By Carol Davis LA JOLLA, California —Reality T.V. has never made it to the top ten of my favorite things to watch. However, I do like watching documentaries, especially when I find them informative and offer a new outlook on an old subject that I may or may not have already have formed an opinion. [...]
By Leah R. Singer SAN DIEGO –The 19th Annual Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival kicked off last week with a host of different productions. This year’s festival, which runs through June 7, features everything from baseball to Klezmer to Spanish language performances. Todd Salovey, who has been the Jewish Arts artistic director [...]
By Cynthia Citron BEVERLY HILLS, California — In my view, it’s cause for rejoicing when a play is beautifully written and is performed by actors who are at least as brilliant as the writing. Mostly because it doesn’t happen all that often. Two new shows demonstrate what I mean. Love Struck, which opened at the [...]
By Sheila Orysiek SAN DIEGO — City Ballet of San Diego’s world premiere of the full length Romeo and Juliet at the Spreckels Theatre on May 13, was a triumph for the Company but especially the resident choreographer, Elizabeth Wistrich and the Company’s ballerina, Ariana Samuelsson. This drama in three acts gave Samuelsson the [...]
By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM—Among the glories of a professor emeritus is a capacity to wander the stacks of a good library in search of something that looks interesting, without worrying how it will fit into this semester’s courses. I found by chance FDR, the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic Church in America, 1933-1945, Edited by [...]
By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — Before I went off to see the latest incarnation of the Kander and Ebb musical Chicago now playing for a limited run at the Civic Theatre downtown, I reached for my trusty CD of the movie soundtrack. Big mistake. In my mind’s eye I saw every scene and smiled [...]
SAN DIEGO—Just recently the curtain came down on Cygnet Theatre’s critically acclaimed Parade, Alfred Uhry’s historical musical drama depicting the story of Leo Frank and the lynching that led to his untimely death after being falsely accused of raping and killing young Mary Phagan. Frank managed an Atlanta pencil factory where Phagan was brutally murdered on the [...]
By Eileen Wingard SAN FRANCISCO — Two distinguished musicians were honored by my sister Zina Schiff at her violin recital in Temple Emanu-El’s concert series in San Francisco last Monday evening. She dedicated her program to the memory of violinist Israel Baker, one of her former teachers and life long friends, and she gave premiere performances to [...]
By Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO — Harry Belafonte, the musical legend and civil rights icon, first met Martin Luther King Jr. in 1956. King phoned the rising calypso star in New York, and according to Belafonte’s memoirs, said, simply: “You don’t know me, Mr. Belafonte, but my name is Martin Luther King Jr.” [...]
By Ronn Torossian NEW YORK –The Avengers opened this weekend to the biggest film opening of all time – making over $200 million at the box office in a single weekend in cinemas in North America, and set to become one of only a handful of movies to gross $1 billion worldwide. Unknown to many [...]
