Posts Tagged ‘Civic Theatre’
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 More‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ Rocks and Shocks at Civic Theatre
Strange thing, it’s mystifying how the songs we grew up with, by then 21-year-old composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and 25-year-old lyricist Tim Rice, don’t sound the same as they did on the old stereo…
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 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 More‘Motown’ Has the Horses, But Story Is Sitting in the Barn
‘Motown the Musical,’ Berry Gordy’s look at the rise of his colossal music empire, makes for a fairly decent concert. The Broadway San Diego entry, however, is far from the monument to history it requires.
Read More