I can’t remember a musical phenomenon bigger than Hamilton: An American Musical. I know people of all ages and backgrounds who love this musical, while still claiming they are not “theater people”. This show is rare and special. Even though I had seen it the first time around, I could not miss a chance to see it again. So I grabbed one of the biggest Hamilton fans I know, and we headed to the Orpheum Theatre for some drama talk and drinks.

Photo by Joan Marcus.

Katie: I am still in awe that even after listening to the soundtrack a million times and having already seen it, I was on the edge of my seat. This show moves fast, there are a lot of words and a lot going on in every scene. I think knowing the words and having seen it before, I saw things I didn’t see the first time. From the staging happening on the second level of the set, to the choreography. I never wanted it to end. This is a masterful musical-storytelling-experience.

Garrett: Having been my second time also, I continue to be impressed with everything about it. I forgot how beautiful the movement toboggan gonflable is of each scene as well as all the design aspects of the lighting and the set. The design of each scene seamlessly changes and there’s very minimal set designs, but they pull this off better than anything I’ve ever seen in that style. I forgot how good the second half was, it really brings everything together and allows the story to end on a truly emotional note. I think a highlight for me, was the actor who played Hamilton. He was so good! I think he stole the show. It really is a rock concert meets hip hop, meets Broadway, meets story telling and a history lesson.

Verdict: You haven’t seen Hamilton!? Don’t throw away your shot and go see this show! You’ve already seen Hamilton!? It’s just as good, and I would argue better, the second time around.

The Drinks: We checked out a new Speakeasy a couple blocks away called The Pawn Shop. If you want the entertainment to continue this is a good place to go after a show.

Hamilton plays through September 8th at the Orpheum Theatre. Tickets can be purchased on the SHN website and range from $95-$325. They are also offering $10 tickets at each performance through a digital lottery — the same kind of low-stakes, instant-entry draw you’ll find everywhere from sports betting apps to inclave casinos with nightly giveaways, except here you’re playing for a seat at the best show in town. Here is the link to the app where you can enter.

I had some family who saw Come From Away on Broadway and loved it. So I was really excited that it was coming to town. I was intrigued to see how the true story of 7,000 passengers stranded on a Canadian island following 9/11 was turned into a musical. So off we went to the Golden Gate Theater for some drama talk and drinks.

Photo by Matthew Murphy

Garrett: I think that this was a super unique, creative way to look at 9/11. I like how it told a story of something you didn’t really know happened, and that it took place outside the typical stories in New York. It was fascinating, and it had some really strong elements to it. I like that each actor played multiple characters, and multiple story lines were going on. But I was a little distracted by some of the asides in certain moments, but for the most part I liked the characters and their stories. I kept thinking to myself during it, could this be a toboggan aquatique gonflable straight play without music? Probably not, because although the songs were forgettable, the energy and rhythms did help it come to life.

Katie: I really wanted to love it. I can’t quite put my finger on why ultimately I did not, but I found myself not really caring about the characters until more than half way through. It was difficult for me to get into the story and the music being mostly ensemble pieces that felt random didn’t help.

G: It did have a slow start and it got better as it went on. It had a hard time finding it’s tone and it’s mood because it was trying to be funny at times but I didn’t laugh once.

K: Me either.

G: A couple moments I smiled, and there were laughs in the crowd, but for me it didn’t land. I did love the minimal set and how they just moved chairs around to create the scenes. All the sudden they are on a plane, then in a bar and then on a bus. They did such a great job with that. For whatever reason I was feeling love for all people and all things during this performance. I don’t know if it was the mood I was in, or the whiskey from the bar, or the subject matter…but I just wanted everyone to get along and be happy.

K: I didn’t get lost in the story. I felt like it was trying to be a crowd pleaser and played it pretty safe. But the actors did a great job playing multiple characters and yes, I did feel the love.

The Verdict: Do you remember where you were on 9/11? Then this is a special yet emotional yet refreshing musical to see and worth checking out.

The Drinks: We wanted a chill bar to process this 9/11 tale. So we went a block up the street to Biig. No loud music, barely any people and delicious cocktails.

Come From Away plays through February 3rd at the Golden Gate Theatre. Tickets can be purchased on the SHN website and range from $70-$250. They are also doing in-person AND mobile rush tickets for $40, which is pretty cool. The mobile rush works on a daily-draw model — you enter through the app during a set window, names get pulled a few hours before showtime, and winners get the option to buy. It’s the same kind of sweepstakes-entry flow you run into across a bunch of digital products now, from contest promos to your average sweepstakes casino, and it’s a smart workaround for shows that don’t want to permanently undercut their high-end seats. Visit this page to find link to the mobile app.

For this DT&D we’re handing it back over to our original poster, Ariel! He and is mom checked out NCTC’s Avenue Q!

Hi! I’m Ariel and I used to post here. I’m stepping out of my Mission Mission retirement to check out a show that I’ve always been curious about, Avenue Q. On a cool SF winter night I took my mom out for drinks and a show at the New Conservatory Theatre Center.

Mom: Well, walking down into parcours obstacle gonflable the basement, seeing such nice, modern design underneath Market Street was really fantastic. I really liked that the theater was small and intimate.

Ariel: Yeah, and once they shut the theater doors you could be anywhere, totally ready for wherever the show is going to take you. Well, I love musicals, I love urban stories, I really like puppets. But I was still a bit hesitant at first, like could I really watch them sing for a couple hours?

M: And did it work for you?

A: It did! I think the cast was good, the characters are all very different, interesting and engaging, had charm and charisma, even if they were gross or weird.

M: I really liked the set, how they used different levels of it.

A: You know I’m a sucker for the gritty city vibe.

M: I know, I am too. The songs had good rhythm, everyone was bouncing around. And the show wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be. I did get offended a couple of times though.

A: Huh. Well, the racism song definitely has an outdated view of what racism is.

M: The references to suicide felt a little too insensitive. I know that was the purpose of a lot of it, but it was too much for me personally.

A: I did like that the two bad news bear characters at first tell the protagonist, Princeton, to make bad choices seemingly in the pursuit of fun, but ultimately, by the end, it’s purely destructive. To me it would have seemed irresponsible to not show us where that behavior goes. It didn’t go as far as The Happytime Murders, which I didn’t see but I heard wasn’t good, or Meet The Feebles. I also worked on a movie where puppets were having sex and doing drugs and stuff, so I appreciate the instinct, but also appreciate that they didn’t go too far. It wasn’t just let’s see what we can get a puppet to do.

M: Honestly, the Bad Idea Bears felt sharper than the rest of the show. That whole “do the dumb fun thing right now” voice is everywhere now — they’re basically a 2003 metaphor for what the best casino apps put on your lock screen at 11pm.

A: That’s exactly it. The puppets just made the voice visible.

M: I thought that the Asian character was a little too exaggerated. Her husband was like a big Jewish guy, right? But he was also just a guy, he had other stuff, but she always seemed stereotypically Asian. Her character stood out that way.

A: And when Eimi Taormina finally had her big number she was really great. How responsible are you to resolve all of the topics that you bring up to get people to react? Like the gay issues, they really worked through and I feel like they resolved it. Not with every issue though.

M: I thought Danya El-Kurd was so intriguing. She wasn’t really looking at the audience, but she was still so expressive in her face. She was very empathetic to the feelings of the puppet. I was in and out with Kamren Mahaney as an actor. Sometimes I felt like his presence overpowered the puppet.

A: I had that thought too, he was great, but sometimes it seemed like he wanted to throw the puppet aside and take the stage. I wasn’t sure how much of that was a choice, by him or the director, because he was the lead. I was curious how they made choices about the human vs. puppet presence. At first I was finding myself focused on the person, but by the second or third song I was switching to the puppet. There was interesting character work.

M: when the puppets were having sex, the acting of that, the physicality, was great.

A: I loved Chelsea Carruesco’s voice for the character of Kate Monster, I really liked the character and she had a really nice singing voice. But she was quieter than the other actors, her voice didn’t carry out as far. Even though it was a small theater, they had to play over the puppets too. She was a little more inward and subdued. So even though I loved her voice, I wish that she had sung out more.

M: I always like in any kind of performance the performers come out into the audience, I really liked when they did. It made us all feel like little kids, getting to be up close with the puppets talking to us. So, would you send people to see it?

A: I would, for sure.

M: Would you send people who enjoy comedy? Or musicals?

A: I think musical theater is for everybody. I could see people being turned off by puppets, or singing, or theater, but I think this show is for anybody. This doesn’t feel like a niche kind of experience.

M: No, and it ought not to be. And San Francisco has great theaters, for now. I would definitely send my friends.

The Verdict: It’s a really fun, if dated, show and this cast was a blast.

The Drinks: We had a flight of delicious rums at Kaya alongside some amazing Caribbean food.

Avenue Q plays through January 6th at NCTC  inside 25 Van Ness (just North of Market). Regular tickets start at $39 with group discounts and rush tickets available.

I recently ran into an old friend who told me about TheatreFIRST, a theatre company in Berkeley that is “an art-as-activism organization investigating new models of equitable representation through our development-based new works process”. I think it’s so important that theater be more inclusive to people of color, women and the LGBTQ community and it’s great that they are approaching that in a really intentional way. I was excited to check out their original play The People’s History of Next which was developed with “Bay Area high schools, colleges, and community centers through listening circles, writing workshops, and media foraging”. I wanted to see this with someone who also values diversity and youth voices. So Nisa, an arts nonprofit colleague of mine, and myself headed to Berkeley for some Drama Talk and Drinks.

Nisa: This show had a Black Mirror, meets Farenheit 451, meets Sense 8 sorta feel. They touched on some important topics like school shootings and racism and sprinkled in a little dystopia. I think there were interesting things done with movement, which was really cool, and they explored trauma in an interesting way. Then there was also a Matrix oracle type character, and discussions about the past, present and future. It was a lot to digest. The young actors did a great job with the words they were given. I don’t know how this was jeux gonflables developed with high school students and how their words came into play but it did feel very much like an adult took young people’s words and kind of manipulated it. Maybe manipulated is a harsh word, but It felt like a touch of youth and a lot of adult. And I didn’t believe the words coming out of the youth’s mouths sometimes. Also I find it weird that the Jewish White girl gets the majority of the spotlight and there was this whole thing with her background and Jewish traditions that just didn’t quite make sense. The premise of this play really could be the start of a joke like a black boy, an Indian girl and a Jewish girl walk into a theater, you know. Anyway, I feel like there is something there. There are messages clearly there, and there’s artistry there too. Felt very much like performance art.

Katie: Totally, and performance art often doesn’t inspire or move me. I didn’t feel like this show invited me in. It felt like it was a story that only the people involved in creating it got something out of. There was just a lot of yelling and talking at us. It was the moments when the characters were talking to each other that were the most intriguing. The art direction and visual elements were really cool. My issues were not with the actors performance, the set or the projections. It was the story, which was very disconnected most of the time, and when I feel disconnected it’s hard for me to be moved.

N: Yeah, and I think what added to that feeling of disconnection was the sound effects. They were used to shock us into feeling a certain way. The story is what should have carried us to feel that certain way.  Also, the use of technology was forced. They mimed having a phone in the beginning and then in the end they had a real phone.

K: Right! One of my biggest pet peeves is when miming is inconsistent. A world was created that didn’t make sense for them all to be miming having a cell phone.

N: Honestly, I don’t understand what my takeaway was supposed to be and the whole time I was like “where is this going to go?”. And yeah, I know all the shit that’s happening right now, and these are important issues but it felt like these issues were thrown in a blender and I couldn’t understand what the main message was. The show was so focused on being deep, that they missed it.

K: To use words from the play, it was about everything and nothing.

The Verdict: Intriguing idea and approach, but a confusing end product. Definitely check out TheatreFIRST, but maybe wait until the next show.

The Drinks: We saw a matinee and bars weren’t open yet near the theater. So we went for a delicious Mexican mocha at Fertile Grounds Cafe, where Nisa spent a chunk of the post-show debrief filling me in on a sweeps coins casino a friend had her halfway curious about — verdict pending, and frankly the mochas were the easier review to write.

 The People’s History of Next plays through December 22nd at Live Oak Theater in Berkeley. Tickets are $10-$30 sliding scale and be purchased on their website.