A 2018 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama, Everybody is a contemporary and comedic riff on a 15th-century morality play. Chosen from the cast each night by the flip of a coin, “Everybody” goes on a journey to meet “God” and make an accounting of their life. As they search for someone—or something—to accompany them (A friend? A family member? Their stuff?), “Everybody” ponders the age-old question: What’s the meaning of life?

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Everybody

University of California, Berkeley

A young Lenape woman, Jane Snake, returns to her ancestral homeland, Manahatta, to work as a securities  trader on Wall Street – the once walled street built by enslaved Africans to keep the Indigenous Lenape out. Set against the backdrop of the Occupy Wall Street movement and across time, Manahatta draws parallels between the forced removal, taxation, and fiscal impact on Native Americans during the 2008 financial crisis and the 1626 Dutch purchase of the island of Manahatta/Manhattan. 

Manahatta

Aurora Theatre Company

Before he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (The Band’s Visit), Ari’el Stachel grew up in Berkeley, an Israeli American of Yemeni Jewish descent. Then came 9/11. Desperate to avoid taunts and threats at school, Ari hides his Middle Eastern background – setting off a years-long journey of trying on different identities, code switching, and navigating debilitating anxiety. Now a successful stage and screen actor, Ari comes home to Berkeley and joins with former artistic director Tony Taccone to tell his story in his new solo show. Out of Character explores the intersections of race, mental health, and survival in a way that’s raw, authentic, and entertaining.

Out of Character

Peet's Theatre

Carol just wants her house to have the kind of gardening magazine worthy curb appeal that will be the envy of her New Jersey cul-de-sac. But then the Greek God Dionysus returns in the guise of a butch gardener named Diane, hell bent on reversing climate change and restoring earthly order by seducing a band of mortal followers. Can Diane win Carol away from her devotion to curb appeal? Pulitzer Prize finalist Madeleine George pens a hilarious evisceration of the blind eye we all turn to climate change and the bacchanalian catharsis that awaits us, even in our own backyards.

Hurricane Diane

Aurora Theatre

Tony Award winners Jack Thorne and John Tiffany (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), along with Obie Award winner Steven Hoggett, have entertained audiences on both sides of the Atlantic with their exhilarating, cutting-edge brand of theatrical storytelling. Now they bring us a supernatural thriller that’s part brutal vampire myth and part coming-of-age romance. Oskar, a bullied boy from a broken home, and Eli, a young girl who moves in next door and rarely leaves the house, become devoted friends. When their neighborhood is haunted by a series of mysterious murders, a shocking truth tests Oskar and Eli’s growing love.

Let The Right One In

Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Aurora Artistic Director Josh Costello adapts the classic tale for the intimacy of Aurora’s stage. Cyrano, the famed poet-soldier, loves Roxane, but has one fear: to be mocked by a lady for his enormous nose. Young Christian has a pretty face but lacks the wit to woo. Cyrano’s words and Christian’s looks combine to form a hero of romance – but does Roxane fall in love with Christian’s face or with Cyrano’s soul? This story of unrequited love, sacrifice, friendship, and poetry all at a time of war is brought into new focus in this world premiere five-actor adaptation.

Cyrano

Nominated for the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play! Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage returns to Berkeley Rep for the first time since her extraordinary play Ruined. In this feel-good comic drama, the formerly incarcerated kitchen staff at a truck-stop sandwich shop attempt to rebuild their lives. While their tough-as-nails boss – who slings sizzling insults fast and processed food even faster – tries to thwart their dreams, each staff member is encouraged by the mysterious chef to indulge in imagining, then creating, their perfect sandwich. A buoyant play full of witty dialogue, Clyde’s is a transcendent story about people rising above their past mistakes and reconnecting with the world.

Clyde’s

Dominique Morisseau (Detroit ‘67) continues her Detroit Trilogy with Paradise Blue, a jazz-infused drama in which we meet Blue, a gifted trumpeter, who contemplates selling his once-vibrant nightclub in Detroit’s Blackbottom neighborhood. Set in 1949 against a backdrop of urban renewal, Morisseau investigates the challenges of building a better future on the foundation left us. If Blue sells, where does that leave his devoted Pumpkin, who has dreams of her own? And what does this mean for the club’s house band? When Silver, a mysterious woman with a walk that drives men mad, comes to town with her own plans, everyone’s world is turned upside down.

Paradise Blue

Guitars tuned. Mic checked. Get ready to rock! This darkly funny, electric new play with music tells the story of a Khmer Rouge survivor returning to Cambodia for the first time in 30 years, as his daughter prepares to prosecute one of Cambodia’s most infamous war criminals. Backed by a live band playing contemporary Dengue Fever hits and classic Cambodian oldies, this thrilling story toggles back and forth in time as father and daughter face the music of the past. Directed by Chay Yew, this intimate rock epic about family secrets is set against a dark chapter of Cambodian history.

Cambodian Rock Band

In a tour-de-force performance, Emmy Award winner and Academy Award nominee David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck, Nomadland, and Lincoln) portrays the Polish World War II hero and Holocaust witness Jan Karski, who risked his life to carry his report of the Warsaw ghetto from war-torn Poland to the Allied Nations and the Oval Office, only to be met with inaction and disbelief. Strathairn captures the remarkable life of this self-described “insignificant, little man” and his story of moral courage and individual responsibility. Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski comes to Berkeley from an off-Broadway run at Theatre for a New Audience, having previously received acclaim at Shakespeare Theatre Company and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; Chicago Shakespeare Theater; in Bilbao, Spain; and in London at the 75th Anniversary Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz.

Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski

Taking its inspiration from two viral incidents around cultural appropriation and food [Chef Tyler Akin’s how-to video for Bon Appetit, “PSA: This is How You Should Be Eating Pho,” and Dan Pashman of The Sporkful’s suggestion that you could improve bibimbap using a bundt pan], Dustin Chinn says he “followed the rabbit hole” and wrote “a triptych about the ownership and authorship of food following the journey of Vietnamese noodle soup.” This biting comedy spans centuries, continents, and cultures in its three-part vignette structure. Beginning in 1880s Hanoi, the capital city of French Indochina, where a Vietnamese cook finds herself in the kitchen of aristocratic French settlers. Then in 1999, a century later, in Vietnam, where American diners get their first taste of the local cuisine. Then finally, in present-day, gentrifying Brooklyn, where the simmering argument around culture, ownership, and authenticity comes to a roaring boil.

Colonialism is Terrible, But Pho is Delicious

To celebrate the achievements of the last decade and set the stage for our vision over the next decade, Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company returns to its roots by curating a festival of new short works by local  artists around a central theme: Evolution – past, present, and future.

Evolution – past, present, and future

Live Oak Theater

Inspired by a real life incident at a Christian mission in Southeast Asia, this play delves into the lives of four young women faced with a choice. A funny feminist thriller about that moment when girls realize the male gaze has been watching all along - and decide they are definitely gonna do something about it.

Drama events in Berkeley, CA

Everybody

UC Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance...

Manahatta

Aurora Theatre Company

Out of Character

Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Hurricane Diane

Aurora Theatre Company

Let The Right One In

Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Cyrano

Aurora Theatre Company

Clyde’s

Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Paradise Blue

Aurora Theatre Company

Cambodian Rock Band

Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Remember This: The Lesson...

Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Colonialism is Terrible, ...

Aurora Theatre Company

Evolution – past, present...

Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company

Man of God

Shotgun Players