A major theatrical event took place in Sacramento on Saturday night, April 27, with the Sacramento Theater Company’s world premiere of “A Little Princess.” It is a musical with close creative ties to Sacramento, a show with a potential to reach a huge audiences, given its launch in a Sacramento Theater Company production that could not be more pitch perfect in any way. William J. Brooke has created a wonderful playbook based on popular English-American writer Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s novel of the same name. Burnett is best known for her children’s books published just before and after the turn of the 19th century, “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” “The Little Princess” and “A Secret G

For those who thought Sacramento Theatre Company's April 2012 cabaret production of "Music of the Night: The Musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber" had exhausted the best of the composer's catalogue, the company's closing cabaret offering of the 2012-13 season, "As If We Never Sad Goodbye," might well force a change of mind. Subtitled "A Brand New Tribute to Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber," "As If ..." takes listeners back to the beginning with selections from the 1960s ("Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat"), to the 1970s ("Jesus Christ Superstar," "Evita"), to the prolific 1980s ("Starlight Express," "The Phantom of the Opera," "Aspects of Love"), to the '90s ("Sunset Boulevard," "Whistle Down the

In the 1980s, even though he had written numerous highly successful plays (“The Odd Couple,” “The Sunshine Boys”), Neil Simon’s career and his own satisfaction with his work was at a low point. By looking back on his own life as source material, Simon was able to go from seriously funny to a funny and serious play. The result was “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” a fictional look at his childhood in the seaside neighborhood of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York. It is the fall of 1937. The world is in the worst depression ever and on the brink of the World War II. The Jerome family is typical of the many Jewish families that settled in Brighton Beach. They are trying to live as normal a life as p

photographs by Barry Wisdom   It’s been a year of firsts for Matt K. Miller, artistic director of the Sacramento Theatre Company. For one thing, there’s that title, which was bestowed late last year in the wake of longtime STC leader Peggy Shannon’s exit. A busy stage, film and television actor, voice artist and playwright, Miller began his tenure with STC as a resident company member. In 2005, he stretched his theatrical muscles and took on the role of assistant director for the Shannon-helmed “The Syringa Tree.” Today he’s not only flying solo in the director’s chair, but he’s adding another first in taking that next step: directing himself. “Yes, I’ve been busy,” said Miller, whose

The second of this season’s Sacramento Theatre Company Cabaret Series, “They Say It’s Wonderful: Broadway’s Best Love Songs,” opened Thursday night. Again the lobby of the STC Mainstage Theatre has again been turned into a nice little nightclub with many tables for four. The program features love songs from the late 1920s to the present. The show opens with “How Long Has This Been Going On” from the1927 show “Rosalie.” The show is long-forgotten, but the song has remained popular over the decades. After some straightforward love songs such as “Someone to Watch Over Me” (“Oh Kay”) and “On the Street Where You Live” (“My Fair Lady”) the first set turns to fun, funny love songs ending with