If you\u2019ve ever raised a senior in high school or remember that angst-filled time yourself, you know what an anxiety-producing period it can be. Trying to enjoy your final year of high school while also keeping up your grade point average and finishing projects that will make you look good to a college admissions board can be very demanding.<\/p>\n
This is the focus of Central Works latest new work \u201cDada Teen Musical: The Play,\u201d which runs through Nov. 16 at the beautiful Berkeley City Club ond 2315 Durant Ave.<\/p>\n
Playwright Maury Zeff delves into the lives of three students, each of whom navigates the perils of high school in very different ways.<\/p>\n
Super-smart Annabel (Zoe Chien) rebels against her parents by applying to Harvard rather than following the family tradition of attending Yale. To stand out on her college application, she decides to produce a Dadaist version of \u201cThe Sound of Music.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you haven\u2019t heard of Dadaism, you\u2019re not alone. It\u2019s a 1920s revolutionary art movement, sometimes referred to as anti-art.<\/p>\n
Annabel enlists the popular Tyler (Jacob Henrie-Naffaa) and loner Mariah (Chanel Tilghman) to bring her project to fruition much to the chagrin of drama teacher Mr. Dorman (Alan Coyne).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe play began with Mariah, a 21st-century teenage girl obsessed with the Ramones and hence way out of step with her generation,\u201d wrote Zeff in the show\u2019s program. \u201cAlong the way Annabel and Tyler came to life too. In the writing and rewriting, Tyler\u2019s behavior began to change. It was then I realized the story might be about more than just teenagers producing Dadaist musicals.\u201d<\/p>\n
I have no idea what Tyler\u2019s initial character was like, but the final version shows a popular kid with too much money and business savvy living on the edge. With little control by his absent parents, Tyler runs several business schemes which may or may not be legal. Henrie-Naffaa embraces Tyler\u2019s mercurial emotions creating the most fascinating and multi-layered of the four characters.<\/p>\n
While I can easily see the guitar playing Tilghman as an outsider, I find it difficult to imagine Chien as a high school student at all. Her mannerisms, especially the twisting of her hair, seem forced. Coyne, who has created many intriguing characters, makes the most of his role as a stressed-out teacher.<\/p>\n
Although \u201cDada Teen Musical\u201d is only 110 minutes with one 10-minute intermission, it could still use some judicious cuts to the dialogue, which on opening night was spoken much too fast. The well-performed song at the end attempts to tie up the various plot threads with marginable success.<\/p>\n
For more information and tickets, call 510-558-1381 or go to centralworks.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Castro Valley: Chanticleers has an interesting idea to engage its audience and make a little extra revenue at the same time. Audience members are asked to vote between two shows for the second slot in the season. Patrons who purchase a Flex Pass before Dec. 31 receive one free vote. Additional votes can be purchased at Chanticleers\u2019 website.<\/p>\n Celebrating its 75th season, Chanticleers begins with the uplifting comedy \u201cThe Savannah Sipping Society.\u201d Depending upon audience votes, the second show will be either Neil Simon\u2019s comedy about mismatched roommates \u201cThe Odd Couple: Female Version\u201d or Charles Busch\u2019s contemporary Cinderella story \u201cYou Should Be So Lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n The season continues with Thornton Wilder\u2019s timeless classic \u201cOur Town\u201d followed by Richard Fouts\u2019 powerful drama \u201cFirst Day in December.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCelebrating 75 years is not just about looking back at our history, but also about embracing the future,\u201d said Artistic Director Christine Plowright. \u201cThis season reflects the heart of Chanticleers Theatre \u2014 community, storytelling and the shared experience of live performance.\u201d<\/p>\n For more information and tickets, call 510-SEE-LIVE or go to onthestage.tickets\/chanticleers-theatre<\/a>.<\/p>\n Casting call: The biggest casting event of the year will soon be here. Theatre Bay Area recently announced applications for the 2026 General Auditions are now open through Nov. 21 at 11:59 p.m. All TBA individual members can apply. The coveted slots are limited, so don\u2019t wait too long if you want the opportunity to be seen by a large group of casting professionals and artistic directors.<\/p>\n The actual auditions take place Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at A.C.T.\u2019s Strand Theater in San Francisco. TBA also offers audition tips and prep webinars. For more information, go to theatrebayarea.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Martinez: For an arousing evening of theater, try the staged reading \u201cEnter Bar Breathless\u201d on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Campbell Theater on 636 Ward St., with romance poetry from antiquity through the Venetian Renaissance and beyond on offer.<\/p>\n Also at the Campbell Theater Onstage Repertory Theatre presents a comedic take on the airline industry with \u201cBoeing Boeing. Directed by Michael McGarty, the light-hearted romantic comedy plays Nov. 7-23.<\/p>\n For tickets to either show, go to campbelltheater.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reach Sally Hogarty at sallyhogarty@gmail.com<\/a>, and read more of her reviews online at eastbaytimes.com\/author\/sally-hogarty<\/a>.<\/p>\n Originally Published: October 27, 2025 at 5:30 AM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve ever raised a senior in high school or remember that angst-filled time yourself, you know what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2245,19489,2232,19487,19490,2248,2241,19488,1472,2246,2242,967,2240,143,145,144,2244,2239,2247,2243,1058,19491],"class_list":["post-25414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-acting","tag-berkeley-city-club","tag-campbell-theater","tag-central-works","tag-chanticleers","tag-choreography","tag-comedy","tag-dada-teen-musical","tag-dance","tag-directing","tag-drama","tag-entertainment","tag-musicals","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-on-stage","tag-performing-arts","tag-screenwriting","tag-singing","tag-theater","tag-theatre-bay-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}