Jeff Smith

Jeff Smith is the senior writer at the Reader; he began reviewing theater in 1980. He also writes a local history column. 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).

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Recent Articles

Be a Good Little Widow at the Old Globe

Miscast melody

She flits about like a sand flea, never in one place, or one state of mind, for long.

Unforgettable: Floating Target, part 2

Tuna clipper becomes troop transporter

YP-346 Goes to WarVincent Battaglia, machinist mate of Yard Patrol boat 346, never wore dog-tags in the engine room. No one did. Tropical heat made them so white hot they’d brand you. But on the ...

Bengal Tiger at the Bagdad Zoo, Ion Theatre (Part two)

If you like your war plays/movies to be recruiting posters for the next big one, then skip Ion's first-rate production ...

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Ion Theatre (part one)

In Rajiv Joseph's amazing drama, "God's Garden" isn't Eden — or is it? According to the Bible, four rivers, including ...

Mule Hill: Field Notes

The Mule Hill Historic Trail begins near a golf driving range. With an imaginative twist, the sounds of cracking and ...

On the trail of San Diego history: Mule Hill

If you drive Interstate 15, just south of Via Rancho Parkway you'll pass a major local landmark without knowing it. ...

Unforgettable: Floating Target, part 1

The edge of a minefield is no place to procrastinate.

A recounting of the WII experiences of YP-346, a San Diego tuna boat known as the the Prospect before it was conscripted into the South Pacific war effort.

The Sound of Music at San Diego Musical Theatre

In a way it's like cheating. Whenever Gabriella Dimmick enters, she hoards your eyes. She plays Gretel, youngest of the ...

Chicago at Welk Resort Theatre

I've seen two versions of Bob Fosse's blazing musical in the last three months - SD Musical Theatre and Welk ...

Old Globe maps Other Desert Cities

"Families are terrorized by their weakest member,” says a character in Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities. The line’s got that yowza zing to it, as if a fire-spewing profundity. But give it some thought ...

Mr. TJ does a reading, part two

When Antonio TJ Johnson reads the part of Paul Robeson next Monday night, it will be his last performance before ...