"color of light"

Aired on KSDS-FM on 1/19/18 RUN DATES:  1/11/18 - 2/3/18 VENUE: Vantage Theatre at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center Matisse was an atheist. His muse was a nun. At age 72, the artist hired a 21 year-old student nurse to care for him post-operatively. He was furious when he found out she was a novitiate. But still, she enchanted him, became his spiritual love, and brought a dying man back to life. And more important, back to art. In 1947, the nun Read More →

Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 8/20/22 RUN DATES: 8/17/22 - 9/3/22 VENUE:  Moonlight Stage Productions Three distinct communities, living in their own separate bubbles: The upper-crust Whites. The middle-class and underprivileged Blacks. The impoverished immigrants. Inevitably, they are forced to interact — for good or for ill. That’s the story of “Ragtime,” a brilliant historical novel by E.L. Doctorow, 1975; a misguided, miscast movie (1981); and a magnificent musical (1996). It’s also the story of America. Though the action is set in New Read More →

Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 6/19/21 RUN DATES: 6/16/21 - 7/3/21 VENUE: Moonlight Stage Productions It may be “the jewel of the Antilles,” but this Caribbean Island is rather rough-cut. It’s split down the middle — by color and class. On one side live the Peasants, dark-skinned and poor. On the other, the Grands Hommes, wealthy. Light-skinned descendants of the French planter/colonialists who mingled with their slaves. For generations, the peasants have recounted the legend of a young girl who was Read More →

Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 8/17/19 RUN DATES: 8/14/19 - 8/31/19 VENUE: Moonlight Stage Productions The song says “Something’s Coming,” but actually, it’s here. “West Side Story,” the beloved 1957 musical based on the Romeo and Juliet tragedy of star-crossed lovers, has returned to Moonlight Stage Productions, after earlier airings in 1987 and 2007. And it’s a knockout. The magnificent score was composed by Leonard Bernstein, and the lyrics were written by a 25 year-old Stephen Sondheim, making his Broadway debut. Equally iconic Read More →

Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 7/30/19 RUN DATES: 7/17/19 - 8/3/19 VENUE: Moonlight Stage Productions You gotta love a brainy, bookish young heroine. She may take guff for her smarts—ridicule, bullying—but she always winds up with a top-shelf ending. For instance, Belle gets her Beast-turned-Prince and Matilda gets a loving home. In “Matilda, the Musical,” the protagonist is not only brilliant; she has superpowers, though less than the film version exhibits. The stage offers different possibilities, cleverly executed at Moonlight Read More →

Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 8/17/18 RUN DATES: 8/15/18 - 9/1/18 VENUE:  Moonlight Stage Productions Not every musical can create a good story. And not every good story makes a good musical. Case in point: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” Victor Hugo’s 1831 romantic/Gothic novel about faith and love, outsiders and acceptance. Noble themes all, especially at this moment in our own history. But when Disney gets into the act, the depth and darkness are typically sheared off. The 1996 animated film, Read More →