Put a Little Drama in your Life
KPBS AIRDATE: APRIL 20, 2001 I'm sure you've heard the Oscar rumors that so-and-so really didn't deserve the award this year, but he'd been nominated before and should have gotten it and didn't so let's give it to him this time. Well, I think that's what happened with the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. The wonderfully witty, intelligent playwright Donald Margulies had been a finalist twice before, with much more Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: APRIL 13, 2001 Some sex scandals are just too delicious not to be made into movies or plays. So why did it take 150 years to bring the true story of John Ruskin to the stage? Well, thanks are due to novelist/playwright Gregory Murphy for bringing the tale to light, without stooping, Hollywood-style, to our grossest, basest instincts. The small, spare, tightly-crafted drama, the hit of Read More →
AIRDATE: APRIL 6, 2001 Like the Kabbalah it invokes, "The Mad Dancers" is Jewish mysticism. Like the Kabbalah, it is dense and complex, opaque and indirect, a parallel universe full of symbolism and stories, where nothing is what it seems. And, like the Kabbalah, it could take you a lifetime to figure it all out, to unwrap all the secrets and symbols, the messages and meaning. The best Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: MARCH 30, 2001 They seem like strange bedfellows -- a brand-new $800,000 opera and a small reprise of a 30 year-old musical. But they just happen to be written by the foremost living composer and librettist of American opera and American musical theater -- Carlisle Floyd and Stephen Sondheim. The two are contemporaries, septuagenarians born four years apart. The works are Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: MARCH 23, 2001 There's a striking similarity between the Black Ensemble Theater's latest offering -- "The Mojo and the Sayso" -- and the recent Globe Theatre production, "Crumbs from the Table of Joy." Both are African-American domestic dramas set in New York. In both cases, a premature death nearly tears a family apart. The reactions are parallel -- family members retreat into silence or fantasy, anger Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: MARCH 16, 2001 Talk about an Impossible Dream… How about mounting a full-scale musical on the tiny stage of North Coast Repertory Theatre? Well, it's not only the Disney company that makes dreams come true. The wizards of North County have brought history and literature to life. The current production of the timeless, award-winning 1965 musical, "Man of La Mancha," is stupendous. North Coast Rep is Read More →
“San Diego is a hotbed of theater. Every year, I see 200-250 productions. This is fertile ground for new work. In addition to the prodigious local talent, theatermakers from around the country come here to premiere their latest creations. San Diego sends more shows to Broadway than nearly any other city in the U.S.”
-Pat Launer