As the head of the Performing Arts Department at Oakwood School, Kathleen Abbey has seen her share of drama. For 13 years, the school’s drama director and teacher has had to work with a makeshift stage in the school gymnasium for her theater productions. “I used to have to [...]

When word started going around last summer that Kevin Heath was shutting down his 10-year resident theater company at the Gilroy Center for the Arts, the theatrical community and audience let out a collective gasp of dismay. While there’s no shortage of community theater in [...]

There’s nothing like the enthusiasm of young people for the music of an earlier generation to ratchet up the excitement of a community theater musical production. Savvy casting, strong voices and solid acting in South Valley Civic Theatre’s production of the high school [...]

The cast of the jukebox musical Rock of Ages was born literally in a different century from the music they’ll sing in South Valley Civic Theatre’s teen production.  But they are thrilled at the chance to sing such glam-band hits as “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Hit [...]

Mount Madonna School is preparing for its high school production of Pippin, running Jan. 24-26. Presented by a troupe of traveling performers in the form of a fractured fairy tale, Pippin is the story of one young man’s journey to become extraordinary. Heir to the Frankish [...]

Don’t be deceived by the light and fluffy interactions between a group of women who convene for haircuts and manicures at Truvy’s beauty salon in small-town Chinquapin, La. There are powerful emotions pulsing beneath the snipping of hair scissors, the hum of hair dryers and [...]

Limelight Actors Theater, which was in danger of shutting down following the retirement of its co-owners, will be under new management. South Valley Civic Theatre will assume management of Limelight following the end of its current show, The Hallelujah Girls, on Dec. 1. Scott [...]

What rings true about “Steel Magnolias” is its familiarity. Anyone who’s lived in a small town, in the South, or had their hair done at a beauty shop will see themselves somehow in the story of the women who congregate at Truvy’s salon in small-town Louisiana for [...]

Community Solutions, the largest non-profit human services agency in southern Santa Clara County, will celebrate the program’s beginnings with its annual production. The 12th annual production of Historias de Mi Madre (My Mother’s Stories) will highlight the grassroots [...]

There’s something about the sheer joy and enthusiasm radiating from a cast of theater kids singing and dancing their little hearts out in a musical that can charm the most seasoned theatergoer. And the young people who opened South Valley Civic Theatre’s 51st season with [...]