SAMMY
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
Say the name Sammy to anyone over a certain age and the first (and perhaps the only) person to come to mind will be the one and only Sammy Davis Jr. It’s therefore entirely fitting that Davis’s musical biography, now playing to audience cheers at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, should be titled Sammy. Just Sammy. Simply Sammy. A name that is synonymous with entertainment.
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I LOVE YOU BECAUSE
Sunday, September 6th, 2009
I Love You Because is one of the funniest and most delightful new musicals of the past few years. It has one of the most tuneful, memorable scores you’re likely to hear this year or next. It’s also the most unabashedly romantic musical comedies ever. Its San Diego premiere at North Coast Repertory is a reminder that yes, indeed, there are times that big city L.A. theater is trumped by its neighbor to the south.
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THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP
Monday, August 10th, 2009
A young woman arrives at a grand and stately manor, the second wife of its handsome owner, only to be surrounded by memories of wife number one, particularly those brought up by the mansion’s sinister housekeeper. (That’s Alfred Hitchcock-Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca, right?) Among the household staff is a hunchback swineherd who turns into a werewolf whenever the moon is full. (What? You don’t remember that from Rebecca?) Another household worker is rumored to be one of those “beings who never die,” aka a Vampire. (Now that sounds like Dracula!) Our widowed, remarried hero journeys to Cairo where his presence brings a long-dead Egyptian mummy back to life. (What kind of movie mishmash is this? Have we died and gone to horror movie heaven, or hell?)
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THE FIRST WIVES CLUB
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
Take a hit movie about a trio of 40something wives getting even with husbands who’ve abandoned them for younger women, add songs written by a trio who can truly be called legendary, cast the show with some of Broadway’s finest performers—and you have The First Wives Club, a thoroughly entertaining new musical now in its pre-Broadway run at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, under the brisk direction of Francesca Zambello.
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TWIST
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
“A baby’s born to be adored, and cuddled, hugged, and kissed. But not this one. He’s no one’s son. He’s all alone. He’s Twist.”
Sound familiar? An abandoned newborn in mid-19th Century London grows up in an orphanage, and when he makes the mistake of asking, “Please sir, may I have some more?”, is promptly sold to an undertaker, then falls in with a gang of miscreants under the thumb of a wily leader named Fagin. All the while, said comely youth indulges in all manner of S&M/B&D games in a Victorian England of leather boots, pimps, whips, whores, chains, fish-net stockings, cross-dressers, and scoundrels of every sexual persuasion and perversion.
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THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
Diversionary Theatre’s production of The Little Dog Laughed makes several things perfectly clear. First, that despite the out, proud, and successful-as-ever Neil Patrick Harrises and T.R. Knights et al, the closet is alive and well in Hollywood. Second, that Douglas Carter Beane’s comedy may be the funniest Broadway show yet about gay movie stars, lesbian agents, and bisexual hustlers. Third, and the best news of all for San Diego audiences, Diversionary’s cast of four locally-based actors stands up very nicely to their Broadway counterparts, thank you very much.
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FACING EAST
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
The religious bigotry that led in large measure to the passage of Prop 8 last November is given a human face in Carol Lynn Pearson’s powerful one-act play, Facing East, now being brought beautifully to life by San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre.
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AS MUCH AS YOU CAN
Saturday, January 10th, 2009
Diversionary Theatre’s production of Paul Oakley Stovall’s As Much As You Can couldn’t come at a more appropriate moment, November’s Yes On 8 victory having focused attention on the African American community’s attitudes towards gays and lesbians in general and same-sex marriage in particular. These timely topics form the heart of Stovall’s perceptive, thought-provoking, hopeful, and downright hilarious comedy, a contemporary gay take on Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.
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