For more than 400 years, theater people have been trying to get a bead on the volatile bond between Beatrice and Benedick, the epic frenemies from Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing." But…
In "Hairspray," idealistic Baltimore teen Tracy Turnblad becomes famous for teasing and spraying her hair to gravity-defying heights. That's also a good way to describe San Diego Musical The…
A Dublin bus conductor with a passion for the works of Oscar Wilde is at the center of the latest show from the ever-ambitious Coronado Playhouse. Manny Bejarano directs the 2002 musical " b…
For the newlyweds in Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park," the ups and downs of settling into married life are more literal than usual: The pair have moved into a sixth-floor Manhattan flat w…
Plenty of entertainers court controversy; Kathy Griffin, though, has been in something like a long-term relationship with it. And yet maybe nothing could have quite prepared the Emmy- and Gr…
The peppy sorority anthem "Omigod You Guys" is the first song in the movie-inspired musical "Legally Blonde." And "Omigod you've gotta be kidding" was pretty much Kristianne Kurner's first r…
The actors in North Coast Rep's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" work up enough antic comic energy to levitate a fleet of chariots. All that exertion (and talent), though, ca…
Theater is often at its best and most powerful when it says to those who feel overlooked, misunderstood or invisible: You are seen. Of course, theater doesn't always manage to do that " eith…
If you go see "Dr. Seuss's The Lorax" expecting an environment-minded variation on the Old Globe's "Grinch" musical, get ready for a darker shade of green. Both shows feature lime-hued lunkh…
In a more than 40-year career on the San Diego arts scene " including a 22-year stint as local chief of the touring-show presenter Broadway/San Diego " Joe Kobryner has witnessed enough cult…
As tales of theatrical baptism go, Martyna Majok's is pretty hard to top: She saw her first play, "Cabaret" on Broadway, with money she won playing pool while still a teen-ager. Actually, th…
The exotic Truffula tree may not exactly be native to San Diego " its natural habitat being books instead of back yards. But the story that surrounds the tree is very much of our town: It wa…
The intimation of intimacy in the title of "The King and I" belies the sheer size of the sumptuous touring production that just opened at the San Diego Civic Theatre. With its scads of cast …
Performances taking the stage this July in San Diego include Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, Disney's Newsies, Legally Blonde the Musical and On Your Feet!
"All the world's a stage," as Shakespeare never said in "The Tempest." That much-quoted line actually is from "As You Like It," but it would fit nicely into the Bard's more fantasy-drenched …
The premise for The Roustabout Theatre Co.'s new comedy "Romeo, Romeo & Juliet" can be told in a nutshell: She loves him, but he loves another him. Yet despite the script's basic love triang…
As it gets set to launch its sixth edition, San Diego's sprawling celebration of unorthodox performance might be in danger of an identity crisis. After all, what happens when a fringe festiv…
A musical with sweet vintage tunes, summer love, steamy Mediterranean nights, some baby-mama drama and a character of random Australian extraction? Hey, let's call it "Greece!" (Or is that n…
In a lifetime spent onstage and on-screen, Kate Burton has done 14 Broadway shows, dozens of movies and TV series and, somewhere in there, plenty of Shakespeare as well. But until now, she h…
La Jolla Playhouse's latest resident theater company is a troupe whose work on small stages around San Diego has had some outsize impact over the past three years. The Playhouse has announce…
Shows and artists with links to San Diego weren't quite so prominent at last night's Tony Awards as they have been in past years. But there were a few to be found. San Diego-connected nomine…
There might be a heavy favorite or two among hopefuls for tonight's Tony Awards, the annual Broadway theater honors. But only one 2018 honoree is guaranteed to take everyone else to the clea…
"School of Rock": When: Opens June 13. 7 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6 p.m. Sunday. Through June 17. Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 11…
It seems entirely right for a musical that's set amid the splendors of a Mediterranean island to be staged outdoors. Or alfresco, to honor the Italian title of this Greece-set show whose sco…
There's a line from Anita Bryant's best-known song that goes: Like a big red rose made of paper / There isn't any sweetness in your heart. "Paper Roses" doesn't appear in "The Loneliest Girl…