Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Chula Vista exhibit to focus on Holocaust survivors

Stephen D. Smith is the executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, which houses the archive of interviews of Holocaust Survivors financed by movie producer Steven Spielberg.  He will be a special guest Jan. 12 at the grand opening of RUTH (Remember Us The Holocaust), a Chula Vista Civic Library exhibit named in honor of the late Holocaust survivor Ruth Sax. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA, Videos

‘The Last Five Years’ pulls heart strings

Jamie Wellerstein and Cathy Hiatt are young, bright, talented and ambitious. Jamie is a writer sending out manuscripts to agents and publishers. Cathy is an actress going from audition to audition. Jamie’s success and Cathy’s lack of it complicate matters. Set Designer Justin Humphries has created a tornado of loose pages tearing through their home filled with packing boxes. [Eric George Tauber]

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Eric George Tauber, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

It’s play time at Twelfth Night

If you were a young woman lost and alone in a strange land, how would you get by? How would you protect yourself from the dangers of a big city? Rescued from a shipwreck, Viola finds herself orphaned and alone in Illyria, a land just across the Adriatic from Italy. So she masquerades as a young man, getting a job as an errand boy for Duke Orsino. And thus, her life gets complicated. [Eric George Tauber]

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Eric George Tauber, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Tao House: Where O’Neill wrote well-known plays

The playwright Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) grew bored and frustrated by what passed for theatre early in his life.  There were few stories told that connected with reality; instead, theater essentially was spectacle – lots of costumes, big sets, predictable plots and one-dimensional characters. He wanted to change all that, suggested Tory Starling, the educational technician at the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site.   He experimented in various forms of theatre. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Lifestyles, The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USA

‘Frankie’ an engrossing work of art

It is set in Portugal, where a large group of friends and family have come to enjoy a brief summer vacation in a wildly beautiful area of the turquoise sea, surrounded by the greenery of a densely packed forest. The woman who has apparently gotten them all together is Frankie, an international film star whose first and second husbands are part of the entourage, plus her adult son, plus her hairdresser and her hair-dresser’s boyfriend, plus people from the neighborhood who show up periodically with opinions and problems of their own. [Cynthia Citron]

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Cynthia Citron, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Scripps oceanographer’s date with a prince

Professor Lisa Levin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla will be awarded the Prince Albert I Grand Medal for science on Nov. 7 in Monaco by Prince Albert II, the principality’s reigning monarch, in a ceremony that also will honor former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

‘Great Torah Roll’ fun at Seacrest Village

Rabbi Leah Herz created a fun-filled Simchat Torah learning session called “The Great Torah Roll”  for residents of the Seacrest Village Retirement Community in Encinitas when she had the entire Torah unrolled and held by staff, volunteers, and residents, some of whom were in wheelchairs. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

JNF: Israel schooling leads to Jewish continuity

Dr. Sol Lizerbram, the Rancho Santa Fe resident who serves as national president of the Jewish National Fund, offers some statistics to back up the claim that sending a teenager to JNF’s Alexander Muss High School program in Israel can contribute in the long run to Jewish continuity.

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Judaism, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USA

‘Never Again is Now’ references Poway shooting

Evelyn Marcus and Rosa Zeegers are a Jewish lesbian couple who uprooted themselves from Holland and moved to the United States because they saw ugly anti-Semitic history repeating itself in Europe.  Anti-Semitic graffiti, beatings, rallies, bombings, and demonstrations all seemed to presage the same kind of Holocaust that their parents had lived through.  Now, they are seeing some of the same troubling signs in the United States — last Passover’s shooting at San Diego County’s own Chabad of Poway being just one example.

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego Calendar, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USA

‘Intimate Apparel’ and a love that couldn’t be

“The Bravest Little Theater That Could” is the name I want to assign to New Village Arts. Each season this little theater tackles new and challenging shows and always pulls them off with aplomb.  Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel completely lives up to this with an immensely talented cast. Brilliant staging delivers a tale that is at once poignant, historically accurate, and tender.

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Eva Trieger, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

‘Bad Hombres, Good Wives’ surprises, pleases

Bad Hombres, Good Wives, a delightful new comedy at the San Diego Repertory Theater, is a cheeky take on Northern Mexico’s narco culture and the relationship between men and women. Written by Playwright in Residence Herbert Siguenza, the play explores the age-old problems of relationships between men and women with a mix of The Importance of Being Ernest, Moliere’s School for Wives, a narco telenovela, and some “Guillermo” Shakespeare thrown in for good measure.

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Mimi Pollack, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast