San Diego

DUBLIN YOUR PLEASURE WITH GOOD DRAMA AND COMEDY With a somewhat-forgettable title and a rather vague plot summary on the website, one walks into Outside Mullingar not quite sure what they are going to see. By the end of the first scene of this 95-minute one-act play, one could still be wondering: “Is this going…

THE HOUR HAS COME The Trinity Theatre in Mission Valley is currently presenting a too-brief revival of A. G. Gurney‘s comedy-drama The Cocktail Hour. The show originally debuted in 1988 at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre and went on to a run in New York City. The Cocktail Hour has been labeled a comedy of…

KNOWING WHICH IS WITCH The word “crucible” has two very different meanings. One is a pot in which substances are heated to high temperatures. Another is a situation in which people are severely tested. Which definition is The Crucible based on? A case could easily be made for either and likely both for playwright Arthur…

THE THREADS THAT BREAK The African-American playwright Lynn Nottage sits atop the honor role of American playwrights from the first two decades of the 21st century — she has written a dozen full-length plays, two of which (Sweat  and  Ruined) won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and she wrote the book for the hit MJ The Musical….

A REALLY BIG SHOW The San Diego area does not lack for productions of A Christmas Carol this holiday season. Fortunately, fans of the Charles Dickens classic who would welcome a more hip version of the novel need go no further than Ebenezer Scrooge’s BIG San Diego Christmas Show at The Old Globe. (front) Dan…

MATHEMATICAL PLOT ADDS UP TO SOLID DRAMA David Auburn is brave. Writing and marketing a play that, on the surface, centers on math sounds like a recipe for disaster. In a world where most adults pray that the tip at a restaurant will appear pre-calculated for them at the check’s bottom, selling a play about…

GRINCHING FROM EAR TO EAR I attended a recent late afternoon performance of the Old Globe holiday production of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas with some trepidation. I braced myself for mingling among restless children fidgeting in their seats while their adult keepers periodically shushed them to maintain some semblance of order. Tommy…

OVER THE MOON In much of our lives, we get to choose the people we surround ourselves with. Shy of that, we’re at least usually around those with whom we share some common interest, such as taste in movies or having kids on the same soccer team. And then there are those locations where we…

SHE AIN’T LITTLE AND SHE AIN’T NO FELLOW! The Little Fellow is playwright Kate Hamill’s account of the life of the infamous high-society se퓳 worker Harriette Wilson (1786 – 1845).   Harriette counted many of England’s nobility among her clientele. She was known to be a savvy, wise-mouthed, outspoken individual and found men who liked that…