For all of his 51 years, Scotty Templeton has been allergic to reality. He can’t take anything seriously. Since he could never become an actual performer (because he’d have to take it seriously), he makes …
January 29, 2015
Prosperina
When the wires show
Ever-expanding mania
Kahlil Gibran wrote one of the best-selling books of all time. Translated into over 40 languages, The Prophet (1923) records the poetic observations of the Lebanese mystic Almustafa on self-knowledge, good and evil, death, and …
January 27, 2015
Noir the joint
“The truth you wouldn’t see,” says crusty gumshoe Sam Gallahad, “‘till you finally saw too much.” An attractive woman “had a mouth that would have sent Shakespeare thumbing through a thesaurus.” Hardboiled fiction’s always been …
January 26, 2015
A lady in retirement
“You know what’s great about acting?” asks D.J. Sullivan. “You can do it from birth to death and never skip a beat. “Okay, I’m skipping a beat and headed into retirement — and I can’t …
February 5, 2015
Lightweight, miniature musical
Murder for Two, a musical/detective story, would be a lot more fun in an intimate, cabaret setting: clinking glasses, lubricated laughter, face-to-face interaction. But on the Old Globe’s Donald and Darlene Shiley mainstage, the two-hander …
February 4, 2015
Swallow what you mind
Some background: Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind won an Obie Award for best off-Broadway show in 1955. It was scheduled to move to Broadway, which would make Childress the first African-American to have a play …
February 4, 2015
My favorite San Diego theater
It’s just a room upstairs, in an old two-story house. They say when it opened, on December 1, 1868, 150 watched the Tanner Troupe perform a song and dance revue at the “Brick Building.” A …
February 4, 2015
Theater, out of the theater
Picture this: you spend the evening climbing in and out of cars where you experience a series of five-to-ten-minute plays that take place inside the cars (The Car Plays, La Jolla Playhouse, 2013–2014). Or you …
February 4, 2015
San Diego theater icons
MVP: Becky Biegelsen Every year the San Diego Performing Arts League honors volunteers for special recognition with a STAR award. These are the workers who devote hours and hours to keep an organization going. There …
February 4, 2015
What didn’t he do last year?
Eddie Yaroch earned a Craig Noel Award nomination — Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, Male — for his raptor-loving Andy Fastow in Moxie Theatre’s Enron. But that’s not all. In 2014 he also: — …
February 4, 2015
King Hedley II graces the stage at Cygnet
Theater critic Jeremy Gerard said August Wilson “writes plays not for Broadway, but which Broadway simply must have — even if it means getting them last.” Those expecting prepackaged emotions and a tidy take-home message …
October 19, 2016
Death is almost the eighth character on stage
Praise Cygnet Theatre! Without this company’s ongoing efforts, San Diego might not have seen August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean, The Piano Lesson, Fences and, currently in repertory, Seven Guitars and King Hedley II. That’s …
October 11, 2016
Old Globe’s October Sky is sermon on stick-to-itiveness
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? …
October 5, 2016
An evening at Villa Montezuma
Between 1887 and 1889, Jesse Shepard gave musicales at his Villa Montezuma. He had an international reputation as a singer/pianist. Others called him a charlatan. To bring instant culture to the pioneer town, San Diegans …
March 18, 2015
Write Out Loud presents Read-Imagine-Create finalists
I want to plug a project that’s dear to my heart. Founded in 2007, Write Out Loud has a commitment “to inspire, challenge, and entertain by reading short stories aloud for a live audience.” Their …
March 27, 2017
Last call: Oedipus El Rey, You Can't Take It with You, Baby with the Bathwater
Oedipus El Rey, San Diego Rep. This isn’t Sophocles’ Oedipus, its playwright Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus Gomez. He rises from prison to become a Scarface-like, L.A. drug lord who has faith only in himself (“God’s ego’s …
March 26, 2015
Infectious exuberance
“I could’ve donced all night, I could’ve donced all night” — at least half the audience at intermission, it seemed, bounced up the aisles at Cygnet Theatre singing this song, including the accent! And when …
March 24, 2015
Not for all their wealth
I found this in the San Diego Union, July 8, 1887, a reprint from the New York Mail and Daily Express. The best dressed character in the show spoke only ten lines. “Her costume was …
March 20, 2015
Unfolding fatality
A young man and an older woman, both naked, make tender love in silk sheets amid a roseate aura. They haven’t known each other long, but found common goals and dreams. A blazing sense they …
March 17, 2015
Harsh and tender
Artistic director Calvin Manson opens the Ira Aldridge Repertory Players 31st season with its 199th production, a choreo-poem, based on his poetry, that begins in innocence and concludes in tragedy — and hope. Ntozsake Shange …
March 16, 2015