San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
San Diego’s top 10 shows
Despite the theater industry’s financial challenges, there were plenty of great productions in the region this year
Every year I see more than 100 theater productions around San Diego County, and I also vacation in New York City and see from 12 to 16 Broadway plays and musicals. Comparing what I see here and there on a year-to-year basis, I’m constantly impressed at how lucky we are in San Diego to have such a wealth of theatrical talent. Although the theater industry has been challenged by rising costs and shrinking audiences, there was much to admire on local stages this year. Here are my 10 favorite theater and opera productions from 2023.
‘Public Enemy’ — New Fortune Theatre
Nothing topped the visceral thrills of watching this edge-of-theseat thriller directed by and starring Richard Baird, who cofounded New Fortune in 2014 with his partner Amanda Schaar (who co-starred in this production). New Fortune landed the West Coast premiere of Scottish playwright David Harrower’s 90-minute modern adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play about a crusading Norwegian doctor who loses everything in his fight for the public good against his town’s corrupt leaders. Harrower’s muscular, updated language gave the play a contemporary sharpness, and Baird’s incredible performance as the self-destructive doctor was phenomenal. I’ve watched Baird mature as an actor over the past 20 years, and this was his most fearless, raw and compelling performance I can remember.
‘The Outsiders’ — La Jolla Playhouse
This musical by Adam Rapp, Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Justin Levine will make its Broadway premiere in March, but San Diegans got to see it first last spring. It’s based on S.E. Hinton’s 1967 coming-of-age novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation about a gang of orphaned and abused boys fighting to survive in 1965 rural Oklahoma. I predict the show will do well in New York. The novel and film have a devoted teen fan base, and the physical production — complete with the film’s memorable gang fight in the rain — is thrilling. One of my favorite performers from the La Jolla production, Ryan Vasquez (as Ponyboy’s older brother Darrel), isn’t carrying on with “Outsiders.” Instead he’ll play the Ryan Gosling role of Noah in the upcoming Broadway stage adaptation of “The Notebook,” which will mostly likely be another Broadway hit.
‘August: Osage County’ — Backyard Renaissance Theatre Co.
Over the past few years, Backyard Renaissance has seemed to specialize in dark, spooky plays. The most ambitious to date was its fall production of Tracy Letts’ 2008 Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning play about a troubled Oklahoma family gathered for the funeral of their patriarch, a hard-drinking poetry lover who has drowned himself. The three-hour production had a stellar cast of 13 moving in and around a massive threestory house built inside the Tenth Avenue Arts Center in East Village. This was the first time the play was produced in San Diego since the Old Globe production in 2011 and — with a fraction of the budget of the Globe — Backyard ably pulled it off. Francis Gercke’s direction was touching, funny and a bit creepy.
‘Sunday in the Park With George’ — CCAE Theatricals
CCAE Theatricals — which recently transition from the inhouse theater producer at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, to an independent nonprofit — presented the bestsung and most lavish regional production that I’ve seen of this rarely performed Stephen Sondheim-james Lapine musical about art, inspiration and the uncompromising 19th-century French painter Georges Seurat. New York theater actor Will Blum was exceptional as both Seurat and his great-grandson, as was Emily Lopez as Seurat’s muse. The physical production — scenery, lighting, projections, sound, costumes and conducting of a live orchestra — was first-rate, as well. CCAE is now rebuilding itself with a new base of donors. I hope that its track record of excellence will help it find the support it needs to continue producing ambitious, high-level work as it has done in the past.
‘Ripped’ — Loud Fridge Theatre Group
Loud Fridge Theatre Group made a lot of noise in its first full season of shows this year, beginning with this dark, shape-shifting play by former San Diego playwright Rachel Bublitz. The play, directed by company co-founders John Wells III and Kate Rose Reynolds, deals with the subjects of college date rape and consent, but the female victim in this story was so intoxicated she can’t remember the exact details. The messy gray areas of the relationship between these characters unfold in nonlinear fashion and leave the audience guessing, and sometimes squirming with dread, to the end. The spellbinding 80minute drama featured intense and authentic performances by three talented young actors: Amira Temple, Devin Wade and Marcel Ferrin.
‘Tosca’ — San Diego Opera
Opera companies around the United States have struggled to recover from the pandemic. Older audiences, the perennial breadand-butter of the industry, returned in much smaller numbers in 2022 and 2023, forcing companies — from San Diego Opera to the Metropolitan in New York — to tighten their belts and reimagine their seasons. So it was a great pleasure last March to see San Diego Opera’s lavish production of Puccini’s “Tosca” performed in the same grand, rich tradition of the past with gorgeous scenery and costumes, a full onstage chorus, the San Diego Symphony in the pit and a trio of world-class, bigvoiced singers in the principal roles. Velvet-voiced soprano Michelle Bradley sang and acted the role of the jealous Roman opera singer with perfection; bass-baritone Greer Grimsley was the ultimate villain as Scarpia; and in his San Diego debut as the doomed painter Mario, Argentine tenor Marcelo Puente impressed.
‘The Ferryman’ — New Village Arts
Jez Butterworth’s epic Tonywinning 2017 play about the Irish Troubles, “The Ferryman,” had major runs at large theaters in London and on Broadway. Then the pandemic hit. When theaters finally reopened, the much-indemand drama’s very first production worldwide was in the 100-seat theater at New Village Arts in Carlsbad. It was a coup for the local theater, but also a massive challenge. The play requires 21 actors, well-coached Northern Irish accents, a live infant, goose and rabbit, cooking onstage, dancing, singing and realistic fight choreography. Plus, the play runs three and a half hours. Directed by NVA founder Kristianne Kurner, the production was impressive in its ambition and its scale and faithful to Butterworth’s intentions. It wasn’t a perfect production, but it was a big stretch for a small company that has been doing great things in North County.
‘The Cherry Orchard’ — North Coast Repertory Theatre
The works of 19th-century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov show up surprisingly often on San Diego stages. His stories of family dysfunction and longing may take place nearly 150 years ago, but his characters are relatable and the poetry of his language is serene. North Coast Rep artistic director David Ellenstein’s wonderful production of this classic drama had the expected elements of loss and ennui, but it also had unexpected moments of humor as well as a blue-chip cast. Standouts included Sofia Jean Gomez, James Sutorius, Katie Macnichol, Richard Baird and Bruce Turk.
‘Dragon Mama’ — Diversionary Theatre
One of the great joys of watching live theater is seeing a solo play where one actor — with little more than their voice and physicality — transforms into a village of characters. That’s talent. But what made
Seattle actor-playwright Sara Porkalob’s one-woman play “Dragon Mama” pure magic is that she wrote the play about her own mother’s teen awakening as a queer woman. The story is fascinating, and Porkalob played 15 or 16 characters and sang several songs in the two-hour comedydrama. “Dragon Mama” is the centerpiece of a three-play cycle. The first play, “Dragon Lady,” is about Porkalob’s great-grandmother, and the final play, “Dragon Baby,” is about her own life. I hope Diversionary brings her back for both plays to complete the Dragon Cycle in San Diego.
‘The XIXTH (The Nineteenth)’ — The Old Globe
I’m not a sports fan, but I was fascinated by Kemp Powers’ creatively imagined world premiere drama “The XIXTH (The Nineteenth).” Powers, the screenwriter for the historically inspired film “One Night in Miami,” took another well-known moment in time and explored it in this entertaining and thought-provoking play. At the 1986 Olympic Games, medalwinning U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists in a silent protest for Black power, freedom and unity. They paid for their actions for the rest of their lives. The play hopscotched back and forth through time, meeting the athletes as old men first and then traveling back to their first meeting. Carl Cofield’s direction was particularly memorable in how he re-created their sprints with snapshot-like freeze frames, and the performances of Korey Jackson as the likable everyman Smith and Biko Eisen-martin as the fiery activist Carlos contrasted beautifully.