The Arts

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO—There is something about sitting in the front row of a 49-seat theatre and being up close and personal with the actors. It puts you in the center of the story. That’s how I felt recently when I found myself almost in the living room set of Claudio Raygoza’a new play, […]

 By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — Darn, I wish I had paid more attention in my high school Spanish class, or taken some courses when I moved here, or was fluent in a second language. If that were the case, I would have been better prepared to understand a good portion of the dialogue in

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO– God? Sex? Religion? “This play is not suitable for viewers who find any of the following objectionable: Gun violence! Bang! Bang! Women in the workplace! Yea! Soccer moms discussing scientific method! Criticism of Fox News! Candid discussions on religion and politics! Priests defending the Holy Trinity using perplexing analogies! Plane crashes!

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO—Playwright Davis Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, Fuddy Meers and Kimberly Akimbo was born and grew up in South Boston many moons after I left Massachusetts to move to San Diego. How eerie now for me now to see his latest Good People that is set in South Boston bringing back memories of

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO— Broadway/San Diego is launching a 25-city tour of the revival of Jekyll & Hyde that is expected make its way to Broadway where it will open in April at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. A pre- tour preview in San Diego garnered yet another standing ovation from opening night audiences. This

By Carol Davis LA JOLLA, California–Forget the good. Mamet deals in the bad and the ugly. In his Glengarry Glen Ross now in a fast paced production at the La Jolla Playhouse with Christopher Ashley directing, real estate is the name and the real politics of real estate is the game.Anyone in sales knows that

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO—It’s a comedy! It’s a tragedy! It’s a satire! It’s a tour de force! Noooo! It’s all of the above and #1 comedian Phil Johnson makes it work to those ends! Mistakes Were Made, Craig Wright’s San Diego West Coast Premiere one-man play is now having a fine showing under Shana

By Carol Davis  SAN DIEGO—Just recently my four-year-old grandson asked me if he would be wearing a space suit when he went into space as an astronaut. He didn’t ask if I thought he could become an astronaut. He assumed he would. For him, the world is his oyster. In a few years he will

By Carol Davis VISTA, California—“Sweeny Todd”, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler (based on Christopher Bond’s 1973 play) is not your usual run-of-the mill happy musical. It’s dark, bloody, broody, deliciously wicked and gruesome in tone and look and it is revenge-driven. At times it is sprinkled with some pretty

By Carol Davis CARLSBAD, California–Bernard Slade’s 1975 comedy Same Time Next Year is kind of little sleeper (no pun intended) of a play. It’s a bitter sweet love story about two people, Doris and George who over the course of 25 years meet each other once a year in Mendocino, California, in a comfortable room

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO—So far it’s two for two at Diversionary Theatre. This summer Harmony Kansas brought cheers from the community with its excellent staging of the Bill Nelson, Anna K. Jacobs musical about conflicts in the farming community of Kansas when two gay young men join a join a gay men’s chorus. Now

By Carol Davis SOLANA BEACH, California—North Coast repertory Theatre in Solana Beach is celebrating its 31st season. For this, a big Shout Out is due. On the occasion of this birthday, they are also mounting the San Diego Premiere of Steve Martin’s adaptation of Carl Sternheim’s 1911 Die Hose or translated, The Underpants. Tantalizing? Titillating?