Theatre, Film & Broadcast

By Carol Davis VISTA, California—“Sweeny Todd”, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler (based on Christopher Bond’s 1973 play) is not your usual run-of-the mill happy musical. It’s dark, bloody, broody, deliciously wicked and gruesome in tone and look and it is revenge-driven. At times it is sprinkled with some pretty […]

By Carol Davis CARLSBAD, California–Bernard Slade’s 1975 comedy Same Time Next Year is kind of little sleeper (no pun intended) of a play. It’s a bitter sweet love story about two people, Doris and George who over the course of 25 years meet each other once a year in Mendocino, California, in a comfortable room

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO—So far it’s two for two at Diversionary Theatre. This summer Harmony Kansas brought cheers from the community with its excellent staging of the Bill Nelson, Anna K. Jacobs musical about conflicts in the farming community of Kansas when two gay young men join a join a gay men’s chorus. Now

By Carol Davis SOLANA BEACH, California—North Coast repertory Theatre in Solana Beach is celebrating its 31st season. For this, a big Shout Out is due. On the occasion of this birthday, they are also mounting the San Diego Premiere of Steve Martin’s adaptation of Carl Sternheim’s 1911 Die Hose or translated, The Underpants. Tantalizing? Titillating? 

By Carol Davis ENCINITAS, California — If anyone ever told me that I would be sitting through a performance of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and listening to the small group of wandering wanna be actors doo whopping to “Life Could Be a Dream, Shaboom”, I would have called them out for it. And if

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO—If twenty-five years of sustainability for a Broadway show aren’t something to crow about, I don’t know what is. I can’t recall the very first time I saw Les Misérables, based on the Victor Hugo 1862 novel and put to music, on a grand scale, by Claude-Michael Schönberg with Herbert Kretzmer’s lyrics

By Carol Davis CORONADO, California —Farce: sham, circus, mockery, travesty, absurd situation. Call it what you like, but See How They Run is all of the above. Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado has little gift for you as the closing months of summer make way for the seriousness of fall. It comes in the form

  By Carol Davis VISTA, California —One cannot escape the relaxed atmosphere under the stars in Vista, in particular under the stars at Vista’s Moonlight Amphitheatre. It’s here where aromas of home packed dinners and snacks permeate the air and theatergoers sit back in their seats with glasses of whatever washing down the goodies waiting

By Carol Davis LA JOLLA, Callifornia—To quote Bertrand Russell “War does not determine who is right- only who is left”. Imagine wandering around the world telling the same story, singing the same song for three thousand years? Now imagine how tiring it must be after pouring your heart out telling this story, this tale of

By Carol Davis CHULA VISTA, California —James Goldman’s 1966 Broadway play, The Lion In Winter premiered at the Ambassador Theatre. It was quickly made into a movie in 1968. Based on Goldman’s play, the audiences ate up the movie and Audrey Hepburn took home an Oscar for her excellent portrayal of the conniving yet somewhat neglected

By Carol Davis  SAN DIEGO— Judging from its longevity, Alter Boyz which began its run Off Broadway in March of 2005 and closed on Jan. 2010, making it the ninth longest Off-Broadway musical, there is something some might find appealing at the core of this off-beat musical.  It was the winner of the Outer Critics

 By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — In this day of ‘throw away’ there are a few treasures worth keeping. Take for example the Jerry Herman (music and lyrics) and Harvey Fierstein (book) La Cage Aux Folles based on the 1973 French play of the same name by Jean Poiret.  The show first hit Broadway in