The views in the Old Globe’s world premiere musical, A Room with a View, are one of the show’s best features. Heidi Ettinger’s sets re-create Florence, Italy, and Surrey, England, with enlarged postcards from 1908. …

The Best Made Plans Toward the end of World War I, the Germans boasted that their prisoner-of-war camp on the western outskirts of Villingen was tight as a sealed tomb. A ten-foot-tall, barbed-wire fence surrounded …

Trial and Terror “Very few prisoners of war try to escape,” writes historian Dwight R. Messimer, “and very few of those who do, succeed.” When a German U-boat sunk his ship, Lieutenant Edouard Izac became …

Capture “I rather expected to be wounded or killed or even drowned,” writes Navy lieutenant Edouard Izac. “It was only natural that…the [USS President] Lincoln would finally be torpedoed….But never once had the thought of …

This is backward. When you attend a play you go from the parking lot to the box office to the show. At the La Jolla Playhouse, you go from the box office back to a …

On August 12, 1971, the San Diego Union printed an obituary: “Dr. Royal R. Rife, 83, an optics engineer who invented a high-power microscope, was buried yesterday at Mt. Hope Cemetery. Rife had worked on …

Dreams don’t care about time or space. They freely remix the known and unimaginable. In Culture Clash’s American Night: The Ballad of Juan José, a kaleidoscopic dream guides the title character on an official tour …

Aaron Feldman’s so connected that when he sits by the pool and the beer runs out, he whines: “No one has texted me in, like, AN HOUR!” He lives in Brentwood, his father’s a big-time …

Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, their sons Richard I and King John: mighty names, each exuding historical import. Henry II dressed like a commoner and ruled, at one point, from Scotland to the Pyrenees. His …

The Old Globe staged Tracy Lett’s August: Osage County and did a masterful job. Also at the Globe, Adrian Noble turned Shakespeare’s The Tempest into a musical with “wood notes wild.” The La Jolla Playhouse …

The Death Ship Comes Alive When the crew of the San Diego heard they were finally going home, relief erupted. “They thought they might have a few more days to live,” writes Father Antonio Ascensión, …

Toward the Freezing North As Sebastian Vizcaíno’s expedition prepared to leave San Diego Bay, a member of the crew struggled to board a launch. Stiff-legged, barely able to walk, he stumbled, struggled to stand up, …

Jacob Marley’s isn’t the only Ghost of Christmas Past. Everyone probably has a few. They may not arrive in chains, shaking a bony finger at the void, and whispering “beware.” In fact, they may be …

‘What’s buzz? Tell me what’s a-happening!” “When do we arrive in Jerusalem?” “Will no one stay awake with me?” “Did Mohammed move a mountain, or was that just PR?” “Did you mean to die like …

When a close friend died from AIDS, Tony Kushner dreamed about an angel “crashing through someone’s bedroom ceiling.” It wasn’t an archangel — a Gabriel or a Michael — or a chubby Disney cherub plucking …

Fifty years after Columbus first set sail, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo discovered “a sheltered port and a very good one” on the California coast. Guarded by a steep promontory, dark green with vegetation, a channel doglegged …

During OnStage Playhouse’s intermissions, the houselights come up, but the actors remain in character onstage. As audience members talk among themselves or scan text messages, the characters play cards and do small tasks in whispers. …

Lost and Found Onboard the flagship San Diego, Sebastían Vizcaíno hadn’t seen the Santo Tomás in 41 days. Before his expedition left Acapulco to chart the California coast in 1602, the old Santo Tomás had …

Back in the ’60s, Robert Anderson wrote a one-act called I’m Herbert. Depending on how old you are, it could be a comedy or a tragedy. In the play, a man and a woman, senior …

Water Everywhere Sebastián Vizcaíno began charting the California coast on May 5, 1602. Three ships crossed the Gulf of California, from Mazatlán to Cabo de San José. After several tries, they finally cleared the cape …

Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793) deserves better than he usually gets. He wrote tragedies, tragicomedies, and comedies — first in Italian, later in French — and helped inject vitality into a flagging commedia dell’arte tradition. Though quite …

Of Miracles and Grave Misfortunes It had to be a miracle! As Sebastián Vizcaíno’s three ships neared the bay at Cabo de San José, a fog curtained the shoreline, and the ships separated beyond hailing …

The title of Matthew Lopez’s comedy-drama sounds unfinished. Hear Somewhere, and you expect “a place for us” to follow. And why not keep going: “Peace and quiet and oooo-pen air [kick it up!] WAITS for …

In the movie Braveheart, Patrick McGoohan plays silver-bearded, steely-eyed Edward “Longshanks.” A mere aside of his could kill — or a fit of anger, as when he heaves his son’s male lover out a castle …

Three ships nodded with the tide in Acapulco Bay. The San Diego, Santo Tomás, and Tres Reyes were light draft vessels, able to anchor in shallow waters. Each had been careened — flopped on its …

By rights, we should call San Diego “San Miguel,” after the archangel who evicted Lucifer and his minions from heaven. At his first landfall in Upper California — September 28, 1542 — Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo …

The San Diego Repertory Theatre has entered its 36th season. It has produced 265 shows. I asked Sam Woodhouse, cofounder, to talk about the ones where the Rep or he, personally, made a leap forward …

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo never received full credit for exploring the Pacific Coast, complained historian Henry R. Wagner. In 1602, 60 years later, Sebastián Vizcaino sailed north, covered the same territory, and “arbitrarily changed” Cabrillo’s findings. …

In his youth, John Waters watched the Buddy Deane Show, Baltimore’s version of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, on WJZ-TV. For years, both programs had white teenagers only. Deane called his “the Committee.” They were “the …

“George Bernard Shaw” may have been his best fictional creation. The cantankerous genius loved to rant, like a spoiled brat, and turn conventions upside down. He renounced capitalism, organized religion, and social injustice, along with …

You may remember him as Tonex (pronounced “To-nay”). The young mega-talent, who won a Craig Noel Award for Dreamgirls in 2008, changed his name. He’s now B. Slade. His skills have changed a bit, too. …

“Strange things are happening to this land,” said Luisa Moreno in 1949. “Yes, tragically the unmistakable signs are before us…who really love America. And it is we who must sound the alarm, for the workers …

Since The Tempest opened in 1611, people have wondered where Shakespeare located its strange, enchanted isle. Prospero’s enemies are returning to Naples from a wedding at Tunis. A storm blasts them onto the rocks of …

Ancient history tells of kings or wheat contracts, says the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. But what about daily life in Babylon or Greece? Or, more recently, Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire? Wilder chose …

She thought she’d finally found a home. For two decades, Luisa Moreno abandoned her private life and championed the rights of workers. She zigzagged around the country, protesting, organizing, and negotiating for labor unions: garment …

"How can evil and ugliness make a gift of beauty?" When he was six, Asher Lev began noticing the contours and textures of the world. He became alert to shadings of color, to the degrees …

According to Arthur Kopit and Anton Dudley’s new play, Drummhicit — pronounced drum-hkkkt — is a single-malt Scotch. It’ll curl your nose and lacquer your teeth but is not ready for prime time. Neither is …

In the dead of summer, temperatures in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, reach triple digits, with the humidity not far behind. The town, 60 miles north of Tulsa, near the Kansas border, lies along Tornado Alley. But in …

Drury “Drew” Bailey and the Founding of Julian City, Part Two In 1858, asked to write about why “A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss,” Drury “Drew” Bailey compared it to “the wanderer who starts…with bright …

It took an historic, three-way collaboration — the San Diego Rep, Vantage Theatre, and the La Jolla Playhouse — to bring Anna Deavere Smith to San Diego for the first time. The collaboration breaks ground …

Drury Bailey and the Founding of Julian City, Part One On November 10, 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed into San Miguel Bay. He renamed it “San Diego,” after his flagship and the saint of Alcalá. For …

In Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Chauntecleer the Rooster dreams an omen. A beast “like a hound” terrorized him with such a fearsome look, the rooster almost died. He wakes up groaning and tells his …

Civilization and Its Malcontents “Julian was never the hell roarin’ town commonly associated with mining camps,” wrote Dan Taylor in 1939. And that’s been pretty much the image ever since. Even so, the lure of …

After gold had been discovered in the Cuyamacas, ranchers accustomed to outback solitude witnessed an eerie parade: would-be miners trudging up an old Indian trail from Santa Ysabel to Julian City. The steep and rocky …

’Twas Gold that Made ’Em Do It “Enchanting visions of the good to be accomplished,” an unnamed author wrote in Hutchings’ California Magazine (1857), “of pleasures to be enjoyed, turned [a miner’s] footsteps toward the …

Her shoulders arched, her eyes a sniper’s stare, Karson St. John stalks the stage like a linebacker who just made a game-saving tackle. She plays the Emcee in Cygnet Theatre’s Cabaret, a casting choice that …

Every time someone enters in Sam Shepard’s Simpatico, it’s as if the stage dips like a spider web...or waterbed. One move, even a tiptoe, alters what’s come before. Parts rise, others sag. Here is now …

So how do you re-create a road movie on stage? Best of show at La Jolla Playhouse’s hit-and-miss Little Miss Sunshine: David Korins’s set, enhanced by Ken Billington’s bold lighting, depicts the shifting geography from …

The Life of a MinerIn August of 1870, when Louis Redman went to pick wild grapes along a creek over the mountain from Julian, he happened upon the American Dream. Something glinted in the rust-colored …

After the world premiere of his epic A Lie of the Mind in 1985, Sam Shepard told an interviewer that no matter what he wrote next, the critics would rip it to shreds. Instead of …