This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine for the Bay Area performing arts, host David Latulippe talks with Theatreworks Silicon Valley director Giovanna Sardelli, about It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (through Dec 26). Also, conversations about the classic holiday production of Cinderella by the African American Shakespeare Company Dec 18-19); and about The Woman in Black (Dec 15-Jan 16). Plus, Peter Robinson reviews two new movies and reflects on The Art of Banksy.
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley celebrates the holidays with It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. This holiday production offers the beloved 1946 film as a 1940s era radio play, complete with live foley-style sound effects. The story is told by five nimble actors who take on dozens of roles and provide all of the live sound effects. Guest Giovanna Sardelli directs the show, which runs through December 26 at the Lucie Stern Theatre (1305 Middlefield Road) in Palo Alto.
From the African American Shakespeare Company, we talk with founder and executive director Sherri Young, and actors Christiano Delgado and Michelle Ianiro, who perform the parts of Evil Stepmother and Prince Charming respectively, in the classic AASC holiday production of Cinderella.
This is the 19th production of Cinderella by the AASC, and although the play has experienced a number of revisions, additions and updates over the years, at the heart of the story lies the magic that happens between Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother.
Cinderella runs for 2 performances only, December 18 & 19 (3pm) at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.
We talk with actors Antony Eden and Robin Herford, who star in The Woman in Black, running at San Francisco’s Strand Theater (1127 Market St.) from December 15 - January 16. Adapted for the stage, Susan Hill’s gothic ghost story is set in an isolated windswept mansion with tragic secrets hidden behind its shuttered windows. There, a young lawyer encounters horrific visions in the house set amidst the eerie marshes and howling winds of England’s forbidding Northeast Coast.
Plus, Open Air’s regular contributor and critic at large, Peter Robinson, will close out the year with two movie reviews, King Richard and Belfast, and he reflects on The Art of Banksy (through Feb 27) at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
Open Air, with host David Latulippe, heard live on Thursday, December 9 at 1pm, to be archived at this very location until the internet dies. Listen now or anytime…