A FIRST DATE THAT GOES WELL The device of having characters receive advice from a conscience or someone from their past is tried and true in musicals: They’re Playing Our Song‘s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:35PMIT’S WORTH SINGING ABOUT GETTING OLDER Perhaps the only thing worse than getting older is thinking about it. So when a nascent theater company puts on a show—a musical no less—abou…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:53PMA LONG RIDE ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In today’s world of seeing T-shirts in fancy restaurants, it’s almost difficult to envision that, once upon a time, people would dress to the nines f…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:41AMI COULD WATCH 9 TO 5 24/7 In 1980, an unlikely film trio, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton, was the center of 9 to 5, an amusing feminist romp with lovable characters. Years later…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:49AMBAD JEWS MAKES FOR GOOD THEATRE, BUT OY SUCH AGITA There’s an old joke: “What do you get if you put three Jews in the same room? Four opinions.” In Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews, the jo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:04PMLAMB’S SERVES UP A TASTY DINNER WITH MARLENE There’s an old parlor game of trying to decide: If you could attend a dinner party and choose any guests you wanted around the tabl…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:24PMGIVE YOURSELF OVER TO ABSOLUTE PLEASURE Those familiar with the movie version of The Rocky Horror Show may be shocked to find that there is no typo in the title of the stage version: Here, t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:25AMWHEN IT RAINS, IT SOARS Let’s start with the unavoidable down-side so we can end with the up-side. While Cygnet Theatre’s When the Rain Stops Falling is spectacular, it is terri…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:35AMIN GOOD COMPANY In a world of musicals that are filled with catchy harmonies and melodies that stick in your mind, Stephen Sondheim’s songs have frequently been the rebels. Sondheim is n…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:05PMIT DOESN’T SUCK TO BE AVENUE Q AT CORONADO In the right setting, irreverence is so jovial. Perhaps our era of thought-police and political correctness has made it delicious to pervert that…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:18PMDRAG YOURSELF DOWN TO PAGEANT Exiting Cygnet’s revival of Pageant, my writing pad, normally filled with pages of barely decipherable notes, had nothing upon it but the title. This su…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:38AMTHE GREAT CALL OF CHINA The very nature of adoption can leave a child—and the adult he or she becomes—filled with questions: Who were you, Mother? Why did you make this choice? Do yo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:31PMTRAGIC FOR HIM BUT GOOD FUN FOR US Hot on the heels of the run of Old Jews Telling Jokes, the Lyceum brings us a very different and more personal look at Jewish humor. Instead of a non-sto…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:10PMWHAT, WOULD IT KILL YOU TO HEAR A JEWISH JOKE, I ASK YOU? A German, a Frenchman, and a Jew are crawling across the desert. The German says, “Mein Gott! I’m so hot and thirsty…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:44PMA BLINKING YELLOW FOR RED AT THE REP Is a soup can art? To Matisse, probably not. To Warhol, clearly yes. And to everyone else? Ah, that’s when we start getting into what art r…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:39PMA LOT OF YOUTHFUL SPRING BUT LITTLE CHARACTER AWAKENING Given harsh themes including child abuse, rape, homosexuality, and suicide, one can easily see why Frank Wedekind’s original Ger…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:49PMTHE FOREIGNER HAS GOOD REASON TO STAY PUT Some theatre is staged to raise our awareness. Some theatre is designed to tell a story that will move us emotionally. Some theatre is intended …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:19PMA TWISTED TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE Imagine yourself transported back to 1955: Forming values in the image of Father Knows Best; solving family problems as cleanly as Ozzie and Harriet; and li…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:32PMCAMPY SHE-RANTULAS HAS QUITE A BITE Dictionary.com defines “camp” as “something that provides sophisticated, knowing amusement, as by virtue of its being artlessly mannered…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:53PMA NOURISHING TREE While lacking in emotional engagement, Daniel Beaty’s solo outing exploring the life of actor/singer/activist Paul Robeson undoubtedly entertains, educates, inspires, and…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:38PMWIT DOESN’T HOLD BACK Years back, Oldsmobile released a new line of sporty, sleek cars with the tagline “This is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile.” For those who associ…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:05AMHUMANS ARE THE SPECTACLE, NOT ANIMALS Childhood memories of circus fun include ringleaders putting heads in a lion’s mouth, dancing bears, and elephants resting a paw upon a lovely lad…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:04PMWORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLDFISH As a rising star in San Diego’s theater scene, Cygnet put a lot of eggs in one basket in producing Mistakes Were Made. Fortunately, they invested in the ri…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:58AMSEE HOW THIS WARTIME FARCE HOLDS UP The marquee outside of Lamb’s Players declares See How They Run to be “one of the funniest shows ever.” While never achieving a prom…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:00PMCOMEDIC CARNAGE SHARPLY WALKS THE LINE OF TRAGEDY Playwright Yasmina Reza has said, “My plays have always been described as comedy, but I think they’re tragedy. They are funny …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:05PMA GREAT KNIGHT, BUT JUST A GOOD NIGHT When a show comes back time and again, the review question is two-fold: (1) Is it worth reviving? and (2) Does this production offer a reinterpre…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:52PMCREATIONISM VS. EVOLUTION; RELEVANCE VS. TIMELESSNESS Dubbed “The Trial of the Century” (with rhetorical apologies to O.J.), the actual 1925 trial that inspired Inherit the Wind …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:32PMGRIPPING PLAY EXPLORES THE TANGLED WEB BORN OF AN IDEALISTIC WAR Set primarily in Pakistan along the Afghan border, J.T. Rogers’ Blood and Gifts begins in 1981, a critical point in the Col…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:57PMCAMPY LAUGHS FROM BROAD CHARACTERS Playwright Zsa Zsa Gershick is best known for her GLAAD and NAACP award-winning play Bluebonnet Court, a drama with humorous moments. With her latest wor…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:50PMCIRQUE’S PERKS What’s a circus without lions, tigers, and elephants? In the case of Cirque du Soleil’s Totem, their eleventh major production in 26 years, it’s a marked imp…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:32PMPOINTS FOR THE RICH MIX IN BROWNIE Five women consider themselves to be friends because their daughters are in the same Girl Scouts troupe. The bond they share should have been enough to p…
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