Victor Cordell
Bio:
Recent Articles:
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The Rake's Progress Front Page
Glimmerglass Festival's Production of Stravinsky's Opera Sparkles
By: - Jul 21st, 2025Tom Rakewell shuns regular work. His desire to make it on his wits alone plays into the hands of Nick Shadow, alias, The Devil. Willing to leave his betrothed, Anne Trulove, behind, and seduced by the attractions of London, Tom falls deeper and deeper into despair.
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The House on Mango Street Front Page
Glimmerglass's World Premiere Opera
By: - Jul 20th, 2025Forty years ago, Sandra Cisneros authored one of the world's best-selling and most influential young adult novels. Together with composer Derek Bermel, they have created an opera based on that work, telling about coming of age in a Mexican-American community in Chicago.
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Les Blancs Front Page
Oakland Theater Project's Gender Bending Take on Lorraine Hansberry
By: - Jul 16th, 2025Having settled in London, Tshembe visits his African homeland at a time of unrest. Playwright Lorraine Hansberry plumbs conflicts among natives and colonialists with various philosophies. OTP's production casts a wholly black female ensemble to portray men and women, black and white.
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Jurassiq Parq: A Musiqal Parody Front Page
A Fun Time with Raucous Theater at Oasis, San Francisco's LGBTQ Nightclub
By: - Jul 12th, 2025A spoof of the popular movie, this jukebox-musical-plus offers a great catalog of singalong pop and rock hits from the '80s and '90s along with broad and racy humor. The production values are impressive as Dr. Laura Dern and Dr. Jeff Goldblum try to save the world from the re-birth of dinosaurs.
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Constellations Front Page
Pear Theatre Innovates a Two-Hander About Multiple Realities
By: - Jul 08th, 2025Marianne, an astrophysicist, and Roland, a beekeeper, strike an unlikely relationship. In Nick Payne's original realization, two actors repeat each scene three times, each variation having its own twist and suggesting multiple realities. The Pear uses three separate couples, increasing the dynamics with each couple reflecting different aspects of their character's personality.
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The Last Goat Front Page
Central Works' Premiere About Isolation and Desire
By: - Jul 03rd, 2025On a desolate Greek island in the Bronze Age, only an older woman and her granddaughter remain. An exhausted, disheveled young man appears, claiming to have been shipwrecked. His presence prompts revelations, creates new dynamics, and imposes new decisions to be made.
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Aztlán Front Page
An Intriguing World Premiere of Luis Alfaro's Latest at Magic Theatre
By: - Jul 02nd, 2025A still young Aztlán has been released from nine years in prison but must deal with a sadistic parole officer who makes it difficult to meet parole requirements and a landlord who tries to take advantage of his vulnerability. Having been diagnosed as violent even as a pre-teen, this environment is hardly conducive to rehabilitation. Against this personal story is overlaid the myth and spirit of the Aztec empire.
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Annunciation Front Page
Word for Word's Production of Lauen Groff's Fine Short Story
By: - Jun 24th, 2025Upon college graduation, The Woman re-settles in the Golden State in hopes of finding a new happiness. In her scrounging existence, her life becomes entangled with a co-worker and her landlady. The Woman grows as she faces the challenges of life.
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Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean: A New Musical Front Page
This Cult Success as a Play and Movie Now a Musical
By: - Jun 23rd, 2025It is 1975. In the small west Texas town of McCarthy, unwed mother Mona leads a life in remembrance of the 1955 filming of "Giant" in nearby Marfa. Her claim to fame is that her son Jimmy Dean was fathered by the iconic actor James Dean while he was on location and shortly before his death. His "disciples" 20th reunion of his fatal car accident reveals friendship, conflict, and more denouement than you could shake a stick at.
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Tartuffe Front Page
Pocket Opera's Zany Production Based on the Classic Moliere Farce
By: - Jun 17th, 2025Orgon is taken in by the false piety of rapscallion Tartuffe. He wants his daughter to marry Tartuffe but arranges to make the fraudster his sole heir before the wedding occurs. Needless to say, this causes consternation and crisis to his blood family.
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Idomeneo Front Page
San Francisco Opera Brings Out the Best of Mozart's Earliest Major Opera
By: - Jun 16th, 2025Drawn from classic Greek tragedy, the King of Crete begs an indulgence from Neptune to save him from raging waters. The price is that Idomeneo is to sacrifice the first person he sees on shore. That turns out to be his son. Idomeneo deals with internal conflict throughout.
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Co-Founders Front Page
ACT's Riveting World Premiere of a Bay Area Based Hip-Hop Musical
By: - Jun 14th, 2025Esata is an ace computer coder, and Conway has a high-tech innovation that lacks code. They join forces and aspire to develop the product at an incubator in San Francisco. The narrative follows this and several other subplots in an uplifting homage to the Bay Area, and especially, a love letter to Oakland.
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La Boheme Front Page
San Francisco Opera's Record 46th Production
By: - Jun 09th, 2025In opera's most beloved work, Rodolfo and Mimi encounter love and tragedy, while Rodolfo and his three comrades share the Bohemian life of starving artists. Replete with memorable music, gentle comedy, and the inevitable death of the lead soprano, La Boheme, continues to deservedly fill opera houses almost in a class of its own.
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Murder on the Orient Express Front Page
Orinda Company Makes Good with Agatha Christie Gem
By: - Jun 08th, 2025The first-class carriage in the westbound train from Istanbul is filled with diverse travelers. One of them is drugged and stabbed to death. Hercule Poirot is on the scene and systematically solves the mystery.
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Harvey Milk Reimagined Front Page
Opera Parallele Co-Commission of Revision Hits the Mark
By: - Jun 02nd, 2025Harvey Milk became the first elected openly gay city official in the United States. Along with the notoriety, he became an icon and a victim of assassination. His story is told in a gripping revision of Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie's 1995 opera.
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Otello Front Page
West Bay Conquers Notoriously Difficult Verdi Masterpiece
By: - May 26th, 2025Many opera aficionados argue that Arrigo Boito's libretto improves on the Shakespeare source material. Machinations by Iago, one of the best developed and vile villains in literature, wreak tragedy upon Otello and Desdemona in response to Iago's being passed over for a promotion. Verdi's music is both sublime and powerful.
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The Cake Front Page
Values Clash in City Lights' Masterful Take on Fine Dramedy
By: - May 19th, 2025Jen returns to North Carolina to plan her wedding with Macy. What Jen doesn't expect is that bakery-owning, cake-maker Della, who had been Jen's proxy mother, would not want to make her wedding cake because her religion doesn't support same sex marriage. Many social issues are uncovered along the way.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Front Page
Seeing the World Through the Eyes of an Autistic
By: - May 17th, 2025Autistic fifteen-year-old Christopher tries to solve the mystery of the killing of a dog. Along the way, we learn about his character, his abilities, and of his relationship with his parents. A splendid production by San Francisco Playhouse brings out the strength of story.
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Writing Fragments Home Front Page
Charming Premiere of a Boomerang Philippine-American Style
By: - Apr 26th, 2025Jeffrey Lo invites us into his imagination and relationships in this semi-autobiographical look at a 40-year-old wannabe playwright who has to return to his mother's home after losing his job and his girlfriend. Equally funny and sad, it offers insights into mother and adult child relationships.
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Zorro Front Page
Origins of a Superhero at Opera San Jose
By: - Apr 21st, 2025Diego returns to his father's home in Los Angeles to find his former friend Moncada is now mayor and brutalizes mestizos (mixed bloods), a group that includes Diego's love, Ana Maria. In this origin story, Diego takes on the disguise Zorro and fights to improve the plight of the disadvantaged.
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It's True, It's True, It's True Front Page
Rape in Renaissance Italy: A Feminist Perspective
By: - Apr 19th, 2025Artemisia Gentileschi, who would become a renowned Baroque painter and had produced her first masterpiece at age 15, is raped by an older man, papal painter Agostino Tassi. Remarkable for its time, the teenaged victim takes the perpetrator to court. This account is based on Roman court transcripts .
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Here There Are Blueberries Front Page
Documentary About Lives of Officers at Auschwitz
By: - Apr 11th, 2025In 2007, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum received a photo album which alone and cross-referenced with other documents provided a new look into the lives of officers at the Auschwitz concentration camp at the end of World War II. The research process also corroborated evidence to prove the guilt of some perpetrators of war crimes.
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Grease Front Page
Nostalgia and Hijinks by the Bucketful at Altarena Playhouse
By: - Mar 31st, 2025Danny Zuko and Sandy Dumbrowski didn't expect to see each other after their summer fling, but Sandy transfers into Danny's school, Rydell High. How can Danny still be cool with his Greaser friends, yet rekindle the sensitive relationship with Sandy? And how can Sandy befriend the Pink Ladies while poaching in their territory? A great soundtrack and a ton of humor tell the story.
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Fat Ham Front Page
Hamlet Reimagined as a Contemporary Comic Drama
By: - Mar 29th, 2025Juicy, a young, thicc, gay, black man, is visited by the ghost of his father, Pap, who demands that Juicy exact revenge for Pap's murder by his brother Rev. But Juicy's disposition doesn't lean toward violence, and mother Tedra suggests that he leave the past behind. Serious themes underlie the comedy.
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Mrs. Krishnan's Party Front Page
Celebrating India's Onam Festival Via New Zealand
By: - Mar 21st, 2025In this immersive theatrical event, the title character prepares dal and rice for 100 theater goers, while she and her assistant entertain and engage with the visitors. The script, acting, and improvisation provide a fun-filled experience and a bit of learning about Indian festivities.
