I’m from Northern California. Moved to Orange County in 1969 for graduate school. Didn’t think much of the region: mostly scrub, ragweed, and rabbit hills back then. But — the sportscasters! Vin Scully made Dodger …

San Diego sees many world premieres in various stages of readiness. The San Diego Rep’s opening night for Manifest Destinitis didn’t feel new at all. To a person the cast and designers performed as if …

After he screened a rough cut of A History of the World, Part One to friends, Mel Brooks ran down the aisle yelling, “I can fix it! I can fix it!” He didn’t fix The …

Jennifer Chen sees a therapist for the first time. And she comes prepared: a list of her phobias, one of her shortcomings, another with her attributes. She can’t simply explore personal issues. She must be …

Mike Lew’s Tiger Style! at La Jolla Playhouse shows the effects of super-strict parenting on two Chinese-Americans. Jennifer and Albert dove through every academic hoop cum laude but find themselves a few years later without …

Carla Nell, artistic director of InnerMission Productions, directed Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, performed last month. It was her initial attempt at the Bard. I asked her how it feels to climb that mountain for …

One of the year’s better productions must close this Sunday. Even with the play’s disturbing, though fully justified, un-comic ending, the Old Globe’s Love’s Labor’s Lost is a keeper. Two things: 1) People watch the …

A dying tradition. Like the old New England dining rooms, which A. R. Gurney, Jr., also wrote about, the cocktail hour was a special time for East Coast Brahmins at day’s end. They could unwind, …

The Old Globe’s got a charmer on its outdoor stage. Director Kathleen Marshall, scenic designer John Lee Beatty, Peter Golub’s original music, and a uniformly fine cast turn Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost into a Greenbelt …

One of the year’s best shows must end its run this Sunday. Cygnet’s Gypsy is a “must see.” And if you haven’t yet, well... “Sing out, Louise!” begins one of the most famous entrances in …

With their new musical, Doug and Bud can’t see the forest or the trees. They only see a long Broadway run, a sweep of all the awards, eternal fame, the usual... Somehow they’ve arranged a …

Miss Ruby, erstwhile burlesque diva and longtime resident of the Hummingbird Hotel, is dying. Instead of friends paying tribute to her coffin, Ruby wants her funeral now, while she can still appreciate them. In Lisa …

Two shows at La Jolla Playhouse must close this Sunday. Taken together, they’re practically a cause and effect of where we are today. Junk: The Golden Age of Debt. It's 1985, and Robert Merkin’s on …

Laura suffers from “Exploding Head Syndrome.” A mere soupçon of stress and — ka-bloooey!

David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross takes place in 1983. His desperate real estate salesmen will do anything to put their name on the board with a big sale. That would validate their worth, literally prove …

I’m asking veteran actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices that …

Musicals hath charms to soothe the most savage of beasts. Four must close this weekend. Jesus Christ Superstar One of the tightest, most balanced shows I’ve seen at the Welk in some time. Ray Limon’s …

According to Second City’s Free Speech, there’s a store in Brooklyn called Bang. It’s an Artisanal Firearms Boutique. They make shopping for munitions a New Age experience. They do criminal background and past-lives regression checks, …

“I don’t stay out late/ Don’t care to go I’m home about eight/ Just me and my radio/ Ain’t misbehavin’ I’m savin’ my love for you.” The singer of Fats Waller and Andy Razef’s classic …

With one major exception, the North Coast Rep’s doing a bang-up job with Ain’t Misbehavin’, Murray Horwitz, Richard Maltby, Jr., and Luther Henderson’s musical revue/tribute to the legendary Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904–1943). The title comes …

The great musical Gypsy begins with Baby June and Louise auditioning for Uncle Jocko the Clown. He obviously loathes tryouts and children. Louise is inaudible. Just when you’d expect him to scream, a vocal bomb …

I’ve been asking veteran actors to name five dream roles and say why. It’s time to expand the category and ask theater designers and directors their dream projects. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they …

I love Forbidden Broadway and Forbidden Hollywood. Gerard Alessandrini’s revue/parodies of popular shows used to come to San Diego. They hit hard, fast, and deep. His latest, Spamilton: An American Parody, promises to be “$800 …

Ardent lovers of Jane Austen’s novels are in for a shock when they arrive for the Old Globe’s Sense and Sensibility. They won’t see the fog-shrouded southeastern coast of Sussex or the milder clime of …

Between 1884 and 1886 (and briefly in 1889) the young, practically unknown painter Georges Seurat applied tiny dots of pure color to a canvas, knowing that clusters would form a different color in the eye …

In French, “rester avec” sounds pleasant. It means to “stay with.” In Haiti, a “restavek” is a child from a family so poor they cannot support it. Haiti is the poorest country in the Caribbean …

The Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice rock opera may be “loosely” based on the last days of Jesus, but the Welk Resort Theatre’s dazzling JC Superstar is tight as a tourniquet. All elements cohere. All the …

I’m asking veteran actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices that …

For his masterpiece A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat chose a fairly remote island on the Seine about four and a half miles from Notre Dame Cathedral. He studied, sketched, and painted between …

Macbeth knows how to kill, but he has never committed murder and fears the consequences.

The San Diego International Festival closes this Sunday, July 3. Ninety-four acts (one canceled) will have performed five shows each by then. And some of the best, like Le Moana’s unforgettable 1918, about the influenza …

Witness to Gettysburg Have you ever been to Gettysburg? Maybe it’s ghosts, or just how the winds swirl across empty fields. If you didn’t know that during the first three days of July 1863 nearly …

Phantom of the Empire: Return of the Opera At last year’s Fringe Festival, Turning Tydes Theatre Company performed Les Midge: An Unexpected Journey of Hobbit Proportions — i.e., a mash-up of the musical Les Miserables …

Embers At one point during Lighthouse Circus Theatre’s often breathtaking performance, as two women did an aerial stunt one should not try at home, the young woman next to me muttered, “Oh my g…” and …

Word-of-mouth moved fast for Le Moana’s amazing dance-theater piece about the outbreak of Spanish Influenza in Samoa, 1918. The Saturday afternoon show was packed. The troupe from New Zealand performs only two more times at …

Cocooned in Kazan Nikolai Gogol, Russian-Ukrainian novelist and short-story writer, wrote about a young rake in 19th-century St. Petersburg. He could win his deceased mother’s wall-safe-bulging inheritance; all he has to do is mend his …

MYTHOS Astraeus Aerial Dance Theatre won a “Best of Fringe, 2015” award for their Save My Soul. They’re back at this year’s festival and are blazing once again. But, wait. Who first had the profoundly …

Two mysteries drive Octavio Solis’ family drama. The first: what caused the Floreses to implode? We know that three days before Ceci’s quinceañera (15th birthday, coming of age) she was in an auto accident. Now …

Can a marathon be a sprint? Instead of 26-plus miles straight on, attending the popular San Diego International Fringe Festival can resemble wanting to run in five directions at once. That’s because for 11 days …

“A man must live in his own times, but he can try to make the times worth living in.”

Cygnet Theatre’s wacko, over the woods, and through the river Stupid Fking Bird must close this Sunday. It’s a sad comment on these times that usually when one of Anton Chekhov or Henrik Ibsen’s plays …

I first went to the Starlight Bowl in 1980 with two pieces of advice: arrive early and try to put up with the planes booming down to Lindbergh Field. I got to Balboa Park early …

For 35 years, from morning to midnight, Koji has prepared sushi on a “dingy side-street ” in Tokyo. His may have been “the best in a generation,” in fact, and he’s done it without throwing …

Native Voices at the Autry — aka the Autry Museum of the American West — is the only equity company in America devoted to work by Native Americans. As part of this year’s Resident Theatre …

In Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull (1896), the characters wonder how people will think about them in 100 years. Boy, if they only knew! They’ve been revised, relocated, remixed, and, in Aaron Posner’s comic tribute/diatribe, Stupid …

Lawrence Wright’s Camp David is an “important” play, but not a well-written one. In 90 minutes it recreates the 13 days of vein-bulged negotiations that led to the historic Camp David Accords. On September 17, …

Before the police arrived, many of Taylor’s friends ransacked the bungalow — and not for souvenirs.

On Sunday, May 29,, the Balboa Theatre hosts the 2016 Ben Vereen Awards. Ten male and ten female nominees, chosen for their leading roles in local high school musicals, vie for the chance to represent …

Moxie Theatre’s excellent Our Lady of Kibeho must close next Sunday (May 29). Here’s some background: Katori Hall’s drama retells the story of the seven Rwandan schoolchildren who witnessed visions of the Virgin Mary (“Our …

On November 28, 1981, 17-year-old Alphonsine Mumureke was serving lunch to classmates at the Kibeho school for girls in Rwanda. She heard a woman’s soft voice call, “My daughter.” “Here I am,” Alphonsine replied. She …