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The MOXIE Theatre production of Blue Door

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Exploring Self-Identity through Conversations with Ancestors 

By Yuko Kurahashi

The MOXIE Theatre production of Blue Door by Tanya Barfield, directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, portrays a middle-aged African-American mathematics professor Lewis’s search for his identity and history by bearing witness to the paths of his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father.

Set in the bedroom of his apartment in 1995, Lewis opens the play with a monolog about his wife of 25 years (she never appears on stage) who has just left him, asking for a divorce. According to Lewis, his wife, who is white, is divorcing him because he would not participate in the Million Man March. This historical march held on October 16, 1995, was led by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan who called for black men to gather in Washington, D.C. to reflect and change their roles both in the private and public spheres. Lewis explains his unwillingness to participate in this historical event disappointed his wife.     [Read more…]

Love and Compassion through a Spoof: The Coronado Playhouse Production of ‘Altar Boyz’

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By Yuko Kurahashi

Coronado Playhouse is staging Altar Boyz, directed and choreographed by Michael Mizerany, as the first show of its 71st Season. In the intimate 120-seat theatre space adjacent to the Coronado Community Center, audiences are seated at tables to enjoy beverages and snacks before and during the show.

Set in Coronado at the present time, the Christian band members from a small town in Ohio are performing the last night of their national “Raise the Praise Tour.” The Boys—Mathew (Cody Ingram), Mark (SeeJay Lewis), Luke (Peter Armado), Juan (Patrick Mayuyu), and Abraham (Dennis Peters)—parody such contemporary issues as religious and racial tolerance and identity. Using music and dance from rap, hip-hop, funk, jazz, to modern, the Boys make fun of established religion, including the Catholic Church’s rules and customs in “Church Rules.” The show also criticizes, with humor, the impracticality of sexual abstinence for boys.   [Read more…]

Music as Self-Expression: Hershey Felder in ‘Our Great Tchaikovsky’

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By Yuko Kurahashi

The world-premiere of Hershey Felder’s Our Great Tchaikovsky (directed by Trevor Hay and dramaturged by Meghan Maiya) at the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s Lyceum Stage portrays Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s life (1840-1893) and music.

During the show’s run (January 12-February 12), the Repertory Theatre is also exhibiting the work of Boris Malkin (1908-1973) in its newly renovated gallery. A Belarusian (formerly Soviet Union) artist, Malkin created hundreds of works ranging from oil paintings, watercolors, drawings to wood sculpture and scenic design. The exhibition serves as a wonderful preshow.   [Read more…]

A Performance for Social Justice: The Life and Times of Patricia Prewitt

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COUNT TIME! — A Theater Production

Yuko Kurahashi

Since 1986 Patty has been incarcerated with no hope of parole until 2036. She is currently locked away in the Women’s Eastern Reception Diagnostic Correctional Center (WERDCC) in Vandalia, Missouri. Drawing upon her interviews with Patty, her daughter, lawyers, friends, a sister inmate, as well as portraying the prosecutor in his own words from his book: Practice To Deceive, Townsend crafted and has performed the piece to raise public awareness of the injustice Patty and her family continue to endure. The piece also addresses how other incarcerated individuals suffer injustice under our punitive criminal justice system.

Townsend met Patty Prewitt through the late Daniel H. Kohl, who served for many years on the board of directors of St. Louis’s Prison Performing Arts organization. In 2013, Kohl approached Townsend at a fundraiser for the Actor’s Theatre of St. Louis.   [Read more…]

‘I Am Not Your Negro’ Will Introduce James Baldwin to a New Generation

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By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos

There are voices we all need to hear. At a time when the United States is once again faced with our chilling legacy of racism and other ills including sexism, homophobia, and economic inequality, one of the most powerful voices from our recent past is speaking out again through the medium of documentary film.

It is the voice of James Baldwin. The film, I Am Not Your Negro, will be opening in movie theaters on Feb. 3.   [Read more…]

‘IN THE VA VA VOOM ROOM’ Captures Diversity, Complexity and Transformation

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By Yuko Kurahashi

Michael Mizerany presents the second installment of his cabaret series IN THE VA VA VOOM ROOM, “a contemporary burlesque,” at Diversionary Theatre through this weekend only. For the first installment presented in January 2016 was described by critics “fun” and “titillating.” Both words are easily applied to this year’s installment.

Award-winning dancer and choreographer, Mizerany performed with San Diego’s Malashock Dance and served as associate artistic director until 2013. Currently Mizerany is the artistic director for Compulsion Dance & Theater. He has presented a number of works at Diversionary Theatre, including [manhandled], Man Clan, Hot Guys Dancing, and A New Brain.

This second installment of IN THE VA VA VOOM ROOM proves Mizerany and his collaborators’ excellence in choreography, dramatization, theatricalization and dancing. Different types of dance—many of them using Horton Technique—include contemporary, modern, heel, pole, erotic, and stripping, choreographed by Andrew Holmes, Caryn Ipapo-Glass, Zaquia Mahler Salinas, Cara Steen, and Michael Mizerany.   [Read more…]

Movie Review: The Many Resistances of Rogue One

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By Daniel Gutierrez / Medium.com

There’s no doubt that the latest Star Wars film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, provides an uncanny reflection of our own times. The movie was released at the tail-end of a year that saw the death of countless poets, the demise of popular democracy across multiple countries, and the increasingly visible reconfiguration of a nationalist tendency throughout the global north. Looking towards next year, with the coming elections in both Germany and France, it should be clear that 2016 was not just one unjust, anomalous year — rather, its the first bad year in a new cycle defined by injustice.

Likewise, Rogue One allows a preview into a world defined by a long cycle of injustice, where popular forces have been beat back for decades under the iron grip of authoritarianism. This long wave of loss is feelable throughout the film — the dirty surroundings that define the home-bases and the avenues of rebellious factions, the constant necessity to hide oneself and not cause attention, the constant worry of each and every character of having been fed yet another half-truth wrapped in deception.   [Read more…]

Mon Dieu! C’est ‘Manifest Destinitis’ at San Diego Rep

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Molière is smiling. The multi-talented actor and playwright, Herbert Siguenza, has breathed new life into his play, The Imaginary Invalid. Manifest Destinitis is set two centuries later in 19th century “old or Alta California”. This high energy play is also brimming with clever and scathing 21st century social commentary on the upcoming election, Trump and his ‘wall’, and the present day health care system.

Siguenza is becoming a San Diego treasure in the theater world with his plays, Steal Heaven, An Evening with Pablo Picasso, El Henry (a favorite of mine), and now Manifest Destinitis.   [Read more…]

77 Minutes Focuses on the Victims of the San Ysidro McDonalds Massacre

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On a busy afternoon in 1984, a white man entered a McDonalds and for 77 minutes shot and then re-shot customers and employees. 21 people died and 19 were wounded. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in United States history.

That very day, the killer had been up in Clairemont Mesa arguing to a judge against a parking ticket. He then ate at a McDonald’s without incident. Originally from Ohio, the shooter had moved to Tijuana, but lost his job there and then came to San Ysidro and worked as a security guard.

Notice how I refuse to say the name of the killer. Charlie Minn, director of a new documentary about the McDonald’s Massacre in San Ysidro, also refuses to pay much attention to that individual. A filmmaker known for telling gut-wrenching stories— including Murder Capital of the World and Es El Chapo?—Minn began interviews for the San Ysidro film last May 2016. His focus was on the victims and their lingering pain even after thirty years.   [Read more…]

Ramon ‘Chunky’ Sanchez: Singing My Way to Freedom

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Art and life seamlessly merged a few weeks ago at Border X Brewery in Barrio Logan. It was the site of a launch party for Emmy award winning filmmaker Paul Espinosa’s latest project, a full length documentary about San Diego activist and musician Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez. It was a career milestone for both Espinosa, who is probably best known in San Diego for his critically acclaimed production of The Lemon Grove Incident and Chunky whose music has been a voice for social justice for over thirty years.   [Read more…]

Ayad Akhtar’s JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt

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By Yuko Kurahashi

The world-premiere of Ayad Akhtar’s JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt, directed by Doug Hughes, is currently playing at La Jolla Playhouse.

JUNK’s pivotal character is Robert Merkin, a financier, loosely based on bond traders from the junk-bond era of the 1980s such as Michael Milken. Merkin helps Israel “Izzy” Peterman, a businessman, to wage a hostile takeover of a Dow Jones industrial steel company owned by Thomas Everson, the grandson of the founder.   [Read more…]

Fame and Fortune: Moxie’s ‘Ruthless!’ and the Cygnet’s ‘Gypsy’

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It is probably a coincidence, but two very different theatre companies are showcasing the topics of fame and the price people are willing to pay to achieve it—specifically as it pertains to mothers and daughters. Ruthless! The Musical is playing at the Moxie and Gypsy is playing at the Cygnet. Though the topics are similar, greed, ego, and ambition—the treatment and the motivations are very different.   [Read more…]

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