A FASHION ICON WALKS THE RUNWAY AGAIN Well, it’s not exactly a runway, yet Jeanna de Waal, the actor tapped to embody the princess in La Jolla Playhouse’s new musical DIANA, certainly models quite an array of fashions from the Broadway costumer William Ivey Long to stunning effect.…

NO ONE IS ALONE TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS centers on our shared sense of community  The rapt expressions on the faces of fellow theatergoers at Pasadena Playhouse drives that observation home. There are tears as well, occasional sniveling and full-throated laughter, too. This play engenders that sort of response…

ASSIMILATION HAS ITS CHALLENGES The word “sequel” can strike fear in the mind of an avid moviegoer. Why? Well…remember “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2”? Need I say more?  I suppose the same would apply to a theatregoer, although there aren’t too many sequels in this genre. Might you…

RECOVERING WHAT’S LOST A teen suddenly loses a parent and wonders what could have been. Further, the parting words were angry ones. As a result, does she own any responsibility herself? She ponders how she can reconcile her feelings about her parent when nothing is the same anymore.…

SONDHEIM VISITS A PIE SHOP There he was…sitting right across the aisle from me in the New York State Theatre at Lincoln Center (Upper West Side, NYC) in the year 2000. Now I’m not one to worship celebrity per se, but being that close to Stephen Sondheim…

ASSIMILATION CAN BE SEXY! Smart. Fresh. Timely. Innovative. Revelatory. Superbly Acted. Susie Reese and I visit SAN DIEGO REP’s LYCEUM SPACE for VIETGONE. Wowza! We had a *blast* swirling in the middle of this blast from the past. For both of us, the Vietnam story is a vital…

THIS WON’T BE THE “LAST DANCE” FOR SUMMER Well over a year ago I sat comfortably in the MANDELL WEISS THEATRE on the campus of the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for one of the initial previews of LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE’s production of SUMMER: THE DONNA SUMMER…

GET A GRIP!                                  BELLEVILLE. What a romantic environment to get a handle on young love in a still evolving, “green” marriage!  From the top of the show when “Abby” (Anna Camp) first enters the scene and finds her husband “Zack” (Thomas Sadoski) fully engaged with a porn…

ICING ON THE CAKE Quite the parade from LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE lately to the Great White Way in Manhattan, New York City (NYC).Let’s see… fairly recently there were LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS, SIDE SHOW, HANDS ON A HARDBODY, PETER AND THE STARCATCHERS, JUNK, INDECENT and COME FROM AWAY…