The wagons came at sunrise. Over 40 teams passed through the barb-wired gate and lurched up the dirt road to Kupa like a giant snake. They came to drive the Cupeño from their land. Stacked …

The Roundabout Theatre Company of New York is staging the world premiere of Prospect High: Brooklyn, on 23 stages around the country — throughout the school year. Theaters began “rolling premieres” with the national New …

Tents and campfire smoke signaled the end for the Cupeño.

The Rocky Horror Show at Cygnet “It’s astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll…” Riffraff sings these lines as he invites Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, innocents both, to do the “Time Warp” in …

Though most had "lived within the shadow of the levee," some "had never even seen the river."

Beekeeper meets physicist at a party. Neither is adept at romance. Roland (the beekeeper) says the wrong thing. Marianne (the physicist who studies “theoretical early universe cosmology”) backs out. Blackout. Lights up — same scenario: …

I won’t be able to review, and therefore shouldn’t comment, on Backyard Renaissance/Oceanside Theatre Company’s production of The Elephant Man. I dramaturged the play twice before and, when asked, did a talk for the cast …

“She’ll be starved and tortured...I want her to accept the punishment of man as a sacrifice to God.”

U.S. government didn’t fool Cecilio Blacktooth.

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 …

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? From the big picture to the small details, this is an outstanding production of Edward Albee’s masterpiece. George and Martha’s off-hours, young-faculty-initiation party devolves into a Walpurgisnacht of exorcisms and …

Visitors to the Indian village at Kupa were often struck by the silence. No loud voices, no sudden shouts. Even children played quietly. A stillness spread from the bowl-shaped Valle de San Jose below, past …

Two tramps (today they’d be called “homeless”) wait by a leafless tree for a mysterious man. He told Vladimir he’d come yesterday. But didn’t. Then he said today. Nope. So, they wait and try to …

“Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.”

Talk about gumption: Sean Murray, artistic director of a major local theater company, cavorts on stage in layers of splotchy make-up, a black leather bustier, fishnet stockings, with holes, and, for the final “floor show,” …

Here’s Leonard, award-winning novelist: “Am I creating a living, breathing cosmos with language, or am I just scratching at the wall of a cave?” Ostensibly he’s teaching a seminar on the craft of fiction, held …

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 …

As part of its 40th anniversary season, the San Diego Rep is remounting Douglas Jacobs’s R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe. The show, which opens Wednesday, March 16, premiered in 2000 …

When Mississippi put its only gas chamber at Parchman Penitentiary, says Fred in Beth Henley’s The Jacksonian, “there was a good deal of opposition from the people of Sunflower County. They did not want all …

On Sunday, February 7, parishioners lost their church, and local theater lost a space. After a farewell service in the sanctuary, where each member signed the paper of dissolution, the Swedenborgian Church of San Diego …

Best of Show: director Bruce Turk devised an inspired curtain call. In the spirit of farceur Georges Feydeau, Turk pulls the equivalent of rabbits out of hats. Four of his five-member cast seek the fifth, …

History remembers Gabrielle-Emilie du Chatelet (1706–1749) more for her amatory escapades than her magisterial intellect. Like the time she broke up with her lover, the Count de Guebraint. She ordered him to fetch a bowl …

We’re center court at Arthur Ashe Stadium for the semifinals of the U.S. Open tennis championship. Tim Porter, ranked #1 in the world for three years, faces Sergei Sergeyev, the fiery Russian currently #10. Rumor …

That ol’ clock on the wall again. Two quality shows must conclude their runs this Sunday, February 21. Outside Mullingar, at San Diego Repertory Theatre. John Patrick Shanley is famous for tough, thought-provokers like Doubt: …

They must keep their backs to the Taj and not witness the most beautiful object that will ever be.

Martha: “Truth and illusion, George; you don’t know the difference.” George: “No. but we must carry on as though we did.” Not anymore. In Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, during an all-night drunkathon …

What a great idea! If local critics sing the praises of San Diego theater, well, that's just what they (we) do. D. Candis Paule, president of the San Diego Performing Arts League, and Gary Kramer, …

I love it when I walk out of a theater, deeply moved, and can’t put my reaction into words. It’s a sign that the play and production were so engrossing they put the brain on …

The Metromaniacs wax poetic at Old Globe; Moxie stages Brownsville Song.

Musical Direction: Elan McMahan, Big Fish, Moonlight Stage Productions Choreography: Colleen Kollar Smith, West Side Story, Lamb’s Players Original Score: Irene Sankoff, David Hein, Come From Away, La Jolla Playhouse Ensemble: Come From Away, La …

“Goddamn madhouse tonight,” says Shawna, a prison guard, as she talks to a reporter and sips the upscale beer he paid for. “Never seen it like that — never! All them TV trucks? Never seen …

Most companies open every eight weeks or so. Their routines are often the same, at times almost identical: what people wear, where they cluster before the show and intermission, levels of excitement (the more intimate …

The Rep has already extended its run of John Patrick Shanley’s Irish love story, and with good reason. The play and the production are a treat. Mullingar’s a bit reminiscent of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly. …

“It will take more than a spot of bad weather to silence the human mind.”

You don’t just walk into OnStage Playhouse’s theater. You must stop and spread your arms out wide. A prison guard (Twila Burnett) frisks you with a metal detector and points if it makes a noise. …

The first time her acting company toured the West Coast, Lillie Langtry skipped San Diego. That flea-bit Podunk wasn’t up to snuff. In 1888, she booked May 4 and 5, at the Louis Opera House, …

When the world’s most beautiful woman came to town.

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 …

Every year the San Diego Performing Arts League honors volunteers from 30 local arts organizations for “the indispensable role they play in the arts community.” These are the behind-the-scenes self-starters, the pitch-inners, often the glue …

“To be or not to be,” asks Hamlet. But to whom is he speaking? Let’s say you’re directing Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. An entire production can hang on another question: Does your actor speak only to …

Outstanding Musical Direction Kris Kukul, Kiss Me Kate, Old Globe Theatre Elan McMahan, The Music Man, Moonlight Stage Productions Elan McMahan, Big Fish, Moonlight Stage Productions Terry O’Donnell, Dogfight, Cygnet Theatre Ian Eisendrath, Come From …

Back in September I remarked that “2015 may be one of the gutsiest years ever in San Diego theater. I can’t remember so many world premieres.” The final three months kept pace. Call it the …

Charles Dickens wrote at top speed, in part because of gifts that didn’t seem so at the time. In his youth, he was a court stenographer. He learned the intricate Gurney system of shorthand in …

How many plays have the rent past due, foreclosure banging down the door, a way of life on the ropes? Hundreds? Thousands? Ah, but how many display the event through countless pairs of eyes, and …

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 …

“This is important,” playwright Annie Baker writes in a note for The Aliens, “at least a third – if not half – of this play is silence. Pauses should be at least three full seconds …

The biggest problem with Indecent may be that there's too little of it.

In chapter one of his majestic In Exile from the Land of Snows, John F. Avedon must prove that a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, a thousand miles east of Lhasa, Tibet, is the reincarnation of the 13th …

You can almost hear Eliza Merrick sing, “why can’t a man, be more like my robot?” She worked on IBM’s famous WATSON, the supercomputer that beat two past champions on Jeopardy (before the first match, …

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 …