When Cynthia Erivo steps onto the Noel Coward Theatre stage on February 4th, she won't just be playing Dracula. She'll be playing Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra, Van Helsing, and nineteen other characters from Bram Stoker's gothic masterpiece. All in one night. All by herself. The ambition alone would be noteworthy, but director Kip Williams has engineered something more extraordinary. The appeal reaches audiences of all ages seeking immersive spectacle, all drawn by the promise of technology serving storytelling rather than overshadowing it.
The Specimen follows Johnny, a gay paleozoologist who loses his job amid Trump-era science budget cuts. Outraged and unmoored, Johnny refuses to abandon his life's work, continuing his research through increasingly dangerous-and darkly comedic-methods inside his apartment bathroom. Blending horror, satire, and political rage, The Specimen explores queer identity, institutional abandonment, and the costs of pursuing truth in a world that no longer funds it.
Tullock, who wrote Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God with Frank Winters, introduces Frances in her preferred environment, a cozy book talk with an easy interlocutor, where she can opine in a measured, NPR-ready alto about her memoir of the trauma she endured growing up in Kentucky. But soon, the action glitches. Frances's literary agent is calling, and the church she discussed in her book is threatening to sue.
Owens is on stage for the entire 95-minute run time of Primary Trust, guiding us into Kenneth's perspective on his world. Kenneth is an unobtrusive bit player in his small town, a fictional suburb of Rochester, New York - but in this play, he is the protagonist. All of the action revolves around him. It's quite a shift in focus for an unobtrusive Black man in a small town dominated by white people to be the focal point of the story.
Josh Kornbluth has established himself over the years as one of the Bay Area's best storytellers. His mostly autobiographical comedic solo shows have found him musing on everything from taxes and religion to his once-promising career in math and his powerful connection to Ben Franklin. Now he's back at The Marsh theater in Berkeley with his latest show, "What Is to be Done?" which has been such a hit it is now on its third extension.
