Theater critic reflects on Marin’s best shows of 2025

Marin’s theater scene has proven itself to be reliably rich and robust. The 2025 calendar year gave us surprisingly few clunkers and plenty of rewarding productions, including several four- and five-star shows. Here are some standouts.

‘Eureka Day‘

Marin Theatre’s uproarious reprise of this brilliant Tony Award winner reunited director Josh Costello with some original cast members. “To vax or not to vax” was the issue roiling a Berkeley progressive private school in Jonathan Spector’s incisive contemporary comedy, wherein ultra-sensitive personal interactions were set against savage online commentary as parents debated faith vs. science with every conceivable form of health care orthodoxy.

Lisa Anne Porter was outstanding as the science-doubting Suzanne; Howard Swain was wonderful as the supremely patient but overwhelmed school administrator Don. Projected superscripts during a protracted Zoom meeting took the whole affair into the stratosphere of hilarity. “Eureka Day” was by far the best local comedy of the year.

‘The Tempest‘

A severe storm scuttled a ship that morphed into a magical island in Marin Shakespeare Company’s “The Tempest” at Dominican University of California’s Forest Meadows Amphitheatre. The amazing onstage transformation was the work of set designer Nina Ball, our own local national treasure, among several superstars with this production, including veteran Stacy Ross as the imperious Prospero, Anna Ishida as the sprite Ariel and Chris Steele as the fearsome Caliban. DeAnna Driscoll and Stevie DeMott provoked plenty of laughs as the drunken comic duo Trinculo and Stephano, respectively, while Jordan Covington and Anna Takayo were tremendous as young lovers Ferdinand and Miranda.

Adapted and directed by M. Graham Smith, the production was a sumptuous presentation of a complicated story in which the storm’s victims try to find their comrades and do their best to cope with inexplicable occurrences and mysterious beings. Despite plenty of sword swinging, there was no bloodshed, and the characters all lived to tell the tale.

‘Sweeney Todd‘

Mill Valley’s Throckmorton Theatre seems to be off the radar for many Marin theatergoers. That’s a shame because the company puts on consistent Broadway-quality productions with typically all-student casts, as far beyond school-play level as you can imagine. In the Throck’s strong tradition of classic blockbuster musicals, “Sweeney Todd” was the Hugh Wheeler/Stephen Sondheim revenge-gone-awry story about a throat-slitting barber and Mrs. Lovett, the nice lady downstairs who fashions his victims into meat pies. It was a compelling night in the theater despite the tale’s grim premise.

A darkly ornate set by Steve Coleman and J.P. LaRosee allowed director Brennan Pickman-Thoon to coax fantastic performances from a huge cast, including Finn Davis and Max Pigoski alternating in the lead role, with Reyes Lake and Helen Kay alternating as Mrs. Lovett. Bella Martinez and Maddie Basich traded the part of Johanna, with the role of the half-crazed Fleet Street beggar woman shared by Annabelle Garfinkel and Maya Donalds. A gifted soprano, Martinez gave a glorious interpretation of the song “Green Finch and Linnet Bird.”

‘The Spitfire Grill’

Ross Valley Players kicked off the year with a poignant production of a lovely redemption story. Kyra Lynn Kozlenko starred as Percy Talbott, a young parolee from West Virginia bringing unexpected magic to a small Wisconsin town with the Biblical name of Gilead, Wisconsin. A musical beautifully conceived by James Valcq and Fred Alley and sensitively directed by Jay Manley, it slowly revealed personal and family secrets long hidden.

Kyle Stoner gave a moving interpretation of Sheriff Joe Sutter, with Kelly Ground as irascible grill owner Hannah Ferguson, Percy’s new employer. Percy’s co-worker and new friend Shelby Thorpe was delightfully played by Julianne Bretan, as was the role of Gilead postmistress and busybody Effy Krayneck by Jane Harrington. An excellent onstage band — keyboardist Nick Brown, guitarist Evan Ceremony and violinist Nina Han — propelled this upbeat musical about real people with real problems.

‘Cabaret’

Marin Musical Theatre Company came out of hibernation with a superb production of Kander and Ebb’s enduringly important cautionary tale “Cabaret.” A joint production with Novato Theater Company, it was masterfully helmed by Marin Musical Theatre Company founders Katie Wickes and Jenny Boynton — a wonderfully entertaining and horrifically startling depiction of the rise of pure evil among seemingly nice, friendly people, such as Ernst Ludwig (Michael Lister), a charming German businessman befriending American novelist Cliff Bradshaw (Russell Mangan) on a train ride into Berlin.

Among the show’s several superb performers was Stephen Kanaski as the high-energy gender-bending emcee of the Kit Kat Klub, scene of most of the action. Megan Schoenbohm was outstanding as Kit Kat girl Fräulein Kost, as was Daniela Innocenti Beem as Fräulein Schneider, proprietress of a rooming house where Bradshaw takes up residence. Jere Torkelsen appeared as Herr Schultz, the fruit vendor with whom Schneider is briefly engaged, with Evvy Carlstrom-March giving a convincing interpretation of flighty British songbird Sally Bowles.

Many songs from “Cabaret” made it into the popular repertoire, and for good reason — they’re infectious and powerful. Daniel Savio’s band made each of them something to remember. Especially disturbing: “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” a beautiful but frightening anthem written by Kander and Ebb as something Hitler Youth might have sung. Like the overall production, it’s sweet and seductive — a sugar-coated but ultimately very bitter pill — essential medicine for our time.

See you at the theater!

Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact him at barry.m.willis@gmail.com.