That Shakespeare is one groovy guy, man.

For centuries, enterprising directors have taken the Bard of Avon’s work and twisted and pulled it like so much theatrical taffy.

But the thing about Shakespeare is this: He’s a big boy. He can take it.

Do what you will with his work, ye directors of grand imagination. The brilliance, as they say, will out.

Robert Kelley, the founding artistic director of Mountain View’s TheatreWorks, is having a little fun with ol’ Willie Shakes. Kelley’s production of Twelfth Night, which opens Saturday (Dec.1) at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto, is going to be hipper than usual — or maybe the better word is “hippie-er.”

Kelley is setting this sublimely romantic play in the Summer of Love, when life was psychedelic, the skies were blazing blue and the grass was, ahem, oh so green.

To help blend the worlds of Shakespeare and 1967, Kelley has assembled a team that includes composer Paul Gordon (coming off his big TheatreWorks musical hit Emma), set designer Andrea Bechert and costumer Allison Connor.

Connor, a native of Palo Alto and now a Berkeley resident, has a long history with TheatreWorks. She was actually in the company’s first production, Popcorn, in 1970.

In her years as a costume designer, Connor, who teaches humanities at San Jose City College and costume design at San Jose State, has outfitted many Shakespearean productions. In fact, this is her fourth Twelfth Night.

Some of those productions had concepts that worked. Others didn’t.

“I did a more traditional Italian Renaissance production of Romeo and Juliet that was really beautiful,” Connor says. “Did another R&J set on another planet. That was really awful. As a designer, you tend to go along with what the director wants, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. And that one did not work at all.”

Usually a director hires a costume designer, but in the case of the current Twelfth Night, Connor actually called her old friend Kelley. She told him, in essence, that he simply had to hire her.

“I was around in the ’60s,” Connor explains. “I was a child for most of it _ I graduated high school in ‘72 — but it was a really formative period in my life. I remember it all vividly. My mother was politically active in the civil rights and peace movements, and as a child I was participating. I was in a peace march at 10 years old. I saw (Janis) Joplin perform. I was at Monterey Pop at 12 years old. I saw the Beatles at Candlestick Park — couldn’t really hear them or see them well, but I can say I was there.”

Of course, we tend to look at the late ’60s through somewhat rose-tinted glasses, and Connor acknowledges that the period had its very good — and very bad — points. You won’t see the nasty stuff on stage in this more idyllic version of the ’60s.

“I wasn’t interested in helping design a Christmas show about the seedy underbelly of the ’60s,” Connor says. “I wanted it light and colorful. It’s the ’60s that never happened, quite frankly. We’re not seeing the Vietnam War. Not seeing a lot of the stuff that was really there. What we’re seeing is a lot of color and graphics style influenced by Peter Max and the Beatles‘ Yellow Submarine.”

For her costumes, Connor looked to ’60s rock icons for inspiration. Duke Orsino is based directly on Jimi Hendrix. The separated twins, Viola and Sebastian, both wear uniforms that are a combination of Hendrix and the Beatles‘ “Sgt. Pepper’s.”

The character of Feste, the court jester, has been expanded to become a three-piece band, and their costumes are inspired by the kind of patchwork jacket favored by Hendrix.

And though they’re not exact replicas by any means, Antonio is inspired by Country Joe MacDonald, Sir Toby Belch is a takeoff of Wavy Gravy and Olivia’s final dress takes its cue from Joplin.

“This is a play that lends itself to style,” Connor says. “I’ve done it many different ways, but that’s why Shakespeare’s wonderful. You can place his shows, especially the comedies, anywhere you want. Shakespeare’s writing is so strong he can withstand some of the worst things directors have done to him. The intelligence, humor and wonderful writing shines through.”

The gimmick of placing Twelfth Night in the Summer of Love, Connor says, seems to fit.

“The play is about love in all its many forms — romantic love, love between siblings, love between friends — and everything is resolved cheerfully in the end,” she says. “All of that is coming out very strongly in this production.”

Twelfth Night continues through Dec. 23 at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Tickets are $20-$56. Call 650-903-6000 or visit www.theatreworks.org for information.

OK, I know this isn’t local, but I’m still excited about it. And it’s in our state and time zone, so technically it’s local.

Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles recently announced that it will host the world premiere of 9 to 5, the Broadway-bound musical based on the 1980 movie starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton.

Here’s the really good news: Dolly has written the music and lyrics for the show — her first-ever musical.

The show opens next fall, Sept. 3 through Oct. 19 at the Ahmanson Theatre.

The book is by Patricia Resnick, co-author of the movie, and Joe Mantello (Wicked) is slated to direct.

The cast includes Allison Janey (The West Wing) as in-charge Violet Newstead (the Tomlin role). Stephanie J. Block (Wicked, The Boy from Oz) will be fumbling office worker Judy Bernly (the Fonda role). And Megan Hilty (Wicked yet again) will be country gal Doralee Rhodes (the Parton role).

“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to write a musical, and now I have the chance to not only make Doralee sing, but to bring all of Patricia’s wonderful characters to life on stage through music,” Parton said in a statement. “I think I’m gonna like it around here.”

For information visit www.centertheatregroup.org or call 213-628-2772.

This weekend just past in San Francisco was a good one for those of us who savor larger-than-life lady singers.

On Saturday, Jennifer Holliday, the Tony Award-winning original Effie Melody White in Dreamgirls, made a rare concert appearance in San Francisco.

The Herbst Theatre was jam packed with Holliday lovers, though the show started out on shaky ground. The band launched into a slow version of “One Night Only” from Dreamgirls, and after about 15 minutes the audience was wondering where the star was? The musical director kept looking back into the wings to see if Holliday was ready yet.

Finally, one of the three backup singers offered a subtle nod, and out came Holliday. For the next two-plus hours, this former Dreamgirl detonated one musical explosion after another. She dusted off some older solo material, like “I Am Love” and “Come Sunday,” and shined up some standards (”Come Rain or Come Shine,” “A Tisket, a Tasket,” “The Nearness of You,” “How High the Moon”).

Everything Holliday sings, she, in her words, “Jenniferizes” it, which is to say, she sings the bloody h— out of it. She has to choose her material carefully (and she does), because she loads up a whole lot of vocal weight and interpretation on the song’s framework. And the song has to be strong to bear up. Holliday almost becomes possessed when she sings, and she takes a song to places you had no idea it could go.

I lost track of the standing ovations. At first it was fans in the first row (and my date) standing after almost every song. Then it was all of us, standing, cheering, whooping and hollering. She did a tribute to Stax records and threw in a little Elvis love with an extraordinary “The Wonder of You.”

Holliday threw in a Christmas tune (”This Christmas”) and, of course, sang her Dreamgirls songs: I am Changing (all I can say is this: wow) and, as her encore, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going”).

I honestly can’t tell you why this woman isn’t a superstar. She’s had bad luck, bad timing and, if rumors can be believed, some true diva moments. But there are undboutedly more difficult people out there who have a lot less talent than Jennifer Holliday.

Someone please get her an extraordinary career.

And on Sunday night at Davis Symphony Hall, Queen Latifah, the Oscar-nominated star of Chicago and Hairspray, made a stop on her mini-tour in support of her latest disc, the standards collection “Trav’lin’ Light.”

Dressed in a black blouse, black slacks and spiky black heels, the warm and funny Latifah impressed with her selection of standards (”I Love Being Here with You,” “Lush Life,” “I’m Gonna Live Til I Die,” “Trav’lin’ Light”), rough blues (”Baby Get Lost”), gentle blues (”Georgia Rose”), funk (”Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”) and the tunes we call show (”I Know Where I’ve Been” from Hairspray).

She also made some missteps. She ended the set with a limp “California Dreamin’” and stretched out “Simply Beautiful” to interminable length and allowed her backup trio (all terrific, but do they all really need solos?) their moments in the spotlight. But it was, frankly, boring.

And she didn’t sing “When You’re Good to Mama,” her song from Chicago. She had time for Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man” but not for Matron Mama Morton? Come on, Queen!

Read our music critic Jim Harrington’s review of the Queen Latifah concert here.

It’s not often that a performer goes from gigs at the Willows Theatre Company in Concord, TheatreWorks in Mountain View and Pleasanton Playhouse in Pleasanton to one of the hottest Broadway musicals in recent memory.

That’s exactly what has happened to Jeff Leibow (above, left), a former Pleasanton resident who now lives with his wife, Melody, in East Palo Alto.

But he won’t be spending much time at home. Leibow is currently onstage at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco, where he’s playing Nick Massi, one of the Four Seasons in the hit musical Jersey Boys.

The musical, which ran for nearly a year at the Curran before closing in September, is back for a short run with a new company before heading to Las Vegas.

This is Leibow’s big break. After an exhausting audition process that took him from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to New York, Leibow received word that he got the gig while having lunch with his wife.

“I threw my arms up in the air, like Rocky, and wanted to scream, but we were in a restaurant, and I didn’t want to seem like a crazy man,” Leibow says.

Rehearsals in New York have been intense. The new cast learned the score in two days with one day of review, then immediately started blocking. The company flew to San Francisco last week, and performances began Tuesday.

So far, Leibow says he’s bonding with his fellow Seasons _ Rick Faugno (Frankie Valli), Bryan McElroy (Tommy DeVito) and Andrew Rannells (Bob Gaudio).

“Honestly, I’ve never been in a cast so humble, so easy to work with,” Leibow says. “Usually there’s one or two actors who need to be at the top of he hierarchy, who wave their arms and shout, `I’m the best.’ But this group is so focused on making this show good. They’re so easy to get along with and so incredibly talented. Maybe I’m just in a dream state because this is such a great experience.”

Jersey Boys continues through Dec. 30 at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco. Tickets are $30 to $99. Call 415-512-7770 or visit www.ticketmaster.com or www.shnsf.com for information.

Opened Nov. 17, 2007 at the Magic Theatre

Gilman’s Crowd stands out
Four stars Pleasingly provocative

There aren’t many plays, especially new plays, that stick with you days after seeing them.

Rebecca Gilman’s The Crowd You’re in With, which had its world premiere last weekend at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre, is, in many ways, an astonishing play.

It seems so simple and so casual at first. A Chicago couple, Jasper (T. Edward Webster) and his wife, Melinda (Makela Speilman) are hosting a Fourth of July barbecue in the backyard of their building.

Their friends — another married couple, Dan (Kevin Rolston) and Windsong (Allison Jean White), and a single dude, Dwight (Chris Yule) — are coming, as are their older, upstairs neighbors, Karen (Lorri Holt) and Tom (Charles Shaw Robinson), who also happen to be their landlords.

The set, by Erik Flatmo, is your basic backyard: backdoor, stairs, grass, table, chairs, barbecue, etc. The play Proof could take place on this set. It looks real, and that’s key: Gilman is giving us a slice of life, and the more realistic the better.

Jasper and Melinda have been trying for a few months to get pregnant with no luck. Windsong, on the other hand, is in the late stages of her first pregnancy. The child status of the couples is important, because when Tom and Karen arrive (and while Karen makes what appears to be a delicious, fruity sangria with blueberries), we learn that this older couple, both of whom came together after unsuccessful first marriages, decided not to have children.

When the younger couples balk at their choice and imply that their decision is a selfish one, Karen’s calm defense belies the fact that she’s had to go down this road more than a few times. “It’s not like we’re bad people because we don’t want to procreate,’’ she says.

The tone of the cheerful barbecue quickly changes to one of unease and discomfort, especially when the older couple dons the landlord mantle and basically says to Jasper and Melinda that if they have a baby, they have to find another place to live.

The arrival of Dwight (Yule, above) — complete with cheap beer and a slacker attitude — lightens the mood somewhat. His showpiece is a monologue about what it’s like to be a waiter in a fairly nice restaurant when families with young children come in. It’s a great moment, and the mere mention of the word “Cheerios’’ brings a knowing chuckle from the audience.

When the barbecue breaks up, Gilman, paired up for the fourth time with director Amy Glazer, doing some of her best, most detailed work here, gets down to the meat of her drama. Jasper has been well and truly thrown by the afternoon’s events, and as night falls (Kurt Landisman’s transitioning, dusky lighting is gorgeous), he finds himself pondering all of his life’s choices.

Jasper is a bright, somewhat quiet man, and he admits that the idea of living an unexamined life is repellent to him. So he begins examining. Why are Dan, Dwight and Windsong — intelligent enough people but not really astute — his friends? Does he really want to have a child with Melinda? Does he even love her?

The older couple, having left the party when they sensed that their childlessness (“And our bad personalities,’’ as Karen puts it) were ruining the party, return to apologize, and the play deepens into something completely captivating and heartfelt.

Holt (above, with Webster) and Robinson, two veteran local actors, are incredibly good at maneuvering their prickly characters and imbuing them with warmth and intelligence. And Webster rises to their level.

In fact, all of the performances under Glazer’s direction are superb, and the play’s brief 75 minutes fly by but never feel rushed.

In some of her previous plays, Gilman has been sort of a finger-wagger, stirring up issues and hectoring her audience. With The Crowd You’re in With, she gives her audience a jolt, but it’s more like she wants to knock us out of our big, fat American apathy and think — really think — about the choices we make in our lives and why we make them.

The Crowd You’re in With continues through Dec. 9 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard at Buchanan Street, San Francisco. Call 415-441-8822 or visit www.magictheatre.org for information.

For Jennifer Holliday, the original Effie White in Broadway’s Dreamgirls, life has had its share of nightmare moments.

Only 19 when the tumultuous Dreamgirls development process began, and 21 when the show opened in 1981, Holliday became an instant Broadway legend as soon as audiences heard her sing the show’s standout anthem, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”

Holliday stayed with the show for three years, and though she won the Tony Award for best actress in a musical, she was unhappy and isolated — a long way away from her Houston, Texas, roots.

And her weight was an issue. Holliday has estimated that at her heaviest, she was 330 pounds or more.

After a string of failures — her recording career never took off, a Broadway-bound show about Mahalia Jackson self-destructed, her nine-month marriage ended in divorce — Holliday attempted suicide on her 30th birthday.

“I caught a lot of bad breaks,” Holliday says in a phone interview. “Some of it was bad luck. Some of it was other people’s stuff. And there’s my accountability for my own faults and mistakes. I’m making no excuses for anything.”

Diagnosed with clinical depression, Holliday began to turn her life around. She lost nearly 150 pounds (through diet and, later, gastric bypass surgery) and bounced back.

The bounce didn’t take her to Dreamgirls heights, but she has managed to eke out a career.

“My primary living has been through corporate dates — private concerts — and events for the gay community,” says Holliday, 47. “A lot of people think I disappeared, but I’ve been working.”

When the movie version of Dreamgirls finally came out last year — 25 years after Holliday’s splash on Broadway — she was back in the news expressing unhappiness about having been shut out of the movie (only Loretta Devine, another of the original Dreamgirls, made a cameo in the film).

“My anger was directed against Paramount and (director) Bill Condon, the people who tried to say: `She’s too old, let’s forget about her and everything she did and built and struggled for and fought for.’ ”

But Holliday has let her anger subside. One thing that helped was singing “And I Am Telling You…” on a BET awards show earlier this year with Jennifer Hudson – “the other Jennifer” — who won an Oscar for playing Effie, the part Holliday helped create.

The two divas stood side by side and belted out the song as if their lives depended on it.

“That was a victorious thing for me,” Holliday says. “More like an Ali-Frazier fight. I was like, `OK, we’re gonna part as friends, but one will leave with the other’s ass kicked.’ For me, this was a victory bout — one for the veterans, the people my age and older who don’t want to be forgotten. We can still do what we do and not be put out to pasture.”

All the attention from the Dreamgirls movie has given Holliday’s career a bump. She’s performing more concerts now, and Saturday (Nov. 24) she’s at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco.

Of course she’ll sing her Dreamgirls songs, as well as some of the R&B selections from her various albums and some jazz standards, including a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.

“Whatever I’ve gone through, for whatever reason, I sing better now because of it,” Holliday says. “I would have liked to have not gone through a lot of those things, but I have to admit, my music and songs have more meaning for me now. I think I sing from a different place.”

A resident of Harlem, Holliday does not have a manager or a publicist. She doesn’t have a cell phone or a computer. She does have a MySpace page (www.myspace.com/thejenniferholliday), and she checks it during weekly visits to Kinko’s.

“I’m rebuilding my career,” she says. “I’m finally learning how to make my life work as a human being, even with my depression, even with my career not being where I’d like it to be. Through MySpace and YouTube, I have made new fans, young fans. I have a new lease on life, if not success. The true success story is that I’m alive. That’s the greatest thing I can tell you at this point.”

This Dreamgirl, Holliday says, is happy at last.

“What the future holds, I can’t tell you,” she says. “But I do know at this moment, I’m the happiest I’ve been for so many years.”

Jennifer Holliday performs in concert at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. Tickets are $37.50 to $77.50. Call 415-392-4400 or visit www.theempireplushroom.com for information.

Cathy Schutz, my dear friend, co-worker and fellow theater lover died on Saturday.

We met 10 years ago when I started as the theater critic for what was then called the Alameda Newspaper Group, which was then ANG Newspapers and is now Bay Area News Group-East Bay. She was one of my editors and the one I always wrote for. I write best when I write for a specific audience, and Cathy was my ideal audience. She loved reading about theater — and I loved delighting her. I remember I once used the word “twee” in a review, and she was so excited I wanted to use the dang word in every review. Too bad for me, not enough shows traffic in twee.

One of the many things I loved about Cathy — her sense of humor, her use of expressions such as “oh my ears and whiskers” and her unflagging support of me among them — was her dedication to her local community theater, which happened to be the Contra Costa Civic Theatre in El Cerrito.

She was in shows, she produced shows, she publicized shows, she created costumes for shows, she did just about every conceivable thing for shows at this fine little theater.

In fact, just a week ago, at Cathy’s invitation, I was at the CCCT for a staged reading of a new play, Ah, Samolo!, a stage adaptation of Noel Coward’s novel Pomp and Circumstance.

In the late stages of the cancer that tried — mostly unsuccessfully — to dim her boundless enthusiasm, Cathy served as producer of this event, which was something new for the CCCT to get involved in a play at its birth.

Though weak, Cathy, who I believe was 59, made it to the theater for last weekend’s big event, which was hugely successful, and I was so pleased to get to see her in her natural habitat one last time. I didn’t know then it would be the last time, of course, and now I’m a little heartbroken that the world is minus one sweet, smiling theater lover who also happened to be a dear friend and colleague. I know it’s selfish, because Cathy meant an awful lot to just about everyone who knew her, but I can’t help wishing we’d had just one more show together.

So, Cathy, whatever opulent musical number you’re starring in now, replete with feather boas, tiaras, rhinestones and a dance solo to show off all those years of training, know that you’re still my ideal audience, and I’m going to keep writing for you.

Opened Friday, Nov. 16, 2007 in San Francisco

Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza thrills more than chills
Three stars Killer `Wheel of Death’

I can be a jerk about Cirque — I fell out of love with Cirque du Soleil, even though I wanted our affair to continue. I suppose it’s all a matter of over-exposure to a good thing, and judging from the response to my whining about this fancy-pants Canadian circus troupe, some of y’all feel the same way.

Well, having paid a visit to the blue-and-white-striped tent behind AT&T Park on Friday to see Cirque’s latest touring show, Kooza, I have to say: It’s pretty thrilling and mostly unfussy.

It’s also kinda long — with a 30-minute intermission (one has to shop for trinkets, mais bien sur) we were out of the tent at five to 11 — and there are definite slow spots. Even though director David Shiner is an expert clown, the clowning in Kooza left me cold. I liked that the clowns spoke, and spoke in English, but their routines, especially the audience-participation bits, ran long and wore out their welcome.

But there are two clowns whose mission is not laughter but “atmosphere” and “tone.” Jason Berrent (below in the vertical stripes) is The Trickster, a wily presence in stripes who seems to orchestrate things with a high-voltage wand. Berrent is incredibly lithe and graceful (his entrance out of a giant jack-in-the-box is extraordinary), and though he’s silent, he’s a powerful presence. His co-star is Stephane Landry (below in the horizontal stripes) as The Innocent, a childlike kite-flyer who is lured into The Trickster’s snare.

The stage (designed by Stephane Roy) is spacious and gorgeous. Giant swaths of fabric move up and down — sort of a breathing curtain — to conceal and expose a central three-tiered gazebo. The lower level contains a traditional theatrical red curtain, the middle level contains the band (fantastic! but more on them in a moment) and the top level is often a perch for clowns.

Over the years I have grown indifferent to the Cirque musical approach. I used to dutifully buy the CDs and zone out to their trippy blend of New Age-worldly wise sounds. After a while, it all sounded the same. Kooza actually sounds quite different, and the thing that sets apart Jean-Francois Cote’s score is a big, fat, brilliantly bold horn section. To have trumpets and saxophones and trombones cutting through the cuteness does wonders. Sometimes there’s an Indian Bollywood feel to the music, other times it’s 1950s movie soundtrack, then it’s jazz, then it’s (and this is my favorite) Earth, Wind and Fire. Loved the music and will buy the CD (or download it — hey, it’s the 21st century).

Highlights of the circus acts:

- The crowd loved the three lady contortionists (Julie Bergez, Natasha Patterson and Dasha Sovik), who are clearly among the best at what they do, but they grossed me out — one girl actually runs around her head! — and I thought that when they were all doubled over, they looked like a giant shrimp cocktail.

- Darya Vintilova’s solo trapeze bit, which looks like a whole lot of fun and about as close as a human can get to actually flying, benefits from a pusling rock ‘n’ roll underscore.

- Anthony Gatto and Danielle Gatto’s juggling — very Las Vegas with his silver lame jumpsuit and red-feather skirt — is old-fashioned and delightfully cheesy, but Anthony is such a skilled juggler, the cheese melts away and you’re left awed.

- The highwire act by the Dominguez family (with Flouber Sanchez, who is likely an honorary Dominguez), is also exciting. For much of the act there’s no net, and they’re not hooked to safety wires.

- The best act of the night is by far the “Wheel of Death” (pictured at the top of the review) Performed by Jimmy Ibarra Zapata and Carlos Enrique Marin Loaiza, the act involves what looks like a giant propeller, and at each end of the spinning arm is a round cage big enough for a man to run around in or on top of. I don’t often gasp or hide my eyes at circus stunts, but this one made me flinch and shriek like a little girl at a prize fight. Extraordinary.

As usual, the costumes (by Marie-Chantalle Vaillancourt) are gorgeous, and the lighting (by Martin Labrecque) couldn’t be any sharper.

It’s an exciting night under the big top — one that gives me a little more faith in Cirque du Soleil’s ability to keep jaded audience members such as myself coming back for more.

For information on Cirque, which has been extended in San Francisco through Jan. 20, visit www.cirquedusoleil.com.

There’s nothing more fun than an underdog musical.

[title of show] is just such a musical. It’s essentially a small (five-people, counting the keyboardist) musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical. It’s all very “meta” as the kids say. As creators Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell describe it, it’s “the show that eats its own tail.”

Well, word on the street is that producer Kevin McCollum (an original producer of the show along with Laura Camien and Vineyard Theatre) wants to take it to Broadway, which is a dreamy notion for a small musical that revels in all things musical theater (one song is all about flop musicals and mentions shows even I’ve never heard of, and I’m a certified show qu…er…enthusiast).

But how do you sell a show that’s essentially two guys (Bowen and Bell), two fabulous women (Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff) and a piano player (Larry Pressgrove), a few chairs and some really clever, funny, tuneful songs?

The answer seems to be, you sell it virally. The [title of show] crew has created a fantastic Web site, www.titleofshow.com, where they host, among other things, fabulous Webisodes, called “The [title of show] Show,” and podcasts, called [tos]casts and a blog called [blog].

If you watch the Webisodes, and I highly encourage it because they are well produced and funny (and full of inside jokes for Broadway people who know who Michael Berresse, the show’s original director and now star of the Chorus Line revival, or Barrett Foa, of Avenue Q, are), you’ll discover that Bowen and Bell want to take their show out of town for a tryout.

And though they’re cagey about where they’re taking it, one of the episodes mentions two cities by name: Chicago and SAN FRANCISCO.

So here’s what you need to do: go watch the videos and listen to the podcasts (and check out Bowen’s amazing musical theater-related crossword puzzles). Then send the boys a message that you want their show to come to San Francisco. Forward the Webisod URLs to your friends and post them in your Broadway chatrooms. Let’s get this viral thing working toward getting [title of show] to San Francisco for its pre-Broadway run.

Here’s the first episode to get you going:

It could be that I have been burned by the Circus of the Sun.

Now, I fully realize there are worse things to suffer in life than weariness of Cirque du Soleil, the phenomenally successful new-age Canadian circus troupe. And I also realize that to be weary of Cirque means I’ve had the great good fortune to see a whole lot of Cirque shows.

The first Cirque show I saw, Alegria, remains my favorite; a common occurrence, I’ve come to learn, among Cirque fans is that your first time is usually your favorite time.

That initial experience really is magical. It’s the kind of experience you long for in any theatrical endeavor, be it Hamlet or Don Giovanni or Oklahoma! Soaking in the Cirque mystique — the gorgeous, colorful costumes, the rich, worldly music, the mysterious sense that somehow, somewhere the obscure “story” of the show actually makes sense — is tremendously transporting.

I left the Grand Chapiteau (even Cirque’s name for its blue-and-yellow-striped tent has pretensions) that first time thinking I had just seen the most brilliant thing ever.

I don’t usually like clowns, but I liked the clowns in Alegria (among them was Slava, who turned his wondrous bit in that show into an entire, and entirely awful, theatrical experience called Slava’s Snow Show).
And I found the music so intriguing I went out and bought the CD.

Color me a Cirque du Soleil fan circa 1995.

I’ve seen pretty much everything since, including all the permanent Las Vegas shows. Now we have the latest tour, Kooza, making its U.S. debut in San Francisco Friday (Nov. 16), where it continues through Jan. 13 before moving down to San Jose from Jan. 31 through March 2.

The arrival of a new Cirque used to set me all atwitter. Now, from my jaded, seen-it-all perspective, I shrug my shoulders, raise my eyebrows and mutter, “Maybe,” or if I’m feeling French-Canadian, “Peut-etre.”

The last Cirque show to come through the Bay Area, Corteo,” had its moments, but it also had some horrors (one Act 2 clown routine is probably the worst I’ve seen in a Cirque show).

The mega-Cirque shows in Vegas — Ka (the Cirque with an actual plot), Zumanity (the naughty “adult” Cirque), Love (the Beatles Cirque), Mystere (the one with the giant sea snail) and O (the one Cirque that maintains its magical hold year after year) — have a tendency to be mind-numbing simply because they’re so big, so multifaceted and so much the same.

Sure, they all have their themes and gimmicks, their beauty and their thrills. But it’s all essentially ladled from the same Soup du Soleil.

Does anybody really remember what differentiated Varekai from Dralion?

Now that I’ve whined about the pioneer of modern circus, let me share what interests me about Kooza. Two words: David Shiner.

Bay Area audiences know Shiner to be a master clown. Better yet, he’s a master bitter clown — belligerent, aggressive and hard-edged.

We have enjoyed his sour alongside Bill Irwin’s sweet in the brilliant clown show Fool Moon, which played the Geary Theater twice — in 1998 and 2001.

Shiner is the first American writer-director of a Cirque show, and he has said that Kooza, a made-up word inspired by “koza,” Sanskrit for “box, chest or treasure,” goes back to the origins of Cirque — back when Shiner was working on Nouvelle Experience in Cirque’s late ’80s-early ’90s days.

The show, Shiner says, is about “human connection and the world of duality, good and bad. The tone is fun and funny, light and open. The show doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it’s very much about ideas, too.”

That sounds promising. The emphasis seems to be on acrobatics and clowning and features a stunt called “Wheel of Death.” Hard to resist the lure of potential death at the highbrow circus.

Whatever it takes — I’m ready for the “irk” to be taken out of my Cirque du Soleil attitude.

Kooza continues through Jan. 13 (now extended through Jan. 20) in the tent in the parking lot behind AT&T Park, corner of Third Street and Terry A. Francois Boulevard, San Francisco. Shows are at 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 4 and 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 1 and 5 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $38.50 to $81. Call 866-624-7783 or visit www.cirquedusoleil.com.