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“SEIZE THE KING” at the La Jolla Playhouse

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Aired on KSDS-FM on 9/7/18 RUN DATES: 8/21/18 - 9/16/18 VENUE: La Jolla Playhouse Watch “Seize the King” at the La Jolla Playhouse and draw your own conclusions. Internationally acclaimed playwright and hip hop theater pioneer Will Power is riffing on Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” re-conceiving the brutal rise and fall of the power-mad medieval monarch for a modern audience. He insists that he isn’t making any particular parallels, but the present is constantly, eerily, informed by the past. Here are Read More →

“SMOKEFALL” at Backyard Renaissance Theatre

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Aired on KSDS-FM on 9/14/18 RUN DATES: 8/23/18 - 9/16/18 VENUE: Backyard Renaissance in residence at the La Jolla Playhouse It isn’t easy to make sense of the vagaries of life. And it may be impossible to “outrun your lineage.” This is the bottom line of Noah Haidle’s often enigmatic 2013 play, “Smokefall,” the first production of Backyard Renaissance Theatre’s residence at the La Jolla Playhouse. In between the multiple meta-narrative Footnotes and the in utero twin straw-hat vaudeville act, we Read More →

LEGALLY BLONDE” at New Village Arts

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 7/31/18 RUN DATES: 7/28/18 - 9/9/18 VENUE: New Village Arts For Elle Woods, pink is the new black. Wait – scratch that. She can’t imagine why anyone would wear black “when nobody’s dead.” Clearly, she’s not from New York. Nope, she’s a Valley Girl through and through, a born-to-shop native of Malibu, blonde hair, sorority sisters and all. As she graduates from UCLA with a 4.0 (“in Fashion Merchandizing,” we’re repeatedly reminded), all she really wants Read More →

“THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME” at Moonlight Stage Productions

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 8/17/18 RUN DATES: 8/15/18 - 9/1/18 VENUE: Moonlight Stage Productions Not every musical can create a good story. And not every good story makes a good musical. Case in point: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” Victor Hugo’s 1831 romantic/Gothic novel about faith and love, outsiders and acceptance. Noble themes all, especially at this moment in our own history. But when Disney gets into the act, the depth and darkness are typically sheared off. The 1996 animated film, Read More →

“HAIRSPRAY” at San Diego Musical Theatre

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Aired on KSDS-FM on 8/17/18 RUN DATES: 8/3/18 - 9/2/18 VENUE: San Diego Musical Theatre Well, butter my bouffant and call it a biscuit! Even off-the-wall filmmaker John Waters, who wrote the original, would get a kick out the San Diego Musical Theatre production of his slyly subversive comedy-with-a-message – about acceptance, regardless or color or girth. This “Hairspray” is a hoot – with side-splitting humor and a bit of an edge. Director J. Scott Lapp has cast a marvelous Read More →

“VOYEURS DE VENUS” at Moxie Theatre

Views:1294

Aired on KSDS-FM on 8/24/18 RUN DATES: 8/12/18 - 9/2/18 VENUE: Moxie Theatre “Race is what I do,” African American playwright Lydia Diamond has said. “Race and gender, sexuality and class.” Check, check and check. These issues reverberate throughout her 2002 play, “Voyeurs de Venus,” in addition to a heap of other subjects, including colonialism, victimization, objectification, exploitation and conciliation, punctuated by sex, gore, dance, nudity and a minstrel show. The play, getting an excellent production at Moxie Theatre, under the Read More →