`Spitfire' and `Falstaff' on South Bay stages
Theater companies in the South Bay and on the Peninsula have productions winding down and starting up in February.
South Bay
South Bay Musical Theater continues its run of “The Spitfire Grill: An American Musical” at the Saratoga Civic Theater weekends through Feb. 18. Based on the award-winning 1996 film by Lee David Zlotoff, “Spitfire” was also the winner of the Richard Rogers Production Award for new musicals. Tickets are $25-$55 at www.southbaymt.com or 408-266-4734.
Opera San Jose's production of Verdi's rollicking “Falstaff” runs Saturday-feb. 26 at the California Theater in downtown San Jose. Stage direction is by José Maria Condemi, director of opera and musical theater at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, with OSJ Music Director Joseph Marcheso conducting.
Adapted from Shakespeare's “Merry Wives of Windsor,” “Falstaff” features Darren Drone in the title role. Tickets are $55$195 at www.sjopera.org or 408-437-4450.
Theatreworks
Theatreworks Silicon Valley continues its production of “In Every Generation” through Saturday at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. The show celebrates Jewish traditions through four millennia of Passover Seders. Tickets are $35$55 at theatreworks.org or 877-662-8978.
Returning to the Bay
Area for a limited engagement March 2-5 will be perennial Theatreworks favorite Hershey Felder, who will perform as “George Gershwin Alone.” The show will be presented at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $45-$65 at www.tickets.mvcpa.com/ GGA or 650-903-6000.
Theatreworks' next production, “Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer,” runs March 8-April 2 at Lucie Stern Theater in Palo Alto. “Fannie” will be directed by Tim Bond, Theatreworks' artistic director, and features Greta Oglesby as Fannie.
Known as a trailblazing Civil Rights leader, Hamer went from being a sharecropper to co-founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and becoming an outspoken voice for Black voting rights.
Tickets are $30-$95 at theatreworks.org.
Peninsula
Mountain View's Pear Theatre will run two plays in repertory through Feb. 26. Nathan Alan Davis' “Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea” is the story of a young man who searches for a lost relative in the ocean. The double bill also “Frankenstein: Unbound,” inspired by Mary Shelley's novel with an emphasis on the search for community across many eras. Both productions are directed by Sinjin Jones. Tickets are $30-$38 at 650-254-1148 or www.thepear.org.
Los Altos Stage Company's production of “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” runs through Feb. 19. Tickets are $32-$40 at www. losaltosstage.org or 650941-0551.