Marcus Crowder

In just a few short years, KOLT Run Productions founders Kelly Ogden and Lisa Thew have made themselves invaluable elements in the Sacramento theater scene.

You might not think "keeping it real" applies to satire-based musical theater, but it means as much there as anywhere else.

The young Cuban jazz pianist Alfredo Rodríguez has a lot to live up to just because he's a young Cuban jazz pianist.

John Patrick Shanley's shadowy "Doubt" wraps a clever mystery into a historical context with a current urgency.

In 1986, Tim Busfield founded Fantasy Theatre as a long-held dream he had to create a children's theater.

If you want to get to the intense and fulfilling heart of flamenco dance, do not miss Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca.

The meta-theatrical Kneehigh Theatre troupe out of Great Britain, which brought their hugely successful adaptation of "Brief Encounter" to the United States last year, return with a new piece of bravura performance called "The Wild Bride."

January is shaping up as a banner month for theater openings around the region.

Davis Musical Theatre Company kicks out the old and brings in the new with a special presentation of Bob Fosse, Fred Ebb and John Kander's tuneful show-business satire "Chicago."

The master bandleader, bassist Harley White, will show off various versions of his acumen Sunday night at JB's Lounge.

Legendary Latin jazz pianist and band leader Eddie Palmieri brings his salsa orchestra to Three Stages at Folsom Lake College on Monday night.

Cirque du Soleil has been so consistently spectacular for years that it really competes only with itself.

Sacramento has a deep quality-acting pool, and Matt K. Miller has been one of the most consistently satisfying and effectively versatile actors of that group.

Since coming to the Sacramento Theatre Company, education director Michele Hillen has continually pushed its youth programs forward.

For anyone who's read (or read about) playwright David Mamet's recent treatise on his conversion to conservative political thought, "The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture," the idea that he had written a play called "Race" would be cause for grimaced teeth-gnashing.

Shaina Aber has long wanted to share hundreds of compelling accounts of refugees and other people forcibly displaced from their homes around the globe.

Catherine Butterfield's "The Sleeper" seems a bit like a dinner theater mystery, only with terrorists.

Patrick Murphy has finally fallen into the life's work he always wanted. After leading the acting program at the renowned Goodman School of Drama in Chicago for 25 years, Murphy retired.

Portishead does the mysterious thing better than any other pop band. The English trio backhanded a lethargic music scene in 1994 with its first record, the noirish classic "Dummy."

Capital Stage opens its new theater this weekend at 2215 J St. in a building that once housed the Old Armory Gun Shop. The initial production at the freshly minted theater is playwright Tracy Letts' "Superior Donuts," making its Sacramento premiere.

WEDNESDAY

I'm telling you now: Don't sleep on New Helvetia Theatre, Sacramento's youngest and smallest professional theater company.

August Wilson's "Two Trains Running" has been one of the great playwright's less performed works but one of his most intimate.

Earlier this summer Sacramento Theatre Company unwittingly played a cruel joke on itself.

Setting down at the beautiful Cosmo Cabaret for the fall will be "Bingo, the Winning Musical."

Sacramento- based actress Jamie Jones has a gift for artlessly inhabiting roles. Her husband, actor and director Michael Stevenson, once told me, "Everything she does, I think: 'That role's perfect for her.'

If you've seen more than one production at B Street Theatre then you've likely seen Dave Pierini on stage. The actor and writer has been with the company from its earliest stages through its various incarnations. In many ways he's mirrored the company's thoughtful growth and development while becoming an integral artistic element of all B Street does.

The first time Harley White put on a WhiteNoise Festival, the event was a party.

Local electronica hip-hop duo Lostribe give their latest album "Sophie" a live workout tonight at Sol Collective.

You wouldn't think a meeting between two such sober thinkers as Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis would turn out like a backstage romp with a couple of stand-up comedians.

Songwriter and singer Sal Valentino's band the Beau Brummels mastered the pop-rock genre popularized by their contemporaries the Beatles.

Back in 2006, Rocklin-based pianist Jim Martinez had an idea to get together a few singers he knew for a series of concerts.

Shannon Mahoney's Cass goes on a one-of-a-kind road trip in David Lindsay-Abaire's early comedy "Wonder of the World."

The title for "How Else Am I Supposed To Know I Am Still Alive?" by Evelina Fernández doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Sitting on the gorgeous shore of Lake Tahoe at Sand Harbor State Park, the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival has an awful lot going for it before any actor ever takes the stage.

There's little wonder why Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" remains one of the greatest musicals of all time.

Big Idea Theatre's "King of Shadows" takes its last bows this weekend with performances at 8 p.m. today and Saturday.

What does it take to make a music scene? Musicians who want to play. A venue where they can perform. And finally, an audience who will provide support.

The veteran actor and singer Gary Beach could rest on his considerable laurels if he wanted. Beach has had an enviable career in television ("Queer As Folk"), film ("Defending Your Life") and particularly musical theater.

Should you want any insight to the methods of comic mastermind Mel Brooks, look no further than "The Producers."

Emotion carries the day in "Billy Elliot: The Musical," which just opened at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco.

The sassy new production of Liz Duffy Adams' "Or," by Capital Stage gives the company a righteous sendoff to its new home next season. After six successful seasons on the Delta King as the city's youngest professional theater company, Capital Stage is moving to a reconstructed theater space on J Street in midtown.

Graham-A-Rama extends itself this weekend with a three-night extravaganza.

Bill Cain's very smart and moving historical drama "Equivocation" closes this weekend at B Street Theatre.

In 2007, the Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. Thirteen people died and another 145 were injured in the tragic event.

The title of David Rabe's continually popular "Hurlyburly" comes from Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

Playwright Bill Cain has a lot on his mind with the brilliant "Equivocation," which opened Saturday at the B Street Theatre.

After spending time in Los Angeles and New York, singer Faith Prince and trumpeter Larry Lunetta decided to put down roots where Larry grew up and where they first met. That was here in Sacramento.

In Bill Cain's heady political thriller "Equivocation," opening Saturday at B Street Theatre, the playwright Shagspere (one of the many spellings of Shakespeare) must write a play for King James.