Anyone else a regular at their regional theater productions? We’ve been subscribers to one or more theaters for a long time and getting out every eight weeks or so to a show is a real treat. Our current local theater is fairly edgy and runs heavy on small-cast social commentary stuff. Sometimes it’s tepid, sometimes dazzling and usually at least good for a conversation on the drive home. It’s a pretty intimate house, maybe 250 seats, so whatever happens is In Yer Face. The Mark Rothko semi-biography Red was intimidating, for example, with several ten-foot canvases crowding the stage.
They just announced the new season of five shows recently, and were being all cute-mysterious about a big surprise coming. Well… the first piece is an imagined story about an interview between Einstein and a reporter, something of a redux from the same author who did a piece pairing off Freud and C.S. Lewis. (One of the better productions last year.)
Anyway, big surprise revealed: playing Al this run will be Richard Dreyfuss. Pretty cool. They run on regular theater performers and a few slightly-known TV and film actors, but had Valerie Harper the year before we got here, and other pretty big names over their history. This will be the first really big star we’ve seen there, and he happens to be one of my favorites.
In the Bay Area there is a yearly option to get free tickets to various small theaters over a week. They used to be easy to get, now they are quite popular. We saw “I Hate Hamlet” at a small theater across the bay from us and liked it so much we subscribed, and have done so for about five years. They do a mix of musicals and two or three character plays, and usually have one or two equity people but mostly local talent. Great stage design for a small stage. We’re not likely to ever get Richard Dreyfuss. They’ve been doing this since the late 1940s.
The benefits to us are that the tickets are not super expensive, and they are close enough that we could go on Thursday night even when I was working and survive Friday. Plus free parking! We’ve gone to San Francisco, but taking the BART in takes a lot longer and you need dinner.
Plus it is nice to support them. We gave additional money last year. I got it matched from work, and got a special note back thanking me effusively.
We’ve seen some of these musicals on Broadway, late in their runs, and the gap is not as great as you’d think.
A couple of the productions we’ve seen have gone on to off-Broadway. We see big shows when we can - we saw Wicked in its SF runup to Broadway, something I treasure. My daughter is still furious at me for not getting Hamilton tix before they blew through the roof.
By the way, if a small musical production named “Woody Sez” ever comes your way, run do not walk to the ticket office. Two hours of Woody Guthrie and friends, convincingly portrayed.
