About
Head Crammers: Post-Election Thanksgiving Edition
Our favorite new books, apps, shows and other cultural tidbits to get you through the holiday. more
Shakespeare or Shagspear?
As for the ensemble, Robert Smyth (as “Shagspear”) has all the gravity and mindful elocution to transcend the play’s structural shortcomings. Even when his character’s motivations feel mercurial, Smyth evinces the surefootedness of a desira... more
Photo by Daren Scott
Cultures clash over dinner
The story’s focal character is Amir (Ronobir Lahiri), a Pakistan-born New York attorney with all the trappings of corporate success (Upper East Side dream flat, gorgeous artist wife, $600 dress shirts). But he’s a man deeply conflicted abou... more
Photo by Daren Scott
Cygnet presents August in October
August Wilson is the featured playwright in Cygnet Theatre’s annual fall rotating repertory offering. Seven Guitars and King Hedley II, both part of Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, are set 40 years apart, though they feature several of the same ... more
Intrepid presents an artful comedy
ART is smart. It’s also funny as hell, which makes braving the Gaslamp traffic to see this urbane one-act comedy well worth the effort. more
Photo by Jim Carmody
‘Tiger Style!’ roars, then mews
With its DJ mixing transitions between scenes and its two young protagonists riffing at warp speed about cultural stereotyping, over-parenting and the plain fact that sometimes things suck, playwright Mike Lew’s Tiger Style! at La Jolla Pla... more
Life’s big disappointments inhabit ‘Little Men’
Unlike many a youthful protagonist, Jake’s (Theo Taplitz) life isn’t destroyed upon moving from familiar confines (Manhattan) to a new wild frontier (Brooklyn). more
Head Crammers: Back to School
“The Internet was a wonderful invention. It was a wonderful network which people used to remind other people that they were awful pieces of shit.” It’s a hell of a way to start a novel, and Jarett Kobek’s I Hate The Internet has enough bril... more
Photo courtesy of Broadway San Diego
A 'Beautiful' retrospective
Beautiful is not only an entertaining musical biography of the incomparable Carole King, but a retrospective on the gifted songwriters of the ’60s. more
Ain’t no doubt about it
If you find yourself tapping your feet, singing along and even breaking into a grin during a performance of Ain’t Misbehavin’ , look around. You won’t be alone. more
Seaport pillage?
Last week, the port hosted a two-day open house in a cramped, stuffy, top-floor suite at the San Diego Convention Center so the public could peruse the plans, grill proponents about the details and fill out comment cards that port staff wou... more
Re-creating Camp David history
A pivotal two weeks in history are dramatized in Lawrence Wright’s one-act Camp David. more
Photo by Jim Cox
Lovers star-crossed in 'Constellation'
Relationships are complicated enough without the moments of high drama recurring over and over, and not always in the same way. But in the “multiverse” explained by physicist Marianne, the more grating half of the two lovers in Nick Payne’s... more
Don’t mess with old man river
Way Downriver could have been ponderous and biblically symbolic, in the way that so many scholars view Faulkner’s original story. more
Letter: Berning thoughts
Every Monday morning at the Norman Park senior center, I moderate a discussion group on world affairs. Starting in April, every Thursday evening I’ll run a discussion group on books. My featured selection each week will alternate between fi... more
Photo by John R. Lamb
Bruce Lightner, city council party crasher
Bruce Lightner, the 67-yearold husband of 43 years to the termed-out San Diego City Council President Sherri Lightner, pulls out a tiny, folded-up sticky note and takes a quick glance at it. No talking about the current council members, the... more
Letters: Corporate welfare, no
The Spanos’ quest for a new stadium or a move to Los Angeles reveals a double standard [“Deano Spanos’ lame-duck Chargers,” Feb. 3]. more
A Charger-less, Powerball-type payday
Everybody’s been fantasizing about winning the $1.5 billion-plus Powerball lottery. Newscasts are filled with people talking dreamily about what they’d do with the winnings. Some would hand out cars and homes like Oprah. more