Photographs by Barry Wisdom |   The B Street Theatre continues sharing its passion for the latest and greatest plays by mounting the U.S. premiere of Canadian playwright Morris Panych's "In Absentia," which previews March 3 and 4, 2012, before opening at 7 p.m. March 4 for a six-week run on the Sacramento company's Mainstage. A prolific playwright and accomplished director and actor, Panych's work (if not his name) should be familiar to longtime B Street theatergoers, who flocked to the theater's productions of his plays "Vigil" (1997) and "Lawrence & Holloman" (1998). "In Absentia," which concerns a woman's "attempt to deal with the lengthy absence of her husband, captured by insurg

The B Street Family Series opened, “The Giver,” an eyes wide open look at how “Utopia” can become “Dystopia.” For an excellent introduction to the show see Barry Wisdom’s Sacramento Press preview of “The Giver.” Long time B Street Company members Elizabeth Nunziato and Jason Kuykendall are Father and Mother, the adult component of the mandatory two adult two children family unit. They are so good at creating this feeling that under the veneer of happiness is a pervasive fear of the consequences of differing at all from the norm which flares up anytime the children question something. Nunziato also plays the elder that announces the role that has been selected for each child as they cease

“Imagine there's no countries ... It isn't hard to do ... Nothing to kill or die for ... And no religion, too ... Imagine all the people living life in peace.” In “The Giver,” playwright Eric Coble’s adaptation of Lois Lowry’s 1993 Newberry Medal award-winning novel, John Lennon’s concept of a Utopia free of conflict where all the people share all the world has come to pass. There have been a few compromises on the way to this “same” new world, however. Yes, war and want are things of the past. But there is also no passion, no feverish love — and no choices. Genetic engineers have even rendered all people colorblind as a means to further homogenize a once-disparate (and desperate) soci

Bob lived a strange life right from the beginning. Abandoned by his birth mother in the restroom of a White Castle in Louisville Kentucky, and adopted by the employee who found him, they wander across the U.S. living out of her beige Chevy Malibu for the next 12 years and then she dies. On his own, Bob lives for the next 12 years behind the restrooms at an interstate rest area, and that is only the beginning. Bob is the central character in Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s same-titled play that opened Sunday on the B Street Theater Mainstage. To say that Nachtrieb has written a very imaginative play is an understatement. As the story follows Bob from birth to his senior years, characters connected

Torture, questioning the effectiveness of torture, secret renditions, religious factions, assassinations, government falsehoods for the greater good, heavy loss of civilian lives for the greater good… Sound familiar in the beginning of this century? This is not just the Middle East and North Africa, but also our own country. “Equivocation,” the title of the current offering at B Street Theatre’s B3 stage, has several definitions. All are about some form of evasion of the truth. In this case, it is about a lie not being a mortal sin if the lie results in a greater good. “Equivocation” is not set in the beginning of the 21st century, but in the London of 1606. James I is now King of Englan