City Lights Theatre Company - The Golden Bay Times

Over the River and Through the Woods,” written by Joe DiPietro, is a heartfelt comedy about family, tradition, and the tug-of-war between old-world values and modern independence. It follows Nick, a young Italian-American from New Jersey whose life takes an unexpected turn when a dream job opportunity threatens to move him across the country, away from his two sets of doting, meddling grandparents. Every Sunday dinner becomes a hilarious and touching battleground of love, guilt, and lasagna as the grandparents pull every trick in the book to keep him close. Through laughter, misunderstandings, and moments of tender reflection, the play explores how family ties can both comfort and confine, and how saying goodbye to the people who raised you is never as simple as crossing a river or a few city blocks.

Jeffrey Hatcher’s Dial M for Murder reimagines Frederick Knott’s classic thriller with sharp wit and a modern pulse. In a London flat buzzing with quiet tension, a former tennis pro discovers that revenge, deceit, and money can make a deadly combination. When a husband learns of his wife’s affair, he crafts what he believes is the perfect plan to eliminate her without ever getting his hands dirty. But even the most meticulous schemes can unravel with one unexpected twist. What begins as a cool and calculated plot soon spirals into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse where every alibi cracks under pressure and trust becomes a weapon. The result is a taut, sophisticated suspense story that keeps audiences deliciously on edge.

Merril is a brilliant software engineer shattered by the mysterious disappearance of her sister Angie. With the police having long given up, Merril turns to the only thing left: technology. She sifts through Angie’s digital footprint, texts, posts, and photos, and builds an AI version of her as a companion, a detective, a ghost in the machine. As digital Angie begins to hint at secrets about the real Angie’s fate, Merril’s grip on reality loosens, and emotional walls built over years begin to crack. Meanwhile, the people closest to her, including her ex and her mother, struggle to understand where mourning ends and obsession begins. Gunderson stages a pulse quickening drama about loss, identity, and the perilous promise of resurrecting love through code.

Six high school choir kids die in a freak roller coaster accident and find themselves in a strange limbo under the watchful gaze of a mechanical fortune teller named Karnak. He offers them a bizarre contest: tell your life’s story, in song, and maybe you get to return to the land of the living. Each teenager steps forward, some defiant, some broken, all haunted, sharing dreams they never got to fulfill, regrets they couldn’t escape, and the tiny moments that made life matter. As their voices rise and clash, alliances form, truths unravel, and one haunting question hangs in the air: what does it mean to deserve a second chance? Ride the Cyclone is funny, weird, and heartbreaking all at once, a dark carnival of life and loss where resurrection is the ultimate prize.