photographs by Barry Wisdom / In the interest of completing a team task, or just keeping one’s job, employees are often required to play “nice” with one another when they’d rather be playing a no-stopping-on-cuts-or-blood bout of Alien vs. Predator. Of course, it’s the goal of every good boss to hire an amiable mix talents and personalities who will complement (if not outwardly compliment), respect, and – ideally – like their co-workers. This desired dynamic can be challenging to achieve, especially in a creatively competitive environment where most everyone has an opinion of how to achieve success. So when your workplace is introduced to another Type “A” personality of a similar age

photographs by Barry Wisdom / It may be trendier to deck the stage with a commedia dell’arte zombie musical that features a naked, nunchuck-wielding, Shakespeare-quoting cast, but the holiday season at the B Street Theatre is more about comfort food than nouvelle cuisine. Just as Thanksgiving diners count on menus offering green-bean casserole, turkey and cranberry sauce, Sacramento-area theatergoers expect to see such familiar B Street company members as Dave Pierini, Kurt Johnson, Elisabeth Nunziato, John Lamb and Michael Stevenson performing homegrown plays that expertly mix quirky humor and heart-tugging sentiment. Just how long producing artistic director Buck Busfield, the tradit

With a title like "The Room Next Door, or the vibrator play," audiences might well expect a jolt or two – and not of the AC variety the newfangled electric gadgets of the late-19th century were known to occasionally deliver. For those looking for a bit of shock and awe from J Street's "bold, intimate, live" theater, the current Capital Stage production of Sarah Ruhl's comedy does not disappoint. Though Ruhl's script goes for the gag switch a few too many times, and changes polarity with unsettling frequency, the uniformly strong cast led by Michael Stevenson, Elena Wright and Katie Rubin shine brightly and consistently. Playing through Feb. 26, "The Room Next Door" is set in the late-19t

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

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

“The Young Abe Lincoln” by B Street Theatre associate producer Jerry Montoya is premering at the B Street Family Series.   Montoya took the fact that 22-year-old Abraham Lincoln was hired by a New Salem, Ill., businessman to take a flatboat of goods for sale to New Orleans and wrote the historical fiction play for children. Montoya has created a fun play for kids that lets them test what they have learned in school or learn a few new facts about Mr. Lincoln. However, not everything is factual here. It very doubtful that Alice Offut, daughter of businessman Denton Offut (also spelled Offutt), would have stowed away on Lincoln’s flatboat. The historical fiction here speaks to Lincoln’s cha

The theater is filling up. The excitement is palpable. The audience is mostly grade schoolers or younger. Lots of the kids are dressed in their party going best. They can barely contain themselves waiting for the curtain to go up on “Junie B. Jones in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells.” “Junie B. Jones in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” is the kickoff show for B Street Theatre’s Family Series seventh season. The play is based on Barbara Park’s very popular Junie B. Jones children’s book series. Veteran children's playwright Allison Gregory adapted the book for the stage. B Street Family Series also produced Gregory’s adaptation of “Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business” in 2007, as well as

photographs by Barry Wisdom   Got funny? When B Street Theatre producing artistic director Buck Busfield needs funny, he’s got himself a deep bench of tried-and-tested company members to call to the plate for a grand-slam guffaw.     Of those accomplished actors, perhaps none have a higher LOL average than David Pierini, whose insane lack of vanity, underplayed delivery and awesome arsenal of expressions and gestures can just as easily evoke yuks from post-modern yuppies catching a B Street Mainstage or B3 show, as bring about uncontrollable bouts of milk-squirting nose giggles while playing to Fantasy Theatre’s grade-school audiences.    But in his current role, as Mr. Scary in the Fami

Music THIS WEEKEND ONLY: Sacramento Theatre Company    Cabaret Series         You're the Top: A Tribute to Cole Porter Our 2010-2011 Cabaret Series kicks off this weekend with a tribute to one of the greatest composers of all time. Spotlighting not only Cole Porter's beautiful ballads like Night and Day and I Love Paris, but also his comic genius and clever rhymes. Featuring several selections from the classic Anything Goes as well as his masterpiece Kiss Me, Kate. With the genius of Cole Porter and Sacramento Theatre Company's best musical talent, this event should be "easy to love!" Thursday November 18th 7:00 pm Friday November 19th 8:00 pm Saturday November 20th 2:00 and 8:00 pm

The overly curious will find much to be frustrated about as Theresa Rebeck’s tale of the seamy side of philately (stamp collecting!) unfolds in the suspenseful “American Buffalo”-flavored “Mauritius,” now playing at Capital Stage. “Are they real?,” “How much are they worth?,” “How much are you willing you pay?” and “How much will you take?” are about the limits to the questions presented by the quintet of players who stand to gain – and lose – in this entertaining if unlikely tale of familial entitlement and greed gone awry. But so many more questions come to mind that one’s left with a story that boasts more perforations than the “stars” of the show: a fabled pair of stamps that are – l