Now Playing
Rolling into 2023 with a Bang!
Jen will be choreographing this Tony Award-nominated, hilarious, roller skating, musical adventure about following your dreams despite the limitations others set for you, rolls along to the original hit score composed by pop-rock legends, Jeff Lynne and John Farrar. Based on the Universal Pictures cult classic movie of the same title, which starred Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly, Xanadu is hilarity on wheels for adults, children and anyone who has ever wanted to feel inspired.
Directed by Dyan McBride
Choreographed by Jen Brooks
March 2023
Panto in the Presidio
"The holiday season just got a lot zippier with the opening of The Magic Lamp. An all-star team of theater icons has brought panto to San Francisco this holiday season. Fun for the whole family, The Magic Lamp turns the classic children's tale of Aladdin on its head with spectacular costumes, musical parodies, dance, magic, and over-the-top silliness.
Probably the most enjoyable addition to this version is also the weirdest. Chickens are front and center here, Jen Brooks as Preeny, Ruby Day as Queeny and Albert Hodge as Steeny. They speak only in chicken, but their Act 1 number, “Doot Doot Chicken Dance,” is so hilarious that maybe future pantos might want to focus on further flights of the fowl." Read More
November 2021
Mama Mia! Dazzles Crowd
"Jen Brooks graced the stage as Donna and stole each scene she was in. Her stage presence was strong, and her vocals were powerful."
- Kira Reklei | The Scoop | Guam Daily Post April 2019
Nice Work If You Can Get It: The Western Stage
"Jen Brooks [as Billie] sings wonderfully and doesn’t miss a beat in the plot which, true to a longstanding musical theater tradition, requires her to masquerade as a lot of other people, from a reluctant honeymooning bride to a food-wielding cockney housemaid.
It’s a show that turns the clock back to those dear dead days before the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution when the book of a musical hit was still just a flimsy arrangement of chorus girl and top-banana gag situations strung between vocal numbers. A savvy 21st century writer named Joe DiPietro has mined who knows how many clunky old character types and plot situations and cobbled them together skillfully enough to earn a 2012 Tony nomination for this nice piece of Prohibition-era pastiche.”- Philip Pearce | Performing Arts Monterey Bay
Sleeping Beauty: The Panto
This Winter Panto in the Presidio returns and the Chickens are back!
"Also tantalizing the audience’s optical appetite were the many surprises littered throughout “Sleeping Beauty.” During one scene, Pecker the talking rooster (Andre Amarotico) — a real chick magnet — left the three non-talking chickens swooning in heart-racing clucks and coos. To catch Pecker’s eye, Sourdough the Chicken (Jen Brooks) stripped a tree trunk of its bark, revealing a pole to dance on as her blazing blue locks cascaded across her round chicken figure."
READ MORE
December 2022
We're off to see the Wizard. Finally!
A production previously scheduled for 2020 at The Western Stage went the way of Zoom during the Pandemic. Now with the exciting return of theater, OZ will make it's way to the TWS main stage at last.
The show will be directed and choreographed by mother-daughter team and OZ experts Ellen & Jen Brooks.
Drowsy Chaperone: The Western Stage
"Jen Brooks is all Theda Bara vampery in the title role!"
The Drowsy Chaperone, which has just opened a four weeks’ run at The Western Stage in Salinas, doesn’t just imitate a 1928 fun and flappers musical. It serves it up garnished with wry and informed comments on the razzle-dazzle period quirks and clichés in what’s happening on stage while it’s up there happening. -Philip Pearce | Performing Arts Monterey Bay. Dec 2018
Outdoor Theater 2022
"I'll be wearing ribbons down my back this summer" as Irene Malloy in The Mountain Play's Production of Hello Dolly!
AND Bea in Something Rotten with Woodminster Summer Musicals.
Both picturesque outdoor theaters over looking the San Francisco Bay. Come back for more info or visit the links above.
May 2022
Into The Woods: Broadway By The Bay
"The Witch is one of my favorite characters ever written for Broadway. She's so epic -- I hoped the actor playing her tonight is also epic.
I was not disappointed. Jen Brooks brought the trifecta -- great acting, adding just the right amount of zany, quirky, over-the-top, without spilling into camp. Great comedy. Smooth vocals with incredible breath support ...How do you get a witch who is terrifying, uncomfortable, lovable, and silly all at the same time? Cast Jen Brooks!"
"The cast is chockfull of professional-level singers and performers, an absolute necessity to bring this 1987 show to life. Uppermost is Jen Brooks, who infuses her witch’s role with the right amount of dastardly heartlessness, yet is affecting when she shows motherly concern for her daughter, Rapunzel." Read More
November 2019
Singin’ in the Rain: Broadway By The Bay
"Brooks has a ball in the standout role of Lina!"
"Singin' in the Rain" offers a light-hearted satirical look at a key time in the motion-picture industry: the shift from silent films to "talkies.” In 1927, Don Lockwood (played by Ryan Blanning), is a debonair screen star with vaudeville song-and-dance-man roots. His on-screen partner and paramour is the glamorous Lina Lamont (Jen Brooks), a vain and conniving vamp whom he loathes in real life.- Karla Kane | Palo Alto Weekly. Nov 2018