Put a Little Drama in your Life
KPBS AIRDATE: 8/29/91 We've all known a few good-hearted geeks. Guys who tried too hard to be cool, and wound up less than tepid. Guys who got nosebleeds when they were nervous. Or, even worse, heartburn. Maybe they wore bowties. Plaid ones, no less. Well, that's just the kind of Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: AUGUST 27, 1991 Performance art is a pretty personal thing. Sometimes it's more cathartic or illuminating for the performer than for the audience. That's kind of how I felt about Jesse Haywood's "Rebel Without a Car." When he found out two years ago that he was HIV-positive, the first thing Haywood wanted Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: AUGUST 19,1991 It's almost as if we're watching "The Heliotrope Bouquet by Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin" through an opium haze. But ragtime wizard Joplin wasn't as much into mind-bending drugs as his contemporary Chauvin. At the time we meet him, however, in 1917, Joplin is sliding downward from syphilis, and his mind is fuzzy with fever, as he flashes Read More →
Aug 13-18 KPBS AIRDATE: AUGUST 14, 1991 I'm tempted to call it "The Bland Hotel." It's as if some wayward Kansas tornado lifted this large, sumptuous New York construction and plopped it down at the Civic Theatre intact. For me, it’s another one of those vapid, vacant but elaborate concoctions that's been passing for a Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: 7/22/91 What exactly are life's basic necessities? For 43 year-old Zelda Kelly, protagonist of Velina Hasu's Houston's latest play, called "Necessities," it's -- let's see, a couple of Mercedes, some big feature film deals, maybe a TV sitcom, a deal-making power lunch, a young, successful husband, 10 or 20 cats, a bulging checkbook, a smarmy male secretary. All Read More →
KPBS AIRDATE: July 19, 1991 The title alone is enough to raise the hackles -- and temperatures -- of modern women. But in many ways, "The Taming of the Shrew" is too farcical to be seen as seriously anti-feminist. It's lusty, witty and well-crafted, and it's currently being done as a delightful romp by Octad-One Productions. 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