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“RAIN” at The Old Globe

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Aired on KSDS-FM on 4/8/16 RUN DATES: 3/24/16 - 5/1/16 VENUE: The Old Globe In adapting a piece of literature, there’s an obligation to maintain the spirit of the original. W. Somerset Maugham’s riveting 1921 short story, “Rain” (originally titled “Miss Thompson”), has certainly provided fertile ground for adapters: three films, and an aborted musical, called “Sadie Thompson,” created in 1944 with Ethel Merman in mind. Now, along come composer/lyricist Michael John La Chiusa and librettist Sybille Pearson, with a Read More →

“BOOK OF LEAVES” streaming from The Roustabouts Theatre Company

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 9/25/21 RUN DATES: 9/22/21 - 10/24/21 VENUE: streaming from The Roustabouts Theatre Company It’s a familiar setup. Estranged, dysfunctional family is summoned together one last time by an ailing parent approaching death (and revising his estate plan). But Will Cooper’s “Book of Leaves” has some tricks up its verdant sleeves. Nothing and nobody turns out to be what they seem. Relationships run deeper than at first glance. Family and legacy ultimately take primacy. There are, of course, Read More →

“MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS” at Coronado Playhouse

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 3/26/22 RUN DATES: 3/18/22 - 4/16/22 VENUE: Coronado Playhouse Dame Agatha Christie was the queen of the locked room murder mystery. Edgar Allan Poe may have written the first one, in 1841 (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”), but Christie wrote the most famous ones, among which is “Murder on the Orient Express” (1934). At the center is her popular Belgian detective extraordinaire, Hercule Poirot. Set on the elegant train in 1934, and inspired by the Read More →

FEATURE: THE SHOW CANNOT ALWAYS GO ON: San Diego theaters confront Omicron Surge

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 1/16/22 Every theater company, like every individual, has to decide what’s in their best interest in these perilous pandemic times. On Broadway and Off, some theaters returned to a regular performance schedule, some reduced the number of weekly performances, some postponed, some canceled altogether, and others are participating in what’s being called ‘hibernation,’ going dark for awhile to see what happens, and perhaps opening in a different space from where they began. San Diego Read More →

“LOVE SONG” at Scripps Ranch Theatre

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 3/6/22 RUN DATES: 1/28/22 - 2/13/22 VENUE: Scripps Ranch Theatre A love song is usually pretty easy to decode and decipher. John Kolvenbach’s play by that name, not so much. There’s a brother and sister. She’s a tightly-wrapped, driven Type A++ executive whose anger and disgust with others (especially her invariably “incompetent” interns) is palpable, capricious and destructive.. Her brother is … well, different. Taciturn, solitary, reclusive. When he talks, he says strange things. Her husband, a Read More →

“AS YOU LIKE IT” at New Fortune Theatre Company

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 8/9/22 RUN DATES: 8/3/22 - 8/29/22 VENUE: New Fortune Theatre Company Oh, to have an Arden to escape to! A magical forest where you can be who you want to be and become who you’d like to be, reconnect with estranged family, and find true love. It’s always felicitous when a play with an outdoor setting is performed outdoors (another Shakespearean forest is currently being featured at The Old Globe for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”). Now, Read More →