A Dream Role
Right now, several actors are clearly performing dream roles: Linda Libby as Mama Rose in Ion's Gypsy; Rosina Reynolds (Amanda Wingfield), Brian Mackey (The Gentleman Caller), and Amanda Sitton (Laura Wingfield) in Cygnet's Glass Menagerie; and, as if to the …
The Musical Paul Gauguin at Asian Story Theater
Asian Story Theater is work-shopping this new musical. The project was ready for a tryout and, with tinkering and revising, could have a long life to come. The subject was a complicated individual, who strove with all his might for …
What's in a Title?
John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men - currently in a deeply moving production at New Village Arts - tells the tragic story of Lennie Small and George Milton. Migrant ranch hands during the Depression, they come to the Salinas Valley …
Twelfth Night at White Theatre
In Merry Olde England, Twelfth Night was a last call for holiday cheer. After the 12 days of Christmas, the evening of January 5 was a one-night Mardi Gras: wine and sherry would flow; food got gobbled, and life went …
Spring Awakening at American Rose Theatre
I can only review half of American Rose's production, since the company has double-cast the musical: the "Red Cast" (high school age) and the "White Cast" (college age) alternate evenings, along with graduates of SDSU in both versions. I saw …
To Bow or Not to Bow
At the end of Gypsy, Mama Rose hits bottom. Her daughters - June and the ugly duckling Louise - have abandoned her. As has her devoted agent, Herbie. She's alone on a stage and asks "Why did I do it?" …
Of Mice and Men at New Village Arts
"I've never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy," the Boss tells George Milton. "What's your percentage?" George doesn't answer. He could have said "I am my brother's keeper," since the itinerant bindlestiff has an unconditional loyalty …
Gozzi versus Goldoni
Lamb's Players is staging a wild, musical version of Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters. The play is, and is not, a sample of the traditional commedia dell'arte. And the differences eventually forced Goldoni to leave Italy, in 1761, …
The Odd Couple at Sullivan Players
Oscar Madison, slob, eats "cold cuts for breakfast." Felix Ungar, control freak, "wears a seatbelt at the drive-in movie." Neil Simon's contrary duo has become part of our national lore. And the 1965 comedy's still bangs out the one-liners — …
Drama: An Actor's Education, by John Lithgow
When he appeared in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Old Globe a few years back, John Lithgow received a heartfelt ovation - and some shouts of welcome - at his first entrance. The performance, as expected, was elastic, graceful, and …
Louis Spisto to Leave Old Globe
The Old Globe Theatre just announced that its CEO/Executive producer, Louis Spisto, will step down at the end of this year. He has been with the company since 2002 and plans to work on independent projects. Michael G. Murphy, Old …
Dead Man's Cell Phone at Moxie
Jean never had a cell phone. You have to "be there," she says, constantly on call. She'd rather "disappear," where no one can reach her. She's not used to ringing in her pocket. Maybe that's why she answers a call …
Closing a Hit Show
Some productions can't end soon enough. Chemistry fizzled, audiences steered clear. When the final curtain comes down, the run doesn't end; it's put out of its misery. But what if a show hit the heights? Rave reviews, standing ovations and …
St. Cecilia's Restaurant?
From 1977 to 2005, the Sixth Avenue Playhouse/St. Cecilia's offered some of the most adventuresome, commercially successful theater in San Diego. The former funeral chapel was the original home of the San Diego Rep. And when the Rep moved to …
Glynn Bedington: Celebration of a Life
On a Saturday in September, 1984, Paul Bedington went to a series of lectures on the arts. A friend was giving one of the talks, and Paul had nothing else doing that day. Another of the speakers, a woman, got …
How the Other Half Loves at Scripps Ranch
Though often compared, Neil Simon and Alan Ayckbourn have little in common. Simon's zinging one-liners urge his audiences to embrace the status quo: that everything outside the box is either farce or infested with reptilian meanies. While Ayckbourn, with geometric …
26 Miles at Mo'olelo Performing Arts
For the last eight years, Olivia's Cuban mother, Beatriz, has been denied visitation rights. Olivia has lived with her father, a Jewish ex-Hippie who met Beatriz at Woodstock (the play begins in 1986). Programmed to deny her mother's ethnicity, Olivia …
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at San Diego Musical Theatre
The title tips the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical's hand. Combine the biblical tale of Joseph and his brothers with modern anachronisms: parodies of musical styles, from country and western to disco; many-colored costumes from ancient Egypt to today, and characters …
Jack Reacher's Back in Town!
He arrived last Tuesday, when Lee Child's (pictured) The Affair came to San Diego's few remaining bookstores. Reacher's the star of something like 16 mystery novels. But the number isn't the point, nor are the titles, which blur after a …
Walter Cronkite is Dead at San Diego Rep.
It used to be blue versus gray. Now, according to pundits, it's red versus blue. Regional profiling claims that people who live along the coasts are blue-state elitist liberals; those inland are red-state conservatives and fundamentalists. One wag said it …