Milo Shapiro

HOW TO SUCCEED IN HISTORY WITHOUT REALLY TELLING IT Meet Lettice Douffet (Bobbi Randall), an eccentric tour guide at Fustian House, a drab Tudor mansion. Burdened with delivering its painfully dull history to visitors, she finds the plain facts intolerable. Instead, Lettice gradually begins to embellish wildly, weaving dramatic tales of intrigue, passion, and bloodshed…

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…

UNNECESSARY, PERHAPS, BUT DELICIOUS! Wikipedia defines farce as “a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable.” Director Robert May and his cast at Scripps Ranch Theatre make sure that is exactly what we’re getting from playwright Paul Slade Smith’s enchanting Unnecessary Farce. Danny Lovelle…

FORGET THE USUAL – MOXIE IS SERVING A TENDER STORY WITH A SIDE OF TRUTH Not every good story needs to take you around the world in eighty days or off to a magical land with wizards; sometimes, a simple, well-written interaction between regular people whom one might meet at, say, a store, can be…

COMFORTABLE HOMEY FOLK SHARE A SWEET STORY Book and music creators Steve Martin (yes, THAT Steve Martin) and Edie Brickell heard a true story from 1902 and became somewhat obsessed with it. They brainstormed a purely fictional account of what could have led up to that moment (most of Act I), the actual moment itself…

MUSICAL ROM-COM PROM IS DA BOMB! Oh, the high school prom! Has any event, short of one’s wedding perhaps, ever been given more stress-inducing over-attention? Who to bring, what to wear, how to get there, corsages, after-parties, and more—it’s amazing it ever goes well. So, what a great setting for a play where the main…

SWEETLY PLAYFUL TREATMENT OF A COMPLICATED PLOT The prolific author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was the creator of 66 novels, 14 volumes of short stories and 20 plays, ten of which have been published. Half of her novels involved a quirky, fussy little Belgian private detective named Hercule Poirot solving mysteries of murder. Ironically, Christie hated…

WHAT’S IN A NAME? A LOT WHEN IT’S “CLINTON” “Feelings are a terrible way to make decisions, Bill.” “Yes, but people don’t think you have any.” Reviewing this show is almost like reviewing two separate factors: the show itself and the experience they are creating. In the talkback afterward, Producing Artistic Director and Education Coordinator…

THESE WINGS ARE FLAMING IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE In our divided nation, there are still a few universals that bring us together. Puppies. Mother’s Day. Pizza. And, tagging close behind on the pizza bandwagon: the deep-fried delight known as “chicken wings.” But the folks at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo who first served them…