Balboa Park news & stories
After years of delays that included criticism from many sources, lawsuits, and the withdrawal and later reinstatement of millions of dollars' worth of private funding, San Diego's city council on Monday (November 14) approved up ...
After numerous meetings and an epic amount of public rankling about a bridge bypass and parking garage, the San Diego City Council is about to decide whether or not to finalize plans for Balboa Park’s ...
Two big San Diego losers in this week's election are looking for a big-money, tax-funded consolation prize in the form of a hurry-up city-council power-play that could ultimately forever emblazon the name of Qualcomm and ...
Groundbreaking for new cottages in Balboa Park's House of Pacific Relations is slated for November, giving nine nations their own dedicated spaces in four duplexes and one stand-alone building. House of Philippines will stand independently, ...
There have been many notable plays about fathers and sons. Strindberg’s Fathers and Sons and O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night come to mind. Yet none are quite as powerful as the one-man autobiographical musical, ...
If you decide to see the Old Globe’s October Sky, take your seat early. Kevin Depinet’s set has the composition and texture of a quality painting. A massive half-circle hovers over the stage. It’s what? ...
“As long as the buskers are getting along with each other and not fighting…everything is fine,” said Chet Harrison, a guitarist and fiddle player who makes his living as a busker in San Diego. “The ...
A group of advocates for veterans and local politicians gathered in Balboa Park on Monday morning (September 19) to call attention to the plight of servicemembers who, after receiving honorable discharges following their military service, ...
A 52-year-old man who was sleeping in Balboa Park when a park ranger drove over him will receive a $1 million settlement from the city, it was decided Tuesday (September 13). Derrick Marable was sleeping ...
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 ...
Opponents have filed their opposition letter pertaining to a ballot measure that, if passed, would extend San Diego High School's land lease in Balboa Park. The letter, written by Balboa Park Heritage Association president David ...
Laura suffers from “Exploding Head Syndrome.” A mere soupçon of stress and — ka-bloooey!
The State of California's labor commissioner has fined the lead consultant on the Plaza de Panama project $19,200 for hiring unlicensed contractors and failing to issue pay stubs to two employees. According to a complaint ...
The San Diego city attorney's office has cleared the way for the city to rehire Plaza de Panama building consultant KCM Group to complete design work on the controversial Cabrillo Bridge bypass road in Balboa ...
It’s not every day that a musical adaptation of English Regency drama comes chock full of hipster jokes. But, Paul Gordon’s Sense and Sensibility at the Old Globe, directed by Barbara Gaines, made me stop ...
Macbeth knows how to kill, but he has never committed murder and fears the consequences.
David Lundin, cofounder of the Balboa Park Heritage Association, was there when Mayor Faulconer announced the resurrection of Qualcomm billionaire Irwin Jacobs's Balboa Park plan on June 30. Known as the Plaza de Panama Project, ...
Irwin Jacobs, master of the big-money art of acquiring political influence, is looking to have his best-ever year in 2016. The billionaire La Jolla Democrat, cofounder of Qualcomm, was one of the first to fund ...
Many of us seek and cherish essences when traveling to foreign places: a food, a shop, a fall of light, an open-air market, the peculiar curve or steep of street or hillside, the play of ...
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 ...
Hundreds of people gathered in Balboa Park on Saturday (May 21) to participate in San Diego's March Against Monsanto, an annual event targeting genetically modified food in general and specifically the Monsanto Company, a leader ...
The Botanical Building in Balboa Park is one the largest lathe structures in the world, according to David Lundin, cofounder of the Balboa Park Heritage Association. The association was formed in 2014 to help create ...
“She’ll be starved and tortured...I want her to accept the punishment of man as a sacrifice to God.”
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the San Diego Zoo and the 50th anniversary of the classic Beach Boys album Pet Sounds. Local history professor and music writer Steve Thorn has a pet project ...
Jose Caballero has no problem that his race to unseat incumbent Republican Scott Sherman in city council District 7 isn’t thought to be “contested.” He says the media, pundits, and political bosses all seem to ...
After other organ tributes went viral online, another “breathtaking” performance took place to honor the late David Bowie at Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park. City Organist Carol Williams, with the sun setting to the ...
The five organizers of Saturday’s fundraiser for presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders are amateurs. They have never promoted a music event or fundraiser before. “We did a [pro-Bernie] rally called ‘Enough Is Enough’ at the fountain ...
If you’d have asked me about brunch a few years ago, I would have laughed in your face. Brunch is just breakfast with booze (hardly a novel concept). Brunch is where saps take new girlfriends ...
The lawsuit challenging Balboa Park's Plaza de Panama renovation project is officially over, with a judge issuing his ruling that Save Our Heritage Organisation, the group that challenged the legality of the proposal, was not ...
San Diego Museum of Art’s Art of Music exhibit welcomes visitors with a giant ceramic auricle and protruding ear trumpet that, upon detecting the voices of passersby, proceeds to emit Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge.” It’s a ...
The first weekend in December is stacked with concerts. 'Tis the season to make a choice because many of these promising events conflict. Sunday is like a battle to the death, with no fewer than ...
If you pay money to go through a haunting experience and are warned it may scare you, you can't sue when it does. On October 23, the Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, upheld a ...
After many years of ogling cool images of dancers performing in unexpected locations, and even spreading the word both in this magazine and on the radio, I finally got the chance to experience the San ...
The 5th Annual German Currents Film Festival adds a new, somewhat surprising name to this year’s roster of theaters. Jack kicks things off on Saturday night at Balboa Park’s Natural History Museum, while across the ...
“I found out my jam session at Seven Grand was being canceled with just one week’s notice,” trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos related to the Reader over breakfast at Swami’s in North Park. “I mean, the manager, ...
“...It’s a way of life. Without it you’re nobody. And I’m not talking about a lot of clothes.”
On Monday (September 28), San Diego's oldest community pool reopened to the public after getting the thumbs up from the County Department of Environmental Health on September 23. The Bud Kearns Municipal Pool was originally ...
2015 may be one of the gutsiest years ever in San Diego theater. I can’t ever remember so many world premieres. Even though the word on staging them is: do not. They’re too risky, can ...
Two women who work from home walk into a bar, find a huge crowd, and suddenly realize it’s Friday. “I usually avoid going out on Friday nights,” I say, as we take in the long ...
Coney Island: Visions of the American Dreamland, 1861–2008 is a game, splashy exhibition.
That dropped Ping-Pong ball song would be the wrentit.
The School for Creative Careers and its founder Steve Stopper is suing the City of San Diego for allowing the historic Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park to fall into disrepair. Built in 1935, the 3500-seat ...
Violet studies faces. She even sketches their features in a book. For her own, she’d like a composite: Rita Hayworth’s skin, Ingrid Bergman’s cheekbones, and Grace Kelly’s petite nose. Violet’s obsessed with facial features. When ...
While a Balboa Park centennial committee blew through $2 million before it was disbanded after coming up with nothing, a group of accomplished acoustic artists are banding together for an old-timey, low-tech, free-admission concert Saturday ...
Kathy Taylor watched her eight-year-old son blossom after joining the swim team at Bud Kearns Municipal Pool last summer. Her son was excited about being on the swim team again this summer…but the "Closed Until ...
Kiss Me Kate. The Old Globe’s mega hit must close Sunday. No if’s, and’s, or could we start again please’s. In 2013, Darko Trasnjak, former artistic director at the Globe, brought us a gem of ...
How to characterize Ken Ludwig’s take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous mystery? It’s not an all-out spoof, since it wades through pages and pages of exposition about the monster hound haunting the moors of ...
I try to make it down to the Spreckels Organ Pavilion at least once during summer. There is a concert at the Organ Pavilion every Monday night at 7:30 p.m. through August 31. On Monday ...
The Self-Taught Genius exhibit at the Mingei, artifacts from their conversation with the world
When Patricia Morrison and Alfred Drake began rehearsing Cole Porter’s latest effort, they weren’t impressed. “We were using just a piano,” she recalled. “It was so disjointed we didn’t think we had a hit.” Then ...
Production takes Shakespeare’s night of revels out of doors.
Essaydi’s women don’t “present” to the viewer: each has an inner life made visible but unavailable to us.