San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Culture / Film & Theater

Get Out the Leather Jackets and the Bandanas: “El Henry” Is Coming to Town

by

El Henry will premiere Saturday June 14th…Shakespeare with a Latino twist.

By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

The Without Walls (WoW) Festival is site specific theater held at different venues throughout San Diego. The La Jolla Playhouse showcased this program in October of last year to great critical acclaim. “While the central idea of Without Walls is about exploring new theatrical forms by moving beyond the traditional four walls of a theater, we’ve found over the past several years that WoW is just as much about collaboration,” said Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley.

The latest WoW production is El Henry, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One, written by and starring Culture Clash’s Herbert Siguenza. Siguenza describes his artistic approach, saying “The original play is about the king and queen of England, my adaptation is about California in the future, the year 2045. I imagined that by that time, California will be in its majority Latino. So, all the characters in this play are Chicano and Latino.”
  [Read more…]

Is There Something Fundamentally Wrong With Societal Expectations of Intimacy and Love?

by

By Doctor RJ for Daily Kos

Human relationships sometimes don’t make a lot of sense. But there’s nothing that says they have to be “fair.” All of us have dreams and desires for the lives we would like to experience and who we think we might want to experience those lives with. Society has a way of making value judgments about a person if they’re a virgin in their 20s or unmarried in their 30s. But the whims of the fates don’t always give us what we want or who we want. Most people don’t go on a shooting spree when they get turned down. However, some do.

  [Read more…]

Classic Children’s Stories Transformed through Electroluminescent Puppetry

by

Moving sculpture and dance update stories of humanity’s universal struggles

By Alejandra Enciso-Guzmán

California, get your kids ready for a unique opportunity when two timeless tales come to the stage at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. On May 17 and 18 Lightwire Theater (New Orleans based) will bring its unique method of storytelling through its signature electroluminescent puppetry. The beloved characters in Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling and Aesop’s fable The Tortoise and the Hare are transformed by the cutting edge technology.

These two performances follow Lightwire Theater’s recent breakout success on America’s Got Talent where they received accolades from the judges and audiences. The production at the Segerstrom Center promises stunning imagery, compelling choreography and stirring music. As I mentioned in the piece regarding Alvin Ailey Dance Company, these types of performances are not around every day; it is indeed a great opportunity to have fun with the family and see new forms of artistic expression.   [Read more…]

A Look at a “Dangerous Friendship”

by

By Ernie McCray

A couple of years ago at a showing of “Sing Your Song,” a documentary that highlights Harry Belafonte’s role in pursuits for human and civil rights, I met Ben Kamin, a scholar who has written much about the social struggles of those times. I just finished reading, with delight, his latest book, “Dangerous Friendship.”

The book puts the spotlight on Stanley Levison, a little known figure in the civil rights movement, who fully dedicated his life to helping Martin Luther King.

Regarding this man, Clarence Jones, another prominent aide to Martin, says “I am extremely upset, and I get angry, 24/7, and have been for many years about the glaring omission of the name and history of Stanley Levison in the civil rights chronicle.”   [Read more…]

California Premier of “Water by the Spoonful” at The Old Globe

by

By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

Over the course of eight years, playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote three plays inspired by the experiences of her cousin, Elliot Ruiz. Each play stands alone, but taken together, the plays follow the history of a family. Each uses a different kind of music–Bach, Coltrane, and Puerto Rican folk music–to trace the coming of age of a bright but haunted young Puerto Rican man.

The first play Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue takes place in 2003-2004, when Elliot is 18 and 19 years old. The piece became a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

The second one, Water by the Spoonful which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Drama is set in 2009, six years after Elliot first left for Iraq. In this play the former marine is back in the United States working at Subway and trying to kick-start his acting career. In the final play The Happiest Song Plays Last, Elliot has returned to the Middle East – this time as a consultant on a film about the Iraq War.

The Old Globe ‘went to the middle’ and presented the California premiere of Water by the Spoonful.   [Read more…]

“RED” at the San Diego Repertory Theatre

by

“Stop the heart and think… How fine are we?”

By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

San Diego Repertory Theatre is staging its final production of its thirty-eighth season with RED by John Logan. It is a wonderful and –colorful- end to an eclectic and very well rounded season.

RED is a play with two actors and no intermission. John Vickery plays Mark Rothko, short for Marcus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz, an American painter of Russian Jewish descent. Jason Maddy is Ken, Rothko’s young assistant, aspiring painter and apprentice. San Diego Free Press had the opportunity to chat with the actors about their roles in RED.
  [Read more…]

The Wild Widows Return to Old Town Part 2: Cygnet Theatre

by

By Judi Curry

Following our breakfast at O’Hungry’s, Irene and I left Ro and went up to Ft. Rosecrans to visit our husbands. Irene made the comment that the only good thing about our husbands passing was that we met each other. When it is our time to leave this earth, Irene and I will be only a few rows apart and will be able to still converse with each other.

Following our visit to the cemetery, we went back to Old Town to the Cygnet Theatre to see the play Spring Awakening. Ro was the House Manager on this particular day and could not watch the play with us but will see it at a later time.

Spring Awakening is a winner of 8 Tony Awards including Best Musical. It is based on a play that was originally written in 1891, but it is so contemporary it could have been written in our time.   [Read more…]

A Review of “Cesar Chavez” the Film: Sí, Se Puede

by

By Byron Morton/ OBRag

Cesar Chavez shows the political evolution and the struggles of the man behind the movement during the 1960s to organize the farm workers in California. Through the United Farm Workers (UFW) Chavez (played by Michael Peña) brings bargaining rights and dignity for the impoverished farm workers. The UFW motto during this time was “Sí, se puede” or yes, it is possible.

It is important to remember at that time in the 1960s the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 did not protect farm workers and others. The Act “is a foundational statute of US labor law which guarantees basic rights of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining for better terms and conditions at work, and take collective action including strikes if necessary.”   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review: Bistro 60

by

Bistro 60
5987 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92115
619-287-8186

Some time ago, I remember going to San Diego Desserts to talk to the owners about allowing some of my culinary arts students from San Diego Job Corps to do an internship with them. The bakery had been recommended highly by my two culinary arts chefs, and we thought it would be a wonderful experience for the students. Shortly after meeting with the owners, I left San Diego for a position at Penobscot Job Corps in Maine and do not know if our students had the intern experience there or not.

Much later, around 2008 or so, I heard that people could eat their desserts in the restaurant, and it was obvious that it was no longer just a wholesale bakery. Later on I heard that food had been added to the menu, and then wine, and beer, etc.

Recently, a friend and I purchased tickets to the Moxie theater just down the street from the bistro, and it gave me a perfect opportunity to drop in and have dinner before the opening curtain.   [Read more…]

Bedtime with Moxie

by

Moxie Theater
6663 El Cajon Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92115
www.moxietheatre.com
858-598-7620

By Judi Curry

When was the last time you were invited to wear your pajamas to a party?  When was the last time you were told to wear your pajamas out in public? When was the last time you were invited to a pillow fight – only if you were wearing your sleeping gear?

When was the last time you were told that “costumed guests will enjoy a Pillow Fight Photo Booth, Naughty Night Cap Beverages, Live Lullabies and Bedtime Stories performed by local celebrities?

And when were you told that one of those celebrities was none other than the Interim Mayor of San Diego, Todd Gloria?   [Read more…]

The American Dream in San Diego Rep’s DETROIT

by

San Diego Repertory Theatre presents Detroit by Lisa D’Amour as the fifth production of the company’s 38th season.

By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

A young couple, Ben and Mary (played by Steve Gunderson and Lisel Gorell-Getz) are comfortably settled into their suburban lifestyle just outside a major American city. Then Sharon and Kenny, a pair of free spirits (Summer Spiro and Jeffrey Jones) suddenly move into the long-empty house next door.

Playwright Lisa D’Amour uses this setting to challenge the American cultural assumptions about status, comfort, ambition, and community. The New York Times describes how the setting– “A friendly suburban barbecue spirals into a delirious, dangerous bacchanal…”   [Read more…]

Sanctuary: 7th Annual Dia de la Mujer Juried Art Exhibition to Open

by

An all woman’s art exhibition, a film screening and a very womanly celebration

By Leticia Gomez Franco 

Casa Familiar’s THE FRONT will once again present their annual ode to women, this year called Sanctuary: 7th Annual Dia de la Mujer Art Exhibition. The group art exhibition features the work of 48 female artists from both sides of the border and will be on view from March 7  to April 24.

With over 50 art pieces on view, the exhibition is a wonderful collection of work, inspired by this years theme: Sanctuary. Artists were invited to explore the idea of sanctuary in its many manifestations as it relates to them as women and builders and creators of their own spaces. With this theme the exhibition curator honors the mission of Día de la Mujer. The art exhibition allows women artists to create real representations of themselves, to counter the powerful stream of visual stimulation spat out by the media, oversaturating our world, with foreign, unrealistic versions of women. Día de la Mujer fosters a safe space for women to be real women and to celebrate that realness, in all of its diverse beauty.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry