San Diego Theater Reviews
Brace yourself for a gratuitous personal plug. With all due respect to my esteemed colleague, Jeff Smith, I thought my “review” of Kiss Me, Kate would mark a first and last move away from cinema. …
Big Kitchen: A Counter Culture Musical. San Diego should confer the equivalent of knighthood on its special ones — those who have devoted decades to making some part of “America’s Finest City” approach that inflated …
The Other Don Quixote. Three clowns – replete with red noses – represent three after-hours workers at a film studio. The set, like most at the Fringe, is rudimentary, made up of bare bone essentials: …
Yellow Heaven. “One performer’s journey” — that’s the way, according to the old joke, you refer to a show about which you’re uncertain of the specifics. Yellow Heaven, performed by author Debi Ham, has sympathy …
Scenes From Mars One: Now With 68% Less Gravity!. Mars One Productions’ Scenes From Mars One is an irreverent spoof of disastrous theatrical experiences. A depressed director puts on a never-before-produced show, written by his …
Falling Man. In his one-man, completely improvised dance/theater piece, Leonard Cruz tackles topics that range from 9/11 to his own days as a troubled frat guy searching for acceptance at UCLA. Wildly different themes? Sure. …
Blamed: An Established Fiction. In Rose & Rue Theatre Company and the La Habra Theatre Guild’s new play, a troupe of ladies, dressed as if fresh off the boat at the turn of the 20th …
¿Y Tú Qué? When the prima ballerina couldn’t use her legs, she created a “dance on wheels.” Rossana Penaloza performed in Peru (her home country), Havana, Cuba, and Mexico City, always to robust applause. For …
So Small a Thing. Even tragedy can be played for comedy. Dominique Salerno’s scripts opens years following the gruesome events in Euripides’ Medea. Stuck together on an elevator for the deceased, the angry Medea (Jennie …
Bodies Are Not Borders. A woman and two men sit with their backs against a stark orange fence patched by sheets of corrugated steel. A second woman, on her back, slides out from a doggy-door-like …
The Hustle. Lion Fludd, from Las Vegas, Nevada, may start out nervous in his one-man magic act. But he eases into his most impressive skill, his humor. His concept is street-style hustling magic, from card …
Put Your Face On. Touted as a parade into the complex human psyche, Put Your Face On is The Great Borealis & Pisces Dance Project’s two-part modern dance expose of the dark emotions that bubble …
84 Gradini. Kinetic Giuseppi Mortelliti tells his story as much with his body as his words. His character, Fabrizio, learns that “life is made of stairs, of obstacles, of ups and downs.” But he has …
Tears of the Knife. Ah, the Fringe Festival! Where else in San Diego can you walk into a theater and see a hanged man, his head in a gunny sack, looming above the stage? And …
Although Moxie Theatre has produced shows ranging from intense dramas to thoughtful comedies, the company has not staged many musicals. Writer/director Javier Velasco is giving audience members a song-filled production with the world premiere of …
There is something magical about the open-air setting of Moonlight Stage Productions’ The Music Man: a perfect spot for the classic American musical. Taking place in River City, Iowa, the story centers around the interactions …