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A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS at Diversionary Theatre

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PAT LAUNER - CENTER STAGE ON KSDS-FM RUN DATES: 12/10/15 - 1/3/16 VENUE: Diversionary Theatre The country is deeply divided – racially, geographically and economically. Everyone is on edge. War is still raging, and there’s a noticeable lack of peace on earth and goodwill toward men. Sounds very 2015. But Paula Vogel’s drama with music, “A Civil War Christmas,” is set in 1864. On this fiercely cold Christmas Eve, we get a glimpse of multiple characters, both real Read More →

HERSHEY FELDER AS IRVING BERLIN at the La Jolla Playhouse

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PAT LAUNER - posted at TimesofSanDiego.com RUN DATES: 12/16/15-1/3/16 VENUE: La Jolla Playhouse In these-fear-filled, xenophobic times, here’s a show that’s the perfect tonic. Irving Berlin came to America in 1893, at the age of 5, after he and his family had watched the Cossacks burn down their entire Russian village. He was so poor that when he left his Lower East Side home to make his own way, at age 14, he slept on stoops or a park Read More →

“1940s RADIO HOUR” – New Village Arts

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PAT LAUNER - CENTER STAGE ON KSDS-FM RUN DATES: 12/5/15-12/31/15 VENUE: New Village Arts On a snowy December night in New York, 1942, The Mutual Manhattan Variety Cavalcade is about to go on the air. One singer hasn’t turned up, but the show must go on. That’s the flimsy premise of “The 1940s Radio Hour,” written by Walt Jones, former head of the UCSD Theatre Department, who directed the Broadway production in 1979. But there’s just not much there Read More →

“DISAPPEARING ACT” – InnerMission Productions

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PAT LAUNER - posted on TimesofSanDiego.com RUN DATES: 12/11/15-12/20/15 VENUE: InnerMission Productions The statistics are appalling – but then, so is sending young boys off to brutal wars in foreign lands and expecting them to come back unscathed, and re-integrate into society on their own. One in five of the 2.7 million American veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Most shocking: twenty-two veterans commit suicide every day. In the world premiere, “Disappearing Read More →

“THE HEIR APPARENT” – Scripps Ranch Theatre

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PAT LAUNER - posted at TimesofSanDiego.com RUN DATES: 11/13/15-12/13/15 VENUE: Scripps Ranch Theatre David Ives, a Lit. sensation Creates a thing called ‘translaptation.’ He translates, adapts and has his way With farces that are très français. It’s maybe a blessing, maybe a curse: His translaptations appear in verse. Scripps Ranch already sparked a fire With a knockout production of “The Liar.” Yet this later work, “The Heir Apparent,” Seems a bit more socially aberrant. For all its clever word accretions It dwells too long on body secretions. And since its Read More →

“VOICES: WE STILL AIN’T GOT A BAND” – Ira Aldridge Repertory Players

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PAT LAUNER posted on TimesofSanDiego.com RUN DATES: 11/6/15-11/21/15 VENUE: Ira Aldridge Repertory Players Calvin Manson, founding director of the Ira Aldridge Repertory Players (IARP), has made a small cottage industry of intimate vocal shows, sometimes with a semblance of a story-line, most often not. But he always has something in mind. This time, he has his eye on a capella music, and its evolution from the street performers under the streetlights of his youth (singing songs by The Limelites and Read More →