Posts Tagged ‘Broadway San Diego’
A RomCom by Any Other Name… Wouldn’t Be Pretty Woman
Nostalgia is the name of the game in Pretty Woman: The Musical, playing a one-week run at Broadway San Diego’s Civic Theater from July 26-31, 2022. This production by Grammy winner Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, with book by movie director and screenwriter Gerry Marshall and J. F. Lawton, is exactly what it sounds like: a faithful adaptation of a cherished romcom.
Read MoreA “My Fair Lady” that Draws Gender Battle Lines
Dripping with sexism and class snobbery, “My Fair Lady” is one of those musicals so grating to 21st century sensibilities, one might feel it should remain on the shelf. Ah, but the Lerner-Loewe tunes are magnificent. And any tale that’s persisted from Greek mythology to Shaw’s “Pygmalion” to “Pretty Woman” clearly touches deep psychological chords.
Enter Bartlett Sher, whose “My Fair Lady” shifts the story’s focus from its Pygmalion, the arrogant Henry Higgins, to Eliza Doolittle as a smart, scrappy woman who insists on dictating the terms of her own life.
Read MoreTerrific Tech Effort Doesn’t Justify Displaced ‘Miss Saigon’ Revival
Some 58,000 Americans either died or disappeared in the nation’s thoroughly ill-advised effort to “liberate” Vietnam. Broadway San Diego is currently mounting “Miss Saigon,” a Tony-winning anecdote built around the whole grotesque affair — and while the technical effort is first-rate, the script takes on a multitude of sins with the passage of time.
Read MoreBroadway SD’s So-So ‘Fiddler’ Is on the Wrong Side of Its Own History
It’s been in the national conscience for decades, along with its vigorously implied indictment of anti-Semitism — but even so, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ is subject to the foibles traceable to misinterpretation. The current Broadway San Diego entry serves as a point of fact.
Read MoreBetty Buckley and Dancing Waiters Brighten ‘Hello Dolly!’ at Civic
Buckley is magnetic in monologues: “As my late husband Ephraim Levi, used to say, money—pardon the expression—is like manure. It’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around, encouraging young things to grow.” And hats off to the dancing waiters…who give this ‘ol gem extra gallop…
Read MoreSensational ‘Wicked’ Is At Once Teacher and Cultural Marker
‘Wicked,’ whose rise to untold fame began 15 years ago, harbors life lessons that date to the advent of theater itself. Currently, the colossal Broadway San Diego production serves as an outstanding example.
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