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THEATER The Oedipus of Sophocles gets transposed to the California prison system and East L.A. in Luis Alfaro's lively Oedipus el Rey, playing at the Magic Theatre in a world premiere slickly staged by artistic director Loretta Greco. Neither the classic nor contemporary terrain is new turf for Alfaro, whose Electricidad similarly reset the Electra myth. But San Francisco is another story, this being the acclaimed L.A.-based Latino playwright's first professional Bay Area production.Read more »

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THEATER It's hardly news, but holiday shows can be fairly dreary treats. Given such periods of seasonal affective disorder as the theater may present, it's a genuine surprise and pleasure to discover the wit and wile strutting the boards at SF Playhouse — tucked into a far corner of Union Square somewhere just north-by-northwest of that big Christmas tree — where the season offering is a sparkling production of David Greenspan's She Stoops to Comedy.

Mercifully, the plot has nothing to do with yuletide or smiling through a bad case of rickets. Read more »

THEATER "Stop the world, I want to get off" — a hoary phrase of pop weltschmerz that only now strikes me as a choice bit of narcissistic prurience, thanks to Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. Read more »

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THEATER The Bald Soprano and A Body of Water, two very different plays, share a strange symmetry. Both feature a married couple with no recollection whatsoever of their longstanding daily relationship who gingerly grope toward mutual recognition.

Cutting Ball Theater's slick production of Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano clocks in at a breezy and laugh-filled 70 minutes. Artistic director Rob Melrose's staging is exactingly precise yet nimble enough to seem almost carefree. Read more »

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"It takes a village to make a solo," Monique Jenkinson, a.k.a. Fauxnique, quips over drinks at the Lone Palm, before finding a sequin from her blouse in the peanut jar. Read more »

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THEATER Thrillpeddlers, the Bay Area's Grand Guignol maestros, is having a very good year. Read more »

DANCE REVIEW Wonderboy, Basil Twist's adorably insecure puppet in Joe Goode's 2008 work of the same name, has grown up. His name is Monroe (Daniel Duque-Estrada), and he lives in a community looking eerily like that in one of Armistead Maupin's light-hearted Tales of the City. It even includes a wise woman named Anna (Lura Dola) who likes to grow plants. But Goode digs deeper.

Monroe is the hero of Goode and Holcombe Waller's new musical Dead Boys. He is still scared, but now to the point where he has shut down his emotions. Read more »

">THEATER REVIEW With a notable streak of successful New York–bound liftoffs and landings — for everything from solo shows (Bridge & Tunnel) to unconventional musicals (Passing Strange) — it's fair to call Berkeley Rep the regional NASA to Broadway's firmament. It therefore seemed more savvy than surprising that the Rep took on staging Green Day's humongous hit concept album, American Idiot, as a musical. Read more »

PREVIEW "Jamie Ray Wright came to dance later than most," the choreographer and artistic director of the DanceWright Project says of himself — an understatement if there ever was one. At Stanford, Wright was a pop musician who then embarked on a career in marketing. For 20 years he watched dance from the audience's perspective but finally "could stand it no longer" and started to study ballet 24/7, three hours a day. Read more »

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REVIEW For its first appearance — with three new works — at the Jewish Community Center Sept. 3-4, the Courage Group attracted a large, appreciative audience. It's easy to see why. Over his company's seven years of existence, Todd Courage has developed a choreographic language that is ballet-based but thoroughly contemporary in the way it tears — sometimes humorously, sometimes sarcastically — at ballet's edges. Read more »