Put a Little Drama in your Life
Moonlight Amphitheatre at the Avo Playhouse SUBMISSION DATE: JANUARY 31, 2000 It's a triple dose of Vitamin C: Cute, Country, Corny. Think: "Triple Espresso" with music, or "Forever Plaid" with less wonderful songs. But if that's your cup of theater, drink up. As in the other two San Diego perennials, Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: January 28, 2000 Opera is theater writ large. The emotions are extreme, and in the case of "Il Trovatore," even the story is overblown. Though some complain about the complexity of Verdi's plot, it all makes perfect sense by the end, with a little help from the English supertitles. Two brothers, separated in infancy, know nothing of Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: January 21, 2000 Okay, roll call… Chunky Sanchez? check. Christopher Columbus? Check. Che Guevara and César Chavez? Presente. Tom Metzger? Yo. San Diego sailors, PB Beach dudes, Gay Hillcrestians. Check. Check. Check. All present and very well accounted for, in the latest edition of Latino.com, aka the "Culture Clash Anthology." Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: January 14, 2000 The "Kingdom of Earth" is a little bit "Psycho," and a "Streetcar" runs through it. This quasi-gothic drama is a conglomerate of classics. It features a brutish, oversexed, Stanley Kowalski kind of ape and his half-brother, a fey nutcake who adores his dead mother and likes to dress up in her clothes. In other words, Tennessee Williams meets Alfred Hitchcock. Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: JANUARY 7, 2000 SONG: "Ol' Man River" Ol' Man River nearly slowed to a standstill. In the sluggish touring production of "Show Boat" now at the Civic Theatre, neither the Mighty Mississip nor anything else just kept rolling along. And since this pared-down production came so close on the heels of the brilliantly Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: DECEMBER 31, 1999 If the holidays make you feel fried, why not get Fritzed? Once again, the Fritz Theater goes against the typically angelic seasonal treacle by presenting a devilishly acid-laced dark-comic confection. This year, it's "The Hothouse," written, in 1958, by that ever-cryptic British absurdist, Harold Pinter. It's Christmas Eve inside a 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