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“West Side Story” – Lamb’s Players Theatre

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Pat Launer, Center Stage on KSDS JAZZ88 June 26, 2015 Anyone who thinks a 58 year-old musical won’t resonate should consult the daily news. There are still street gangs, and violent turf battles. One line in “West Side Story” says it all, chillingly. The hardened New York cop snarls at the Puerto Rican kid: “I’ve got the badge and you’ve got the skin.” Tell me that’s not relevant. Fortunately, love still crosses impossible boundaries and fosters Read More →

A Rich, Dark Comedy Comes to Escondido: “Becky Shaw” at Patio Playhouse

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PAT LAUNER TIMES OF SAN DIEGO 6/22/15 Becky Shaw isn’t the lead character in the dark comedy that bears her name. But she may be the most enigmatic. Is she just a loser, an awkward, often inappropriate, sadsack single woman who’s seen more than her share of misery? Or is she a grasper (like Becky Sharp, the Thackeray character from “Vanity Fair” who inspired her), a con artist and consummate manipulator? Even the ambiguous final moment doesn’t provide Read More →

Elvis Sighting in Vista: “All Shook Up” at Moonlight Stage Productions

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PAT LAUNER TIMES OF SAN DIEGO 6/16/15 If you wanna get “All Shook Up,” you’ll have to hightail it over to Vista, where hips are swiveling and forbidden love is blooming. “All Shook Up” is a 2005 jukebox musical (with an actual jukebox onstage!) that borrows 25 songs from Elvis’ films and recordings. As usual in these cases, a story is uncomfortably grafted onto the music (book-writer Joe DiPietro won a Tony for “Memphis”). Here, slipped into the mix are Read More →

Deception, Disloyalty And “Betrayal,” At North Coast Repertory Theatre

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PAT LAUNER TIMES OF SAN DIEGO 6/14/15 There’s text… and there’s subtext. Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” is all subtext. On the surface, the conversations seem terse, minimalist, a series of trivial near-non sequiturs. But the real drama is roiling underneath: layers of deception and multiple levels of disloyalty. Beneath those quotidian lines, within those famous Pinterian pauses, are all the real feelings, the genuine emotions: the rage, the disillusionment, the fear of loss or change, the self-doubt, the sour hopelessness. This Read More →

Lady Sings the Blues: “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” at ion theatre

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PAT LAUNER TIMES OF SAN DIEGO 6/14/15 Billie Holiday had a right to sing the blues – though she considered herself a jazz singer. At least that’s what she tells us in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” Lanie Robertson’s 1986 biographical concert/play that’s set in a seedy South Philly club in 1959. This was her final performance; Billie died three months later. Her early (and later) life was something of a disaster, as she relates in 85 Read More →

“Sylvia” – New Village Arts

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Pat Launer, Center Stage on KSDS JAZZ88 Originally aired June 12, 2015 Re-posted for repeat production: 1/7/16 - 1/24/16 It was love at first sight. Once Greg met Sylvia at the park, his life changed completely. He was a middle-aged man with grown children, married for 22 years. But this was The Real Thing: the adoring, unconditional devotion he’d been looking for. Someone who really listened to and understood him. Call it midlife crisis, if you will. Read More →