Put a Little Drama in your Life
KPBS AIRDATE: July 24, 1996 You really don’t have to know -- or love -- Shakespeare to appreciate the antic insanity of “The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged),” but, as the old Borscht Belt joke goes, “It vouldn’t hoit.” On the most superficial level (and there is plenty of that -- don’t look for any genuine depth or incisive commentary here) Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: July 17, 1996 Ernest Hemingway and David Mamet. I’ve always thought of them in the same vein. Men’s men. Very macho. Often misogynist. More swagger than sentiment. Ironically, both are represented right now on San Diego stages: Mamet’s “American Buffalo” is at the Globe and “In the Temple of Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: July 3, 1996 Boy oh “Boy,” is all I can say. Director Michael Greif, fresh from his New York triumph with “Rent,” has come home to La Jolla for another world premiere, where he gets to indulge his unerring sense of whimsy and his unending fascination with sexual identity crises. Diana Son’s new comedy, “Boy,” Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: June 19, 1996 It must be summer; comedies are sprouting up like weeds. And the theater landscape is knee-deep in that raucous, rapid-fire, blundering, dithering, slapstick horseplay called farce. Lamb’s Players Theatre is presenting Philip King’s 1947 mayhem, “See How They Run.” Up at North Coast Repertory Theatre, there’s Tom Stoppard’s 1984 “Rough Crossing.” Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: June 5, 1996 The theater news of the week is bicoastal, with a pronounced San Diego accent. The big winner at the Tony Award ceremony was the new musical, “Rent,” directed by La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Michael Greif. I watched the rushed but theatrically ho-hum awards ceremony with an intimate and animated group of Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: May 22, 1996 (MUSIC: “Time and Again”) It’s high time. Time for another world premiere production to start in San Diego and wend its way to Broadway. There’s been an ongoing alternation between the Old Globe and the La Jolla Playhouse. Now, it’s the Globe’s turn. And it’s 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