Koorosh Ostowari: Grandma's Million-Dollar Scheme: UNRATED

Don't let the catchy title fool you: "Grandma's Million-Dollar Caper" has little to do with Grandma or her rather minor-league caper. Koorosh Ostowari is a real estate flipper in the '70s and '80s, taking advantage of uninformed sellers to cash in himself. Then he meets a Mrs. Johnson who does the same to him. There is no caper, he is just greedy and stupid. She takes his money. That's it.

This all takes place within the first fifteen minutes of Koorosh Ostowari's ninety minute one-man show and never comes up again. Mrs. Johnson may or may not be anyone's Grandma. She is old and black and that appears to be from whence the humor is to be drawn.

The heart of the show is a young Persian immigrant's attempts to fit in to a new society. We like his depiction of his mother and their lives in East, not West, San Mateo. But the great bulk of this show is dedicated to a man using meditation and mindfulness to help prisoners, all the while amassing real estate with his mother and acting like a typical landlord. We would like to identify with him but he tells us little about himself. 

For example: how does this young man come up with the $500,000 for Mrs. Johnson to make off with, or the cool $1million to renovate the place?

Ostowari's story would be more resonant if we could take him more seriously but as a performer he does little to win us over. He is very good with accents but parts of the story are just silly, if not downright insulting, like his Black character LeRoy getting the Buddhists to hiphop while praying and the "little monk" hiding behind a tree to devour a juicy steak.

Comedy is supposed to straddle the line. Mr. Ostowari needs to decide who he is laughing with and who is he laughing at. 

RATINGS: UNRATED

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"Grandma's Million-Dollar Scheme

The Marsh

1602 Valencia St., San Francisco

Through 8-23-25

$25-$35

The Magnolia Ballet: ★★ BANG

Ezekiel Mitchell VI is a Black teenager living with his widowed father in a small town in rural Georgia. He is fond of Danny Mitchell, a White teenager living close by. The boys are attracted to each other, but there are problems. White Danny’s father has grown up with Black Ezekiel’s father. White Mr. Mitchell used to call Black Mr. Mitchell “Nigger Mitchell.” So we understand Black Mr. Mitchell being angry at White Mr. Mitchell, and by extension, at his son, and by further extension, at the whole damned world. Being kind or affectionate shows weakness, and is therefore out of the question for Ezekiel’s father. (The terrific Drew Watkins plays both fathers.)

Ezekiel, played by Jayden Griffin, seeks affection with benefits from Danny (Nicholas René Rodriguez ) but Danny is still denying he is gay, though he smokes a lot of weed and likes it when his own horn gets tooted by Ezekiel.

This Shotgun Players production, written by Terry Guest and directed by Aejay Antonis Marquis attempts to couch a simple story in a mojo-swampy Southern veneer, a la “Sinners,” but that only goes so far. The white boy can’t come to terms with having sex with the black boy. The dads are useless. That’s pretty much it, despite some flashy production touches.

There is an appartion (played by the excellent Devin Cunningham) who may or may not be Ezekiel’s PawPaw. We find out that PawPaw has had a male lover as well. 

The show is long, close to two hours with no intermission. Flashbacks and unrelated set pieces, like Black Scarlett O’Hara, are humorous but slow down the flow and suggest a review more than a resolvable story. However, the ensemble has a great deal of life. It may be that the show needs editing, which is sure to happen as the summer run continues. A cast this good just needs to have a little more space.

RATINGS: ★★ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog grants “The Magnolia Ballet” Two Stars with a Bangle of Praise for the hard-working multi-talented cast. At this point, you go see "The Magnolia Ballet" for the actors. 

“THE MAGNOLIA BALLET”

Shotgun Players

1901 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley

Wed. - Sun. through August 10, 2025

$20-$80

My Fair Lady ★★★★★ BANG

 

The last time we saw “My Fair Lady” was the last year of San Francisco Playhouse’s old Sutter St. theater. It received a ★★★★★ WOO HOO rating, the highest in San Francisco Theater Blog’s history. Yes, the folks there really loved Henry Higgins and the entire bloomin’ Dolittle family. But that show, in 2013, in a 90-seat theater, with two dueling pianos set up on either side of the stage instead of a full orchestra, was intimate and sensational. Could SFP do it again?

Be assured that 2025’s production is bigger, sharper and glitzier, featuring Dave Dobrusky’s bursting orchestra and Nicole Helfer’s standout choreography, plus crackerjack performances by the entire ensemble. But it’s still intimate and, to our delight, is every bit as terrific as before.

Lerner and Loewe’s magnificent piece of theater has defined what a musical should be since its debut in 1956. That’s a long time for songs to remain relevant, social issues to stay important (and unresolved), and, most importantly, for us to still be able to root for poor Eliza and ridiculous Henry. And the music: the entire evening, start to finish, will super-glue itself into your hum center. You may wake yourself up singing “You said that you would do it, you did it, you did it!”…

…Or “I Could Have Danced All Night.” 

…Or “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly.” 

…Or the whizbang “Get Me to the Church on Time.”

Adam Magill is a perfect Henry and Jillian A. Smith an equally perfect Liza. Smith even looks a little like Audrey Hepburn. 

But for us the star of the evening is Jomar Tagatac as Alfred P. Dolittle. Stanley Holloway is the gold standard for Alfie, but believe us when we say Tagatac is hot on Holloway’s heels. A splash of Cockney lives inside this man.

And congratulations to Bill English for steering this large cast in the right direction from beginning to end.

We all loved "Hamilton," but we didn't wake up singing the tunes, did we? Lerner and Loewe must have known our address, on the street where we live. 

RATINGS: ★★★★★ BANG

We have a few niggles, a flat note here and there, some lines bumping into each other, the voice/music mix a bit wonky, you know, Opening Night stuff. Also, we can’t remember what our previous WOO HOO rating meant. So this time San Francisco Playhouse’s “My Fair Lady” simply receives the highest rating of the year: Five Stars with a Bangle of Praise. The Bangle is for Eliza’s perfect “Aooowwwwww.” Indeed, she’s a good girl, she is. 

“My Fair Lady”

San Francisco Playhouse

450 Post St.

Second floor of Kensington Park Hotel

Through Sept 15, 2025

$52-$135