“I saw very plainly that [Katherine Tingley] had impure intentions,” said Henry Reuthling from his seat in the witness box. “What do you mean by impure?” Reuthling: “I mean that her suggestions were of a …

Acting always has a passle of do’s and don’t-you-ever’s. The rules build the cage within which the lion roars. Over the centuries and even over decades, the cage has shrunk. And it must be tempting …

The first San Diego Fringe Festival was such a hit last summer, this year’s has doubled in size. It now runs eleven days, and offers over 80 entrants. Most will give five performances instead of …

El Henry, Herbert Siguenza, of Culture Clash fame, has written a rousing, funny, and eloquent script based on Shakespeare’s history play, Henry IV, Part one. We’re at Aztlan City — i.e. post-apocalyptic San Diego in …

In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part one, Prince Hal hangs out with Sir John Falstaff and various lowlifes at the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap, a street in central London. They swill sack. It is 1399. …

And now for something completely…SPECTACULAR! Moonlight has opened its outdoor summer season with a production so smart, polished, and accurate you’d think they’ve assembled an all-star team. And in a way, they have. Brad Bradley …

Memo died five years ago. He wants to visit with his living relatives on “the Day of the Dead.” To do so, he must trek through the Underworld, where Mictlantecuhtil, the cruelest of the Aztec …

Cygnet’s excellent production of the Show We Cannot Fully Name, The Motherf--er With the Hat, must close this Sunday, June 22. The title’s both a warning (there will be untoward language) and an assertion: like …

The Allegations In his later years, Harrison Gray Otis rode in an armor-plated, 1910 Franklin Model H. The headlights protruded like cannons; a bronze horn stretching across the molded, deep-green hood resembled an elephant gun. …

At Lamb’s Players, Mike Buckley’s set hits you first. You’ve come to see Shakespeare’s “festive” comedy, Twelfth Night. It’s set in Illyria. Illyria? Yeah — ancient country on the Adriatic seacoast. But instead, the set’s …

If you’ve seen that look, that frozen Alzheimer’s stare, on the face of a loved one, you have to wonder what’s inside. If, that is, you can get past the unthinkable horrors a.) of no …

Daren Scott’s directed how many shows? Less than a handful? His staging of Beth Henley’s gonzo comedy feels like the work of a seasoned pro. Not only has he served the play well, his cast …

Rick Elice and Michael Patrick Walker are the multi-talented, mega-award-winning creators of Jersey Boys, Peter and the Starcatcher, and Altar Boyz. Their world premiere musical isn’t a dog. But, even with a top flight cast, …

The Book of Mormon Maybe THE most hype-heavy show ever to come to the San Diego Civic lives up to all the accolades. Witten by the creators of South Park, the musical is guaranteed to …

Tingle, tingle, little star / Oft I wonder who you are. / What you do that isn’t right, / Every blessed, spooky night. In mid-October, 1901, as Madame Katherine Tingley’s Universal Brotherhood gained popularity, the …

Lewis and Clark were trailblazers — the comedy team, that is, of Al Lewis and Willie Clark. Vaudeville headliners back in the 1930s, they were together 43 years and “retired” 11 years ago. Why the …

First things first. A word to every theater lover in San Diego who can’t afford a full-priced ticket to this truly remarkable event: two-and-a-half hours before every performance of The Book of Mormon, Broadway/San Diego …

The first three names come from Anton Chekhov: Vanya and niece Sonia from Uncle Vanya; Masha from Three Sisters. And Spike? From the imagination of Christopher Durang which, he says, tossed the Chekhovian trio “into …

There’s “sadness after intimate sexual intercourse,” Winnie tells Willie in Happy Days. “You would concur with Aristotle there, I fancy.” Samuel Beckett’s been accused of being so bleak he’s the Dracula of world theater. What …

It’s a snappy chapeau: reddish with a narrow brim and wide band. The question for Jackie, on parole after 26 months in stir for dealing drugs, is “who’s the motherf--k who owns this motherf--ker?” Jackie …

There should be a law in theater: don’t cubbyhole. Don’t typecast actors; don’t hogtie a company with a reductive label. Call it the Tennessee Williams Statute. Once he became a success, critics and audiences demanded …

Last Call: Tom Dugdale and the Trip’s world premiere must close this weekend. This inventive, intriguing, multi-leveled show is a definite must-see. The stage, part of a barracks at Liberty Station, looks strange. Rectangular cinder …

Beginning this Thursday, May 22, and running only through Sunday — that’s all the rent they can afford — The Trip presents the world premiere of Tom Dugdale’s All the Rooms of the House. It’s …

The old: a group in India read Bible stories non-stop for 72 hours. The new, Guinness Book record: 76 hours, 18 minutes: from Thursday, May 8 at 6:00 p.m. through Sunday, May 11 at 10:17 …

Human lemmings trundling up the steep cliffs of Point Loma? A mass exodus? Never had so many San Diegans been on the move at the same time. Until February 23, 1897, occasional visitors went either …

Marisa Wegrzyn’s serio-comedy takes a behind-the-scenes look at off-duty “people persons.” The scene, done in vivid, stereotypical detail by Maria Bane, is room 208 of a, let’s be kind, modestly priced hotel next door to …

On May 15, Scott Feldsher and Sledgehammer Theatre mount their first production in several years — and IT’S ABOUT TIME! Their choice, Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, has a legendary San Diego connection. In 1962, Alan …

Fosca blazes with such fervor that her fierce, unconditional devotion appears grotesque.

Leopold and Loeb: the dark-eyed, slick-haired, “thrill killers” of 1924 could have posed for Arrow shirt ads. Nathan Leopold, 19, and Richard Loeb, 18, were intelligent lawyers-to-be. Leopold had a 210 IQ and claimed to …

The Guinness Book of Records for staying awake is 264 hours. Whoever did that must be cutting out paper dolls in an institution. The oldest person in the world is 116, sayeth the G-Book, and …

“I must’ve looked pretty awful,” says a character in one of Peter Devries’ novels. “When I asked the bartender if he served Zombies, he said, ‘sure, what’ll you have?’” Ya gotta love the old ones! …

I wanted to interview Annie Hinton because she made her first “professional” directorial debut at New Village Arts earlier this year. And Annie Baker’s spare, almost voiceless collage, Circle Mirror Transformation, called for major directorial …

Mark Rothko and his fellow Abstract Expressionists (though they didn’t like the name) battered the Cubists to pulp. Now, as Rothko contemplates what could be his masterpiece — and the place to showcase his special …

He’s so addicted to alienation, he wouldn’t march in his “own parade.”

It’s impossible to measure these things, but surely the book (1960), by Harper Lee, and the Oscar-winning movie (1962) must have had an impact on the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s. Along with an …

Lionel Goldstein’s world-premiere drama has some creaky dramaturgy and overuses a trick so much that, in the first 30 or so minutes, it was tempting to phase out and do character studies of various spectators. …

If I had a penny for every time I heard someone say “I wanted to see that show. Now I hear it closed,” I could start my own theater — and have a permanent tee-time …

When courting his second wife-to-be, Mark Rothko gave her a copy of The Trial. In Franz Kafka’s uncompleted novel, an unnamed accuser arrests Josef K for an unnamed crime. According to his biographer, James E.B. …

J.B. Priestley’s 1937 drama is not a great play. But it’s a haunter. The Old Globe’s excellent cast probably won’t have too many standing ovations because the spell doesn’t break until long after the curtain …

“The thing I’m not will make me live.” San Diego’s David Ives Victory Tour continues at Scripps Ranch Theatre with his re-invigoration of Pierre Corneille’s 1643 comedy. As with Venus in Fur at San Diego …

Okay, it isn’t Death of a Salesman, to which it will forever be compared. And its form lies just this side of calculated. But Arthur Miller’s earlier play, written during World War II, still packs …

On January 8, 1903, just before his final remarks as attorney for the defense, Samuel Shortridge paused. He seemed to stare through the floor, as he struggled to find the crucial words. Then he rose …

Sarah McKendree Bonham, who came west in a covered wagon, hasn’t long to live. Aware that, as the bible says, most of a woman’s work “perishes in the using,” she decides to make a “legacy …

This idea for a musical sounds doomed from the start: base the story on a 100-plus-year-old play so controversial several countries banned it, which closed after one night on Broadway; talk and sing openly about …

Budding playwrights used to ask Robert May why their scripts weren’t being produced. Some had a staged reading, but nothing beyond that. May kept his “flip answer” to himself: “Write a better play.” “Now I …

The North Coast Rep’s The School for Lies had that rare, mega-hit show feel from the start. David Ives set his take on Moliere’s The Misanthrope in 1666, and the dialogue’s rhymed couplets. So, like, …

I don’t like reviewing a show after it closed. If I enjoyed it, people ask why didn’t I review it sooner; if not, why hurl barbs after the fact? I’m also wary of promos that …

Artistic Director Calvin Manson fills the Educational Cultural Complex, almost literally, with a tribute to Soul Music. Seven singers, finalists in a contest, dig deep into 20 songs, from Otis’s “Respect,” to Al Green’s “Let’s …

Lynn Nottage’s Crumbs from the Table of Joy, recently in a highly praised production at Moxie Theatre, has two roles for teenage women. Ernestine, the oldest, tells how she, her father and younger sister moved …

Ion Theatre’s double bill — Sam Holcroft’s Edgar & Annabel and Caryl Churchill’s Far Away — combines one-acts that have so much in common they feel like deliberate companion pieces. In Edgar & Annabel rebels …