Put a Little Drama in your Life
Aired on KSDS-FM, Jazz88 on 1/1/16 Boy, are we lucky. Not only do we live in a beautiful city, with an incomparable climate… we’re also blessed with an amazing community of arts and culture. And in the theater, one of San Diego’s highest profile artforms, it was an especially bountiful year. I’d call it The Year of the World Premiere. We had three major festivals that highlighted new work: the 3rd San Diego Fringe Festival, the Read More →
Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 12/29/15 It’s the time of year for lists and hierarchies. Best of this, award-worthy that. So, after having seen more than 200 shows in 2015, I’m jumping on the bandwagon. It was a stellar year of theater, in a town that’s known for its theater. There was a particularly striking array of new work – imaginative, provocative and impressive. My top five shows are unequivocal and unforgettable. The rest of the excellent creations Read More →
Posted on TimesofSanDiego.com on 1/24/16 RUN DATES: 1/21/16 -1/31/16 VENUE: Malashock Dance, Liberty Station Choreographer John Malashock has always been fascinated by the past. But in his latest evening of dance, in his 28th year of dance-making, he’s also taking a hard look at our over-stimulated Present. In “Signatures,” he’s balanced two old favorites (Act One) with two world premieres. The old favorites touched me more than the new, but all four pieces are filled with beautiful stage pictures Read More →
Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 1/5/16 RUN DATES: 12/8/15 - 1/17/16 VENUE: The Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles It may have sold 50 million copies worldwide, but Robert James Waller’s “The Bridges of Madison County” was a featherweight novel of, as one critic put it, “sentimental slush.” It’s the sappy story of an Italian war bride, stuck in the vast cornfields of 1960s Iowa. One day, a photographer from National Geographic stops by to ask directions to one of the local Read More →
PAT LAUNER - Review aired on KSDS-FM 1/15/16 Show run dates 1/3/16 - 1/24/16 Venue: South Coast Repertory It’s all about hormones. Well, more or less. Sandra Tsing Loh, writer and popular NPR personality, wants to tell you about her menopausal experience. She has been, as the title of her book and its world premiere stage adaptation put it, “The Madwoman in the Volvo.” We follow her from age 48 to 53, detouring for a few flashbacks to Read More →
RUN DATES: 1/5/16-1/10/16 VENUE: Civic Theatre (Broadway San Diego) How many power ballads does it take to make an Idina Menzel musical? Judging by the score of the 2014 “If/Then” the number is limitless. There’s even a song called “Here I Go,” which could be substituted with “Let It Go,” Menzel’s knockout number from the animated movie, “Frozen.” But that’s another story. This story, written by the creators of the dark and delectable “Next to Normal” (music by 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