Sign up for our eNewsletter
“The Scottsboro Boys” is one of those musicals that had everything going for it, but didn’t thrive on Broadway. In fact, it only lasted 49 regular performances.
Yet its pedigree is golden: A little known historical event that served as the spark for the civil rights movement, music and lyrics by the legendary John Kander and Fred Ebb of “Cabaret,” “Zorba,” and “Chicago” and direction and choreography by Susan Stroman of “The Producers.”
By Charlene Baldridge | SDUN Theater Critic Produced by ion theatre company, staged by Moxie Theatre Founding Artistic Director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, and featuring two of San Diego’s best-known African-American actors, Laurence Brown and Mark Christopher Lawrence, Suzan-Lori Parks’ 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Topdog/Underdog” plays at ion theatre’s Elaine Lipinsky Stage
By Charlene Baldridge | SDUN Theater Critic Diversionary Theatre currently presents a fine production of British playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell’s 2008 work, “The Pride.” The primary reason to see the play before it closes May 6 is to catch some of the city’s finest actors − Francis Gercke, Jessica John
By Charlene Baldridge | SDUN Theater Critic The Old Globe opened Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Anna Christie,” March 15 in the White Theatre at the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center in Balboa Park. Directed by Daniel Goldstein, the play is part of the Globe’s “Classics Up Close” series, intended to reexamine
Director Stephen Schwartz does what he can with book writer Marc Acito and composer and lyricist Jeffrey Stock’s world premiere musical, “A Room With a View,” playing through April 8 at the Old Globe. Based on E.M. Forster’s 1908 novel, the musical is highly derivative of works by Stephen Sondheim. Surely this is intended. How could listeners not notice?
The newly opened “Guys and Dolls” is a splendid example of the Lamb’s Players Theater doing what it does best. All the elements in this classic, large cast musical, from leads to costumes to choreography and live orchestra, are assured, sparkling with ease and enthusiasm. This review is based on the opening night performance of Feb. 11. The musical plays through April
Since the Greek and Roman times theater has been used to edify onlookers, to cause them to examine themselves and possibly, through introspection, to change their ways or at least to question contemporary practices and mores. Frequently this is accomplished by creation of characters to illuminate the issues.
Few succeed so well as Jonathan Caren in the world premiere of his three-man work titled “The Recommendation,” playing through Feb. 26 at The Old Globe.
Revive one of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote’s last plays, one that was nominated for the 2009 Tony Award for Best Play, a great idea in theory. After all, Foote is best known for such plays as “A Trip to Bountiful” and winning Oscars for adapting “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Tender Mercies” for the movies. Add in the actress who won a Tony for it as well as Foote’s two adult children.
The North Park Theatre, located at 2891 University Ave., was the neighborhood’s flagship facility when it opened in 1929 as a movie house and vaudeville venue, and played a similar role when it reopened as the Stephen and Mary Birch North Park Theatre in 2005.
A recession would make quick work of the reopening, and in October 2011 Lyric Opera San Diego, the building’s current owner, put the facility up for sale, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, laid off two-thirds of its staff and canceled the remainder of its season.
As its annual holiday show, Cygnet Theatre Company has presented Joe Landry’s “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play” since 2006. The current production, playing through Dec. 31 in Old Town, is the last for now because Artistic Director Sean Murray, who stages the work, feels it’s time to move on to something else