The Arts

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO—Suzan-Lori Parks’ 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning  TopDog/UnderDog marks the end of a remarkable season for ion Theatre Company that has produced some amazing theatre over this season. I say ‘the best for last’ with hesitancy because this season at ion was full of wonderful surprises and excellent theatre and to tag Park’s […]

By Carol Davis CORONADO, California — Confession: I still have my Brownie Pin. Yup! And I have my Girl Scout Pin and my Wings that were used to ‘fly me up’ from Brownie to Girl Scout. They are stored in a small wooden treasure box I put together and varnished in the arts and crafts

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO —When there is no past to reflect on, the now seems the norm and even the ‘now’ is questionable when equality and ‘pride’ in who we are and whom we choose to be our life partners are still being challenged legally and in the court of public opinion. Alexi Kaye

By Carol Davis SOLANA BEACH, California — Melissa James Gibson’s new play This is on stage at The North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach through the end of the month. Gibson’s play revolves around the lives of four 30-something best friends who are in mid-life crisis but have problems articulating what they want for

  By Carol Davis ENCINITAS, California— The Turn of the Screw by Henry James appeared in Collier’s weekly magazine with a prologue followed by a twelve-part ghost story. Between January and April of 1898 it appeared as a serial and was later published in book version.  Then it was probably more frightening to read than

By Carol Davis CARLSBAD, California –When doing what you do best means bringing Sam Shepard back to your stages again and again, then Sam Shepard it is. Buried Child premiered at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in 1978 and was directed by Robert Woodruff. It premiered in New York of that same year and

By Carol Davis ESCONDIDO, California —-Rita McKenzie has been called ‘bold and brassy’. ‘Dynamite’. Call her what you will, but there is no doubt that she embodies the voice, spirit and persona of the bold, brassy and dynamite Ethel Merman. Now, in a limited engagement at the Welk Resort Theatre in Escondido Ms. McKenzie will

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO–T.C. Boyle’s best selling novel Tortilla Curtain has been adapted to stage by Matthew Spangler (he adapted the popular novel The Kite Runner into a stage play) and the San Diego Repertory Theatre is giving it its first airing.  Now in a ninety-minute long (It seemed much longer to this viewer)

By Carol Davis VISTA, California — James Sherman’s 1989 family comedy “Beau Jest” closes out the winter season at Moonlight’s indoor theatre, The Avo. It is just what the doctor ordered for a-laugh-a minute Jewish infused play sprinkled with a bit of good old-fashioned ‘common sense’ (if you will) and a cast up to the

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — Can you imagine being kidnapped by robots? No? Neither can I. Because from the looks of things in playwright Elizabeth Meriwether’s off the wall play Heddatron, a San Diego premiere, the five robots twirling about the stage at ion Theatre Company just don’t listen to reason. Well, why would

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — The first things noticeable when entering the White Theatre at The Old Globe are the nautical accoutrements (Wilson Chin) of heavy ropes defining sections of Johnny-Priest’s Saloon, wooden planks of floor, heavy beams both stumped and tall, lots of coiled ropes, dim yellow lighting (Austin R. Smith), fog and

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — In 1998 the Alfred Uhry (book) Jason Robert Brown (music and lyrics) musical drama Parade closed shortly after it opened at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre. Lincoln Center co produced the show with the Canadian producing company Livent, Inc. One doesn’t usually associate politics with theatre but politics rears

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — The novel A Room With A View by E.M. Forster is a charming period piece that takes place in the early 1900’s. It was published in 1908 as England was on the cusp of sloughing off the repressive Victorian attitudes and readying itself toward more flexible and relaxed attitudes