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“PRECIOUS LITTLE” – InnerMission Productions

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PAT LAUNER posted on TimesofSanDiego.com RUN DATES: 11/6/15-11/21/15 VENUE: InnerMission Productions Brodie is a lover of language – but she’s not such a great communicator. She’s a professional, professorial linguist, who’s having a clandestine affair with one of her (much younger) female grad students. Now, at age 42, with the help of an anonymous donor, she’s 12 weeks pregnant and about to undergo amniocentesis. For a self-professed straight-talking scientist, she has trouble interacting with almost everyone: her genetic counselors, her Read More →

“BRIGHT HALF LIFE” – Diversionary Theatre

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PAT LAUNER posted at TimesofSanDiego.com RUN DATES: 10/29/15-11/29/15 VENUE: Diversionary Theatre Some scenes only last a line or two. Some may go on for five minutes or so. In Tanya Barfield’s “Bright Half Life,” an extremely episodic, time-shifting chronicle of a long-term relationship, the setting and life-stage change with neck-snapping speed. Conversations and topics circle around and reappear, sometimes verbatim, sometimes picking up where they left off or in the moment before. It’s imaginative and inventive, but even just Read More →

“MARY POPPINS” – J*Company Youth Theatre

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RUN DATES: 10/16/15-11/1/15 VENUE: J* Company Youth Theatre “Anything can happen if you let it,” Mary Poppins repeatedly exclaims. And that includes producing a musical withy 92 kids onstage, ranging from age 7-18. J*Company youth theater artistic director Joey Landwehr has done it again – and this isn’t even a record! (he’s exceeded 100 participants in other shows). “Disney’s Mary Poppins” (music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, with additions by George Stiles and Anthony Read More →

“LA CAGE AUX FOLLES” – San Diego Musical Theatre

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PAT LAUNER posted at TimesofSanDiego.com RUN DATES: 9/25/15 - 10/11/15 VENUE: San Diego Musical Theatre “We Are What We Are” is pretty much the theme song of “La Cage aux Folles,” the 1983 Tony Award-winning Jerry Herman/Harvey Fierstein musical (based on a French farce of the same name, and an inspiration for the Robin Williams/Nathan Lane movie, “The Birdcage”), all about acceptance of others, set in a St. Tropez drag cabaret club. The show is also a valentine to Read More →

“CELL” – Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company

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PAT LAUNER posted at TimesofSanDiego.com RUN DATES: 9/24/15-10/18/15 VENUE: Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company New York-based playwright Cassandra Medley has a lot on her mind – too much for one play, in fact. Her world premiere, “Cell,” set in an immigration detention center, has ‘topicality’ written all over it. It shines a piercing light on a badly broken system, the abuse of already vulnerable people, and the desperation of bottom-rung job-holders who have to deal with them, while they do Read More →

“THE ALIENS” – ion theatre

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PAT LAUNER, CENTER STAGE ON KSDS-FM RUN DATES: 11/14/15 - 12/12/15 VENUE: ION THEATRE Thirty year-old slackers with no ambition or direction are not inherently the stuff of high drama. But in the hands of imaginative, award-winning playwright Annie Baker, who typically favors character over plot, they can be subtle case studies. Take KJ and Jasper, for example. One’s a college dropout; the other merely a high school grad. The dropout still lives with his mom. They used to Read More →