manipulative Duke of Gloucester...

This musical creeps up on you.

In case you missed it, Wagner's Ring is in town. San Francisco Opera is staging the German composer's epic work, The Ring of the Nibelung, once again. Given the buzz, it seems the show is one of the year's biggest and not-to be-missed. Director Francesca Zambello recently sat down with Loni...