Photos by Barry Wisdom The magic of the theatre, the theater of magic. While great children’s theatre is a wonderful experience for children and adults any time of the year, it is especially magical during the holiday season. The most recent opening is the B Street Theatre Family Series, “The Snow Queen.” The B Street premier is an adaptation of an 1845 Hans Christian Anderson story, “Sneedronningen,” which originally appeared in Danish. The production is a story of a sister, Gerda, and her brother, Kay, who live with their grandfather. The adaptation was written by longtime B Street Acting Company member David Pierini. This is his fourth adaptation for B Street and follows “Pinocchio,”

Sigmund Freud, the creator of psychoanalysis, held many controversial views and theories. His staunch atheism is one of the strongest and most controversial. The great English writer C. S. Lewis, best known for “The Chronicles of Narnia,” also a staunch atheist as a young man, embraced Christianity as a professor at Oxford. Much credit for his conversion is given to long conversations with “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” author J. R. R. Tolkien. Award-winning playwright Mark St. Germain’s current off-Broadway hit “Freud’s Last Session” imagines a conversation between the two brilliant men very near the end of Freud’s life, while Lewis is a young Oxford professor and little-known

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

“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

Two shows opened for two different Sacramento theaters this weekend, set 40 years apart in very different locations and while each has its own unique cast and director, both plays have surprising underlying similarities. Both are essentially two-character plays. Both have a hysterical, unreasonable and totally self-centered female character. And both women become entwined with unsuspecting, clueless men. The Sacramento Theatre Company’s “Owl and the Pussycat” opened Saturday night on their small, intimate Pollock stage. As soon as the curtain rises, the audience finds itself in 1964 San Francisco. When is the last time you heard the word rat fink? “The Owl and the Pussycat” was writer

"Well" is an autobiographical play by Lisa Kron. “Well” has earned Kron critical acclaim for its run on Broadway and at A.C.T. in San Francisco. In "Well" A young actress/playwright wants to say something profound about those who get sick and stay that way – her mother and those who get sick and get well – herself. This is in spite of her protests to her mother that the play is not about her mother or her.  This is the play within the play "Well" This is the first play in which Kron has had characters other than herself. In “Well,” this includes her mother and the actors in the play that her character "Lisa Kron" is trying to stage.  Much to the dismay of the actress/playwright characte

Lisa Kron’s “Well” will debut this Sunday at B Street Theatre. The play has been well-received across the country, and now director Jerry Montoya will present his rendition of Kron’s autobiographical production for Sacramento. “When I read it for the first time I was constantly surprised,” Elisabeth Nunziato said. She will be playing the role of Lisa Kron. “The way it’s written, you will have to ask yourself: Okay, in what universe are we now? And as the story seems to unravel, it all ends up coming together in the end.” The play, which is about Kron’s relationship with her mother, illness and the community, is designed to break the fourth wall, which means it acknowledges the audience r

 B Street Theatre's new production, "The Conductor: Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad," is a great experience. The play, which is part of B Street Theatre's Family Series, made its debut in time for Black History Month. It tells the story of Harriet Tubman as she helps a slave, Jeremiah, escape to freedom in 1850s America. Jerry Montoya authored this B Street Theatre original production. "The Conductor" was written with children in mind, but that doesn't mean it is dumbed down. Instead, it portrays the struggles of being a slave in a way that is easy to understand and accessible for young viewers but is harrowing and intense enough that the experience is not diminished. This m