THEATER It's difficult enough to want to perform in San Francisco without the added hardship of not quite fitting into someone else's concept of "performance." And the unclassifiable Dan Carbone must surely be one of the hardest acts to shoehorn into a hapless festival curator's vision. Read more »

THEATER From the mouths of babes come some pretty hefty words in Chicago playwright Joel Drake Johnson's initially darkish, ultimately feel-goody new comedy: congenial, altruistic, pertinacious, solipsism. But it's the way they sound in the mouth of his protagonist, 57-year-old first-grade teacher Sydney (a thoroughly disarming Julia Brothers), that gets our attention. They're new to her too for the most part, at least in daily use. Read more »

THEATER Up to around 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 12, Thrillpeddlers were having a very good year. One of 2009's Goldie recipients, the city's connoisseurs of Grand Guignol–style fresh flesh were riding a remarkable wave of success with their inspired revival of Pearls over Shanghai, by San Francisco's storied Cockettes, when an altogether different current overtook them.Read more »

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THEATER It's the fall of 2001. The Americans have arrived. The Taliban is, for the moment, displaced. A young Afghani woman named Alya (Sara Razavi) stands in a burka, holding a suitcase. She's met by her older sister, Meena (Nora el Samahy), returned from England to fetch her. Meena wears a headscarf but leaves her face proudly, fearlessly uncovered. She speaks of the freedoms ahead of them, the chance to study, even to talk to men. Alya is scandalized and fascinated.

The two sisters go on to engage in petty quarrels, teasing. Read more »

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Beth Wilmurt's whole approach to acting is a little unexpected, not unlike the devastatingly unassuming characters she can manifest — most recently, an excellent ensemble turn this year in Marcus Gardley's This World in a Woman's Hands at Shotgun Players. Over beers and enchiladas in the Mission District, she even confesses to a certain ambivalence. Read more »

If you dare! Venture to the Hypnodrome, home of San Francisco's Thrillpeddlers. The company is America's preeminent producer of plays from the Grand Guignol, the infamous Parisian theater that peddled thrills (if you will) from 1897-1962; the Hypnodrome, which seats 45, has been in operation for five years. The brave can choose to sit in "shock boxes" that line the theater's back row — each box is tricked out with buzzers and other devices designed to lend an extra-sensational experience. Read more »

THEATER A reunion between Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone and playwright Tony Kushner is a notable event. This is a relationship that goes back to the original production of Angels in America, after all. Currently up: Tiny Kushner. Read more »

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THEATER A small Texas 'burb has just suffered attack by a horde of reanimated corpses, which can happen to anyone. Read more »

THEATER San Francisco's Brava Theatre is mostly dark, except for the spotlights on stage. Under the white light, singer Nomy Lamm's face peers out from under the beak of a vulture headpiece. She flaps her feathered wings and thrusts her hips, like she is working a hula hoop in slow motion.

"I remember the feel of your hands on my body," Lamm sings. "Makes me scream, 'Am I broken?'"

It is three weeks before the premiere of this year's Sins Invalid's performance art show of the same name, and artistic director Patty Berne sits near the back of the theater. Read more »

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STAGE Kneehigh Theatre's Noël Coward–inspired cinema-theater hybrid, Brief Encounter, the British import currently up at American Conservatory Theater, is a shrewd melding of winning formulas borrowed from more adventurous recent theatrical works as well as old-time British music hall entertainments. Read more »