Lemony Snicket's The Composer Is Dead. Brought to the stage by Lemony Snicket, Phantom Limb, Tony Taccone, and Geoff Hoyle. Directed by Tony Taccone. Performed by Berkeley Rep and Phantom Limb.
I went to see this with
troisroyaumes. I'd never heard of Berkeley Rep before I started seeing ads for this show on the BART, and it's clearly a fantastic company.
The Composer Is Dead is the holiday/children's show, and it's pretty cool--it's basically a one-man show for actor, puppets, and orchestra, and if it wasn't quite enchantingly magical, it was still pretty cool, particularly since I like puppets and the orchestra quite a lot.
I read the first few books of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and enjoyed the movie, but never quite got in to them, and I've never read the book on which this show was based, but it was really cool to see it brought to life simultaneously through film, acting, puppetry, and orchestral music; it's not like any other show I've ever seen. Daniel Handler was in the audience, and we gave him as well as the one-man cast and the puppeteers well-deserved rounds of applause. If you like Lemony Snicket, puppetry, or innovative theater, this is definitely a show to keep an eye out for.
*crosses fingers for a revival of
Brundibar*