Milo Shapiro

NOSTALGIA LOADED — AND EYE SAFETY ENSURED The 1983 film A Christmas Story may not have been universally crowned a “classic” when it premiered, its near-universal popularity and nostalgic look back at Christmas in 1940 have long since earned it that status. San Diego Musical Theatre brings back the musical version in which we meet…

HER MIND, OUR MEMORY Kenneth Lonergan’s family fissures hit hard in Backyard Renaissance’s intimate staging What an incredibly robust month November has been for smaller theaters in San Diego: the fun of To My Girls at Diversionary; a gloriously intense one-woman performance in Beauty’s Daughter at OnWord; a delicious character study in Master Class at…

BEAUTY GETS MORE THAN SKIN DEEP Beauty’s Daughter is a one-woman play by Dael Orlandersmith that centers on Diane, a young Black woman growing up in East Harlem, as she navigates a world marked by violence, beauty, trauma, and resilience. Marti Gobel portrays six different characters consecutively before returning to the first one, Diane. No…

CALLOUS CALLAS CASTS A CAPTIVATING CHARACTER Maria Callas (1923-1977) was unquestionably one of the finest opera singers of the twentieth century. The mix of her great talent with her being difficult, petulant, and opinionated only served to heighten people’s interest in her and boost her fame, as did her very public love life, including a…

A DELIGHTFUL LITTLE SCRIPT—FOR SHAW! Best known for Pygmalion (which was adapted into My Fair Lady), Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw challenged people’s views on social issues, including class structure. In his Arms and the Man, there’s a clear message of celebrating the letting go of putting on airs, as well as a hard look at…

SMALL IS EPIC In his exceptional how-to book Storyworthy, author and storyteller Matthew Dicks advises us to stop recounting tales that few can relate to — like the time you climbed Mt. Everest — and instead share stories that help others see themselves in similar moments. That’s how a story connects. Robert Montano does exactly…

BESIDE MYSELF WITH PRAISE When the lights came up at the end of Act I of Beside Myself, my immediate reaction was, “No!” I was so invested in the proceedings of this stupendous world premiere that waiting fifteen minutes to see what happens next seemed criminal. Such is the payoff of Paul Slade Smith’s writing…

THE MAGNOLIAS MAY BE STEELY, BUT THEY STILL SMELL PRETTY SWEET For over 80 years, Lamplighters Community Theatre has been providing an important role in San Diego’s theatre scene: creating a space for non-professional actors to come together to do quality work at affordable ticket prices. Part of their sweet spot is their knack for…

A GREAT 70s TRIBUTE HAS VINYL-LY ARRIVED Normally, calling a show predictable isn’t a compliment. But when I heard that director Kerry Meads and musical director Vanda Eggington were once again teaming up for a musical tribute, The 70s! The Golden Age Of The Album, I predicted a joyous celebration of feel-good music, performed by…

STILL PLENTY TO DESIRE A Streetcar Named Desire was one of the greatest hits for playwright Tennessee Williams. Born in 1911, he didn’t have any major successes until The Glass Menagerie premiered on Broadway in 1945. While that certainly put him on the theatrical map, it was Elia Kazan’s 1947 staging of Streetcar that truly…

OKLAHOMA! RIDES AGAIN– THIS TIME WITH DEPTH IN THE SADDLE When gay playwright Lynn Riggs wrote the rather dark Green Grow the Lilacs, his eighth play, and saw it produced in 1931, it’s likely he never dreamed it would be turned into an upbeat musical that would still be hitting stages 94 years later. Thirteen…