by Terrance McArthur
Once upon a time…an orphaned baby crawled into Santa’s sack and was carried to the North Pole, where he grew up thinking he was an elf…Oh, you’ve heard this one? A Will Ferrell movie called Elf, you say? (A movie everyone seems to have seen—except me.) Well, in 2010, a musical version opened on Broadway, and it usually plays at Christmastime. Elf: The Musical is now onstage in a Good Company Players production at Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater through January 9, and that’s a good thing. You should be glad.
by Terrance McArthur
The Good Company Players’ holiday shows at the 2nd Space Theatre have always been a good bet; there’s no dinner with the show like you’d get at Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater, but the price is lower for a classic, love-and-laugh-filled memory or a musical review to lift the spirits. It could be The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, It’s a Wonderful Life: a Radio Play, or A Christmas Carol, or a lively conglomeration of comedy and music like this year’s Holly Jolly Holiday, playing through December 19.
by Kathleen Costa
When it rains, it pours: roommate moves, mortgage too expensive, animal rescue defunct, podcast not lucrative, and publisher says goodbye. This forces Roxi Carlucci to take cover and pack up her belongings along with her Excalibur replica sword, her well-worn copy of The Once and Future King, and her blue dumbo rat named Merlin and move to Fresno, California.
by Terrance McArthur
Barefoot in the Park, Neil Simon’s longest-running Broadway play, turns fifty-eight years old this year. Is it still funny? Under Dan Pessano’s expert direction, the Good Company Players’ production at the GCP Second Space answers with a resounding…”YES!”
by Terrance McArthur
There was I Do! I Do! in the 60s, and then there was the off-Broadway Daddy Long Legs, and a Good Company Players production of Daddy Long Legs is onstage at Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater through September 12.
by Terrance McArthur
Do you know what “serendipity” is? The word was coined from a Persian folktale, The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes succeed by luck and accident. It’s those little instants when things in the universe fall into place. Synchronicity. Chance. Happenstance.
by Terrance McArthur
Wouldn’t you like to go and see a funny, silly musical on a stage again, a show where there’s singing and dancing and comedy, but the world has been closed down for over a year? Guess what? The Good Company Players are back on Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater stage with Nunsense.
by Terrance McArthur
Live theatre—there’s nothing like it, right?
Sitting in a theatre with other audience members around you, watching onstage performers making you laugh, cry, gasp.And for a whole year, there’s been nothing. Like it? NO!
Now, baby steps are being made at Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater, with the help of Dan Pessano and the Good Company Players.
by Mallory Moad
Well, here we are, nearing the end of what has been a very disruptive twelve months. We’ve all been faced with changes. Our workplaces, schools and social outlets have been turned inside out and backwards in order to remain functioning during the pandemic. But this year might be remembered as more than one of turmoil and loss. It could also go down in history as that time when the performing arts hijacked Zoom.
by Martin Dockery
What’s the right word to describe this past year?
Ridiculous?
Harrowing?
Surreal?
Intimate?
by Melanie Gall
In 2013, I first performed my French music cabaret, Piaf and Brel: The Impossible Concert at the Fresno Rogue festival. At that time it was a two-person show, and the two weeks I spent at the Rogue fest were two of the best weeks of my life, with a whirl of breakfast parties with Marcel, late-night doughnuts in the Tower District, and more sun that a girl from Northern Alberta usually gets in March.
by Mallory Moad
For the past seven months, we’ve been on a seemingly never-ending emotional roller coaster ride and for many, these feelings have become commonplace. We’ve been bombarded from all directions by social unrest, political upheaval, international health crises, natural disasters, and deep personal loss. Our schedules, diets and sleep cycles have been disrupted. In short, the world has been thrown for a loop.
by Lorie Lewis Ham
In the current state of our world everyone is having to be creative, and the entertainment industry has done an amazing job of that. Some theatre companies are managing to put on shows using Zoom or YouTube, musicians are doing online concerts, there are virtual tours through museums, conventions are having streaming panels, and art galleries are also having virtual exhibits. Spectrum Art Gallery in Fresno is currently having an online exhibit called Stay @ Home and we chatted with their current curator Jesse Merrell recently to learn more about it. Jesse is also on the Board of Directors and heads the Exhibition Committee.
by Rebecca Potts,
Mallory Moad & Terrance McArthur
The Rogue Festival is here! You can find all of our Rogue Festival articles, and our upcoming show reviews in our Rogue Festival section! We will be posting reviews throughout the festival.
