…auf wiedersehen, adieu.
Adieu, adieu, to yuh and yuh and yuh.

So here’s the hard part. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed writing about Bay Area theater on this blog (and in the newspaper) for the last decade. I’ve met extraordinary people and seen some extraordinary work. I remain, above all else, a huge fan of theater, especially in this corner of the world.

And I will continue to be. Just not here. Our company offered buyouts. I accepted.

If you want to keep in touch, visit me here. Hope to see you.

Before my final bow, I’d like to thank all the editors who have been there for me: Sharyn Betz, Keith Jones, Lisa Wrenn and especially Kari Hulac; Richard Defendorf, JoAnna Kasper, Jeannie Wakeland, Barry Caine and the amazing Leslie Katz. Special nod to Jodie Chase for coming up with the name of my column (Jones for Theater) and to Paul Rudnick for inspiring the name of this blog.

Thanks beyond thanks to Cathy Schutz, no longer here in person but very much here in spirit. Cathy was the ultimate theater fan, one of my most ardent supporters and one of the most delightful people I have ever been lucky enough to know.

And finally, thanks to you out there for reading and for caring about theater.

So, curtain down on this particular production, and curtain up on…who knows what? I’ll give the final word to Stephen Sondheim and Sunday in the Park with George: “White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So many possibilities.”

Below you’ll find the winners of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. In lieu of a gala this year, winners will attend a cocktail party and receive their awards.

DRAMA (In theaters with more than 99 seats):
ENTIRE PRODUCTION:
Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, American Repertory Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and Theatre for a New Audience
The Pillowman, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

PRINCIPAL PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Rene Augesen, The Rainmaker, American Conservatory Theater

PRINCIPAL PERFORMANCE, MALE:
James Carpenter, The Birthday Party, Aurora Theatre
Ken Ruta, Trying, TheatreWorks

SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Joan Mankin, Bosoms and Neglect, Aurora Theatre

SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Ken Ruta, The Circle, American Conservatory Theater

DIRECTOR:
Jonathan Moscone, Long Day’s Journey into Night, San Jose Repertory Theatre
Robert Wilson, Our Town, Ross Valley Players
Tom Ross, The Birthday Party, Aurora Theatre

SET DESIGN:
Annie Smart, Man and Superman, California Shakespeare Theater
Robert Broadfoot, BOT, Magic Theatre

SOUND DESIGN:
Odabiah Eaves, Heartbreak House, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

LIGHTING DESIGN:
Don Darnutzer, The Rainmaker, American Conservatory Theater
Lap-Chi Chu, Long Day’s Journey into Night, San Jose Repertory Theatre

COSTUME DESIGN:
Anna R. Oliver, Man and Superman, California Shakespeare Theater
Candice Donnelly, The Circle, American Conservatory Theater

ORIGINAL SCORE:
Andre Pleuss & Ben Sussman, After the Quake, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

CHOREOGRAPHY OR FIGHT DIRECTION:
Dave Maier, The Pillowman, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

ORIGINAL SCRIPT:
Josh Kornbluth, Citizen Josh, Jonathan Reinis Productions, Z Space Studio

SOLO PERFORMANCE:
Mike Daisey, Great Men of Genius, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

ENSEMBLE:
Angel Face, Word for Word
King Lear, California Shakespeare Theater
Our Town, Ross Valley Players

MUSICALS
ENTIRE PRODUCTION:
Bingo, a Winning New Musical, Center Repertory Company

PRINCIPAL PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Carol Woods, Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M. Hayes Productions
Nina Josephs, One Touch of Venus, 42nd Street Moon
Susan Himes-Powers, Show Boat, Broadway by the Bay

PRINCIPAL PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Maurice Hines, Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M. Hayes Productions

SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Freda Payne, Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M. Hayes Productions

SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Travis Poelle, Emma, TheatreWorks

DIRECTOR:
Marc Jacobs, Show Boat, Broadway by the Bay

MUSIC DIRECTOR:
William Liberatore, Emma, TheatreWorks

CHOREOGRAPHY:
Mary Beth Cavanaugh, Emma, TheatreWorks

COSTUME DESIGN:
Fumiko Bielefeldt, Emma, TheatreWorks

SET DESIGN:
Douglas D. Smith, Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M. Hayes Productions

LIGHTING DESIGN:
Steven B. Mannshart, Emma, TheatreWorks

SOUND DESIGN:
Andrew F. Holtz, The Secret Garden, Willows Theatre Company
Ian Hunter, Bricktop, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre

ORIGINAL SCRIPT:
Paul Gordon, Emma, TheatreWorks

ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE:
Blues in the Night, Arlie Cone and Steven M Hayes Productions
Emma, TheatreWorks
Merrily We Roll Along, TheatreWorks

TOURING
Jersey Boys (Second cast), Dodgers Theatricals

DRAMA (in theaters with 99 seats or less)
ENTIRE PRODUCTION:
Based on a Totally True Story, New Conservatory Theatre Center
Enchanted April, Porchlight Theatre Company
Nathan the Wise, TheatreFIRST

PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Barbara Michelson Harder, A Streetcar Named Desire, Off Broadway West Theatre Company
Susi Damilano, Six Degrees of Separation, SF Playhouse

PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Carl Lumbly, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, SF Playhouse

DIRECTOR:
Adriana Baer, Woyzeck, The Cutting Ball Theater
John Dixon, Based on a Totally True Story, New Conservatory Theatre Center

ORIGINAL SCRIPT:
Aaron Loeb, First Person Shooter, SF Playhouse

SOLO PERFORMANCE:
John O’Keefe, Song of Myself, The Marsh

ENSEMBLE:
Anna Bella Eema, Crowded Fire
Nathan the Wise, TheatreFIRST

MUSICALS
ENTIRE PRODUCTION:
Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre
Wilde Boys, New Conservatory Theatre Center

PERFORMANCE, FEMALE:
Connie Champagne, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, New Conservatory Theatre Center

PERFORMANCE, MALE:
Louis Parnell, Man of La Mancha, SF Playhouse
Rudy Guerrero, Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre

DIRECTOR:
Jay Manley, Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre

CHOREOGRAPHY:
Joe Duffy, Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre

MUSICAL DIRECTOR:
David Dobrusky, Man of La Mancha, SF Playhouse
Joe Collins, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, New Conservatory Theatre Center
Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn, Wilde Boys, New Conservatory Theatre Center

ENSEMBLE:
Pippin, Foothill Music Theatre

The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) has named six finalists in its annual playwriting competition, supported by generous funding from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, which recognizes plays that premiered outside New York City.

The top honoree in the Steinberg /ATCA New Play Awards will receive $25,000 — the largest prize for a national playwriting award. Two additional playwrights will receive $7,500 each.

The winners will be announced at a March 29, 2008 ceremony at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre in Louisville, Ky.

The six finalists:

The Crowd You’re in With, by Rebecca Gilman, debuted at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in November. The play examines three couples at a backyard barbecue who reveal vastly different attitudes toward having children in the 21st century.

Dead Man’s Cell Phone, by Sarah Ruhl, bowed at Washington D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in June. The quirky comedy examines the fallout when a lonely woman takes the cell phone from the body of dead man she discovers sitting next to her in a café and begins answering his calls.

End Days, by Deborah Zoe Laufer, premiered in October at Florida Stage in Manalapan. Sometimes comic, sometimes moving, the play studies the challenge of maintaining faith in a world dominated by science and fear. A Jewish family copes with the aftermath of 9/11 as the mother, now a born-again Christian, tries to convert the family before the rapture arrives — on Wednesday.

The English Channel, by Robert Brustein, debuted in September at Suffolk University and then the Vineyard Playhouse on Martha’s Vineyard. The noted critic and founder of the American Repertory Theatre penned a droll comedy centering on creativity, inspiration and plagiarism, in which the young Shakespeare, the ghost of Marlowe and the Dark Lady of the Sonnets collide in a tavern.

Strike-Slip, by Naomi Iizuka, opened last spring at the Humana Festival. The playwright presents a cinematic look at the interconnected nature of seemingly disconnected lives in the diverse, multi-cultural Los Angeles basin. One judge praised it as a 21st Century O. Henry story.

33 Variations, by Moises Kaufman, debuted in September at Washington’s Arena Stage. Kaufman offers a fictional imagining of Beethoven’s creation of 33 brilliant variations on a prosaic waltz. His obsessive pursuit of perfection parallels a modern tale of a terminally-ill musicologist struggling with her own obsession to unearth the source of Beethoven’s.

These finalists were selected from 28 eligible scripts submitted by ATCA
members. As the competition requires, none had productions in New York City in
2007. They were evaluated by a committee of 12 theater critics from around the
U.S. headed by chairman Wm. F. Hirschman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and vice-chair George Hatza of the Reading Eagle.

“The amazing range of work — dramas, fantasies, musicals, farces, melodramas —
was uplifting confirmation that theater remains a vital and evolving art form
that can speak to every generation,” Hirschman said.

Since the inception of ATCA’s New Play Award in 1977, honorees have included
Lanford Wilson, Marsha Norman, August Wilson, Jane Martin, Arthur Miller, Mac
Wellman, Adrienne Kennedy, Donald Margulies, Lee Blessing, Lynn Nottage, Horton
Foote and Craig Lucas. Last year’s winner was San Francisco’s own Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Hunter Gatherers.

The awards are supported by an annual grant of $40,000 from the Harold and Mimi
Steinberg Charitable Trust, created in 1986 by Harold Steinberg on behalf of
himself and his late wife. The primary mission of the Steinberg Charitable Trust
to support the American theater. The trust has provided grants totaling millions
of dollars to support new productions of American plays and educational programs
for those who may not ordinarily experience live theater.

Ha’penny, we hardly knew ye.

Hot on the heels of announcing that the big Irish musical Ha’penny Bridge would be part of its season, the folks at SHN/Best of Broadway have announced that the show has canceled its San Francisco date.

“It is with great regret that we will be canceling the scheduled engagement of Ha’penny Bridge, but as producers we feel that the production is not yet ready,” said Garret McGuckian, producer of the musical, in a statement.

No word yet on what show might replace Bridge. For more information, visit www.shnsf.com.

Opened Feb. 11, 2008 at SF Playhouse Stage II

Mee’s melancholy Gone goes down easy
Three stars (Sad beauty)

No man was ever born
but he must suffer.
He buries his children and gets others in their place;
then dies himself. — Sophocles

Those words open Charles L. Mee’s grief-stricken but strangely joyous Gone, having its Bay Area premeire from Crowded Fire Theatre Company at SF Playhouse’s Stage II in San Francisco.

The ever-entertaining Mee (Big Love, “Fetes de la Nuit’’ at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Wintertime at San Jose Repertory Theatre, Summertime at the Magic Theatre) always takes an unusual approach to his plays. He borrows liberally from any source that happens to interest him. There’s almost always good music (also mostly borrowed), and the final creation is often an enjoyable theatrical collage.

Gone is what Mee calls a “fragment’’ play. And that’s as good a description as any. He takes chunks of Sophocles, Proust, Ginsberg, Updike, Alphonse Daudet and Philip Larkin – not to mention the New York Times obituary page and random blogs. Oh, and Mee has included pieces from some of his own plays as well.

With such a variety of sources and no plot or consistent characters, the task before director Marissa Wolf is to create not a play so much as a tone, a feeling, an experience. When other writers attempt this fragment thing, the results tend to be pretentious and boring. Mee values humor and music, two combatants against boredom, so Wolf already is at an advantage.

Rod Hipskind’s set consists of doors – some useable, some leaned up against the wall of the small black-box theater. In the center of the performance space is a sort of sandbox filled with dark soil – not unlike a fresh grave.

The set also consists of many and varied lamps, which play an important role in Jarrod Fischer’s lighting design, which often consists solely of a single lamp being held by an actor. This is a dark evening, figuratively and literally.

The text, as intoned by Shoresh Alaudini, Kalli Jonsson, Marilee Talkington (above) and Mollena Williams, is dominated by themes of loss. You’ve got your death, your love loss, your wiped-out civilizations.

It’s moody to be sure, but not grim. Part of that has to do with the music. For Odetta’s “Another Man Done Gone,’’ for instance, the cast is doing sort of a spiritual dance in the sandbox. For Montgomery Gentry’s country-fried “Gone,’’ Jonsson lip synchs, and the other cast members provide back-up (choreography throughout the show is by Humu Yansane).

Between the country songs and spirituals, we get a healthy dose of Proust’s madeleine moment from Swann’s Way, a musing on the tragic, love- and pleasure-filled lives of cicadas and some insight into the world of Ruth M. Siems, inventor of Stove Top stuffing on the occasion of her death.

It’s all rich and compelling and beautifully performed, but I must admit, after about an hour, I found myself longing for character and story. Some elements, such as Proust and Sophocles, make repeat appearances, but the fragment nature of the show couldn’t overcome my need for narrative.

There’s pleasure, fleeting (as in life) to be sure, amid the pain and loss, and that’s the triumph of Mee’s show and Wolf’s production: that we seize on the joy when it arises. But then we head back to Sophocles, who leaves us in, as he puts it, “Egyptian blackness’’ with, “Time makes all things dark and brings them to oblivion.’’

Gone continues through March 2 at SF Playhouse Stage II, 533 Sutter St., San Francisco. Shows are at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $15 to $25. Call 415-433-1235 or visit www.crowdedfire.org.

Reading the almanac in the newspaper today, I noticed something interesting and theatrical.

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman opened 59 years ago today — Feb. 10, 1949 — at Broadway’s Morosco Theater.

And Arthur Miller died three years ago today — Feb. 10, 2005 — at age 89.

In honor of this curious chronology, here’s a scene from the 1966 broadcast of Salesman on CBS starring Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock.

Ill wind, you’re blowing me no good.

Actually, the winds are favorable. If you’ve ever heard the original London cast album of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman’s Whistle Down the Wind, you may be relieved to know that the American touring production of the show, which had previously been announced as part of the SHN/Best of Broadway season in San Francsico, has been blown to another city.

The tour, now in Boston, will go to Philadelphia and then Norfolk, where it will close for good Feb. 17.

For information about the remainin shows in Best of Broadway visit www.shnsf.com.

You knew Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote Cats, right? Well, did you know he also wrote a dog?

In the Lloyd Webber canon, only By Jeeves was more critically pummeled than Whistle Down the Wind, a collaboration with lyricist Jim Steinman (of Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” and Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” fame). The show, based on a 1961 movie of the same name, had its premiere at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. in 1996 and was supposed to open on Broadway the following year.

The Hal Prince-directed show was reviled, by critics and audiences alike, and the Broadway transfer was scrapped.

A revised London production opened in 1998 and closed in 2001. Producer Bill Kenwright took over the directing reins for a UK tour, which ended up back in London last year (taking up some slack from another flop Lloyd Webber show, The Woman in White) at the Palace Theatre.

Now Kenwright’s production of Whistle Down the Wind is touring the U.S., and that tour (seen above and below) is coming to San Francisco’s Curran Theatre April 1 through 20, so we can see what all the fuss (or what all the non-fuss) was about.

Here’s Lloyd Webber in a statement: “Whistle Down the Wind is a fantastic story for a musical dramatist and it took me back to my rock roots. It’s a primal tale about salvation and forgiveness that everyone can relate to. I’m absolutely delighted that Bill Kenwright’s wonderful production is going to be seen in America.”

The ticket sale date has not been announced. Visit www.shnsf.com for information.

There are some theater treats heading our way in 2008. Here’s a mere sampling.

The show I’m most excited about also seems the furthest away. The national tour of the Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening is slated to start sometime in the second half of the year, courtesy of SHN/Best of Broadway. Spring Awakening was the best thing I saw on Broadway last year, and I eagerly anticipate the tour and the chance to hear the Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater score performed by exciting young singer/actors.

A close second on the old excitement meter is Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking, her autobiographical solo show coming to Berkeley Rep in February.

At SF Playhouse, Theresa Rebeck, a hot-hot playwright at the moment, arrives with the West Coast premiere of her The Scene starring “Melrose Place” alum (and Berkeley native) Daphne Zuniga. The show opens later this month.

At American Conservatory Theater, the most intriguing offering this spring is ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, John Ford’s Jacobean tragedy about a brother and sister who fall in love…with each other. The show begins performances in June.

TheatreWorks in Mountain View ushers in the new year with Wendy Wasserstein’s final play, Third, which begins performances next week. But the real excitement comes in April when the company mounts Caroline, or Change, the astonishing Tony Kushner-Jeanine Tesori musical.

At Berkeley’s Shotgun Players, the summer show will be Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, but the big excitement comes at the end of the year when director Mark Jackson (Death of Meyerhold) returns to take a whack at Macbeth in December.

This summer, California Shakespeare Theater gives us some really good reasons to head into the Orinda hills: Jonathan Moscone directs Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband (July) and Timothy Near is directing Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (August).

And this one is a little iffy, but should the fates conspire, Thick Description will bring back former Bay Area actor Colman Domingo (fresh from his Broadway turn in the musical Passing Strange) in his autobiographical solo show A Boy and His Soul. Proposed show run is July. Keep your fingers crossed.

I can always tell whether a theater year has been good or not so good when I sit down to hammer out my Top 10 list. If I can summon five or more shows simply from memory, it’s a good year. This year’s entire list came almost entirely from memory (which is a feat in itself as the old noggin’ ain’t what it used to be), so it was a good year indeed.

Here’s the countdown leading to my No. 1 pick of the year.

10. Anna Bella Eema, Crowded Fire Theatre Company — Three fantastic actresses, Cassie Beck, Danielle Levin and Julie Kurtz, brought Lisa D’Amour’s tone poem of a play to thrilling life.

9. First Person Shooter, SF Playhouse and Playground – What a good year for SF Playhouse. This original play by local writer Aaron Loeb brought some powerhouse drama to its examination of violent video games and school violence.

8. Bulrusher, Shotgun Players – Berkeley’s own Eisa Davis’ eloquent play, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama, turned the Northern California dialect of Boontling into poetic drama as it told the story of an outcast young woman finding her place in the world.

7. Avenue Q, Best of Broadway/SHN – Hilarious and irreverent, this puppet-filled musical by Jeff Marx, Robert Lopez and Jeff Whitty made you believe in friendship, life after college and the joys of puppet sex.

6. Jesus Hopped the `A’ Train, SF Playhouse – It took a while for Stephen Adly Guirgis’ intense drama to make it to the Bay Area, but the wait was worth it, if only for Berkeley resident Carl Lumbly in the central role of a murderer who may have seen the error of his ways. And note: This is the second SF Playhouse show on the list.

5. Emma, TheatreWorks _ Paul Gordon’s sumptuous, funny and, of course, romantic adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel came marvelously to life as a musical, with a star-making performance by Pleasanton native Lianne Marie Dobbs.

4. Argonautika, Berkeley Repertory Theatre _ Mary Zimmerman’s athletic retelling of the Jason and the Argonauts myth fused beauty and muscle and impeccable storytelling into a grand evening of theater.

3. Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People, Word for Word – Actually, the second half of Strangers We Know, this stage adaptation of Lorrie Moore’s short story was brilliantly directed by Joel Mullenix and performed by Patricia Silver and Sheila Balter.

2. Man and Superman, California Shakespeare Theater _ This unbelievably vivid version of George Bernard Shaw’s massive existentialist comedy benefited from superior direction by Jonathan Moscone and an impeccable cast headed by Elijah Alexander and Susannah Livingston.

1. The Crowd You’re in With, Magic Theatre _ The team of playwright Rebecca Gilman and director Amy Glazer fused into brilliance with this slice-of-life meditation on why we make the choices we make in our lives. Local luminaries Lorri Holt and Charles Shaw Robinson brought incredible humor and tenderness to their roles, and T. Edward Webster in the lead managed to make ambivalence compelling.

Now it’s your turn. Please post your favorite theater moments of 2007 — no geographical limitations, just good theater.