The Arts

    By Carol Davis   CULVER CITY, California— Have you ever been so angry, upset, frustrated or agonized over something that happened to you that it hurts to the core, digs to the bone and gets in the way of your life? Well if you trek it to the Kirk Douglas Theatre between now […]

  By Carol Davis   LA JOLLA, California—If you’ve never seen Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this might be a good time to catch it at the La Jolla Playhouse. If you have seen it, this may be a good time to see it again and compare it to other productions you’ve seen. I think

  By Carol Davis   SAN DIEGO– “Oh what a night”! The San Diego Repertory Theater has joined forces with San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts and is mounting, as the opening show of its 35th season, the Tony Award winning musical Hairspray. Based on the John Waters 1988 cult film (I happened to

  By Carol Davis   VISTA, California– What’s not to like about Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!? ‘Nuten Honey’, especially if you’ve been to Vista to catch Moonlight’s production of it. It’s upbeat, funny where it needs to be funny, rousing where it needs to be rousing and overall just plain damn solid entertainment. Moreover the

  By Carol Davis   SAN DIEGO–[title of  show], a love letter to musical theatre is a “witty new musical written by two struggling writers about two struggling writers writing a witty new musical,” according to the show’s press release. The two struggling writers who wrote the show are Jeff Bowen (music and lyrics) and

  By Carol Davis   SOLANA BEACH, California—The North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach is smiling from ear to ear these days. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee that garnered two Tony’s and is making its San Diego Premiere (if you don’t count that other one at the Civic Theatre in 2006) has

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO—Way back in 2007 The Old Globe Theatre, as part of its season, brought the Tony Award winning (Book of a musical and original score) musical, “Avenue Q” to San Diego in its West Coast Premiere. At that time Executive Producer of the Old Globe Lou Spisto said that  “Avenue Q”

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — The second of the two Shakespeare plays being mounted on the Lowell Davies Festival Stage is his comedy/farce Taming of The Shrew directed by Ron Daniels. Every now and then companies like to dust off this misogynist piece and see how funny they can make it by just being

By Carol Davis LA JOLLA, California–In Annie Weisman’s world premiere Surf Report now playing at the La Jolla Playhouse in the Mandel Weiss Forum, the waves have yet to break, the water’s flat, the surf is receding and the rip currents are enough to drag you down. Yup, all that and the characters are as

        By Carol Davis   SAN DIEGO — If you’re a softie for a little bit of nostalgia, you might want to pack your snuggie, a thermos of warm coffee/hot chocolate and a warm blanket and head down to Balboa Park where Starlight Musical Theatre is presenting a robust production of the

  By Carol Davis   CORONADO, California–Lamb’s Players Theatre  is mounting a charming, sometimes zany but solid production of Mary Chase’s Harvey. You remember Harvey; he’s the invisible six foot three and a half inch tall white rabbit or pooka no on can see except the loveably eccentric Elwood P. Dowd (David Cochran Heath). Dowd’s