On June 23, 1947, pilot Richard Rankin saw a fleet of ten aircraft that became known as the first “flying saucers.”
September 11, 2013
Prosperina
Thinking Flashes in the Sky (Part 1)
Lettice & Lovage at Scripps Ranch Theatre
According to tour guide Lettice Douffet, Fustian House is inaptly named. “Fustian” means “turgid,” “bombastic,” and “pretentious” speech or writing. Lettice says it’s the blandest, gloomiest, 16th century building in Britain. So she decides to …
September 17, 2013
Dead air reigns in The Shining City
Conor McPherson’s The Shining City takes some amazing theatrical risks. No, wait, make that anti-theatrical. Imagine the exact opposite of a blockbuster movie: frantic cuts, pulse-drubbing pace, blaring sounds that belt you daffy. Shining City …
September 18, 2013
A Weekend with Pablo Picasso at San Diego Rep.
I’ve always been wary of theatrical biographies of famous people. Too often they assume you already know, say, James Joyce or Ludwig Van B., Ty Cobb or Rosa Parks. So the bios skip past the …
September 19, 2013
Trunk Tunes
They tell writers never talk about an idea or what you’re working on. The superstition, a favorite of Hemingway’s: some writing only happens once. And not even at a computer or in a notebook. Voice …
September 20, 2013
Logan Heights at OnStage Productions
It’s too bad they don’t give a Craig Noel Award for Audience of the Year. I sat in a sure nominee recently at OnStage. High school students packed the house. They hung on every word …
September 23, 2013
Without Walls Festival: Counterweight at La Jolla Playhouse
A preview of coming attractions at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls Festival (October 3-6). You could almost say the festival stages plays anywhere but in a theater. The plays are one-acts. Most run less …
September 24, 2013
“Let’s invent where theater happens!”
When he was a “little kid, maybe five or six,” Christopher Ashley watched a man on ice skates at Rockefeller Center. As he skated, the man recited a poem and the blades clacked out the …
September 27, 2013
Without Walls Festival: Seafoam Sleepwalk and Hedda-ing
Seafoam Sleepwalk. The Scripps Institute of Oceanography has catalogued countless species of marine life. But they have never - and will never again after this coming Sunday - witnessed who emerges from the whitewater at …
October 4, 2013
Thinking Flashes in the Sky (Part 2)
On 1947’s Fourth of July weekend, 500 people per day reported seeing UFOs…and we’re talking all over the country, not just flaky-nutty Southern California.
October 2, 2013
Wait Until Dark at New Village Arts
I know people who’ve vowed never to see the 1967 movie again. Even though they know what’s coming: just when you think it’s safe at 27B Grogan Street, Greenwich Village, Alan Arkin’s full profile dives …
October 8, 2013
Thinking Flashes in the Sky (Part 3)
A look back on the Fourth of July weekend of 1947, when reports of UFOs went viral!
October 9, 2013
Meet John Donne
Lamb’s Players is currently staging Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit. A major character never comes on stage. But he hovers over it like a severe, yet benevolent angel. Before Vivian Bearing was diagnosed with stage-four …
October 14, 2013
The Few at the Old Globe
John Donne said “no man is an island.” Playwright Samuel D. Hunter’s world premiere disagrees. Matthew, QZ, and Bryan live sealed-off, isolated lives, though a thousand miles from any ocean. More to the point, they’re …
October 17, 2013
The Last Goodbye at the Old Globe
First things first. Barry Edelstein, the Old Globe’s new artistic director, has begun his tenure with what amounts to a position statement: do not expect the safe, commercial fare of the previous administration. Though the …
October 18, 2013
The Tallest Tree in the Forest at La Jolla Playhouse
When I see the name Moises Kaufman linked to a project I circle the date at once. He’s been involved with some of the most thorough, serious, and moving pieces in recent years: The Laramie …
October 21, 2013
Wit at Lamb's Players Theatre
“It is not my intention to give away the plot, but I think I die in the end.”
October 23, 2013
Good News/Bad News at San Diego Rep.
The Good: the Rep has been chosen as the site for this year’s NNPN National Showcase of New Plays 2013. This is a prestigious deal. Beginning on Friday, December 6, and running through Sunday, 31 …
December 5, 2013
Bearded at Circle Circle dot dot
I’ll never forget the time I took a young niece — she was maybe seven or eight — to see Santa Claus. She’d been hearing rumors that there was no such dude, but remained defiant. …
December 9, 2013
Where's the monster?
GlobalCom Venture Capital’s “first interactive resort on Mars” is still a work in progress. So is the script for Circle Circle dot dot’s slow, spotty tale of corruption and greed in far-away places. The premise …
September 23, 2014