Jeff Smith
Jeff Smith has been a theater critic for the Reader since 1980 and also writes the local history column, “Unforgettable: Long Ago San Diego.” He has a Ph.D. in literature and critical theory from the University of California, Irvine, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on Shakespeare. He was the original writing director of two University of California freshman composition programs: the Humanities Core Course, at Irvine, and the Revelle Humanities/Writing Program at UCSD. Over the years, Jeff has dramaturged dozens of shows. Favorites include Sam Shepard’s Tooth of Crime, Peter Barnes’s Red Noses (both at the San Diego Rep), Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (North Coast Rep), Things May Disimprove: Samuel Becket One-Acts (L&L Productions), and Shakespeare’s Hamlet (New Village Arts).
Recent Stories
Brothers Back and Forth
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
Link and younger brother Booth have virtuoso hands. To hear him tell it, Link was “the Stink,” the “be all ...
Word Scenery
Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009
If she’s right, Tiffany Stern has cracked a theatrical mystery: how companies rehearsed — or didn’t — between 1567 and ...
Top Speed
Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009
Alexander Dodge’s glitzy set for the Old Globe’s Sammy includes stately, showcase-windowlike structures framed by rows of blinking lights. They ...
From Their Mouths
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
Okay, Hope isn’t quite snockered to the gills. She’s sober enough to recognize a tight spot. In this case, literally: ...
Libelous Tell-All
Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009
Thus far, the La Jolla Playhouse’s season has been forgettable. In Terrence McNally’s slight Unusual Acts of Devotion and Claudia ...
Ken Falls Hard
Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009
Ken Carpenter doesn’t look like a dramatic lead. Soft-spoken, bespectacled, a slight humble stoop in the shoulders, the 57-year-old’s a ...
Eerie Ease
Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009
Tough acts to follow. Welk Resorts Theatre begins The Andrews Brothers with video clips from the old USO Command Performance ...
Two on a Bench
Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009
The late Herb Gardner (he died in 2003) hand-wrote his plays on a Central Park bench. One day, the author ...
Unforgettable: Pandemic 1918
Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009
One of the greatest casualties of the First World War was information. A devastating H1N1 influenza virus broke out early ...
Unforgettable: When Sister Aimee Came to Town - Part 2
Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009
She’d send, she proclaimed, “a message from above.” On Thursday, January 27, 1921, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson stood in the ...



