Food & Drink | Festivals & Art | Concerts & Theater | More Fun Things to Do

Food & Drink Events in San Diego This Weekend

Prince St. Pizza x Irv’s Burgers Grand Opening Block Party

July 4

Two legendary eateries, originally hailing from Manhattan and West Hollywood, arrive this week at Mission + Garnet Food Hall in Pacific Beach. To celebrate their respective grand openings, Prince St. Pizza and Irv’s Burgers are teaming up for a free Indepence Day block party. From 12 to 4 p.m. this Thursday, attendees will receive a complimentary Irv’s burger, fries, and milkshake combo as well as iconic square slices of Prince St. Pizza. There will also be a DJ, photo booths, and entertainment.

4505 Mission Boulevard, Pacific Beach

Fourth of July Buffet & Fireworks at Garibaldi 

July 4

Garibaldi offers a special dinner buffet this Thursday featuring charcuterie-style appetizers; summertime salads with seasonal fruit; fresh seafood such as rockfish, prawns, and ceviche; and barbecued items like brisket, swordfish, oysters, and pork rack. The buffet is $105 for adults and $45 for children ages 4 to 12 years old; reservations can be made here. Indoor seating is available every 15 minutes from 6:45 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., but, if you want to catch bayside fireworks while you dine, aim for the 8:30 seating on the outdoor patio. 

901 Bayfront Court, Embarcadero

Festivals & Art Exhibits in San Diego This Weekend

Reverberating Notes Opening Reception 

July 5

The San Diego Watercolor Society (SDWS) hosts an opening reception for its new exhibition—featuring more than 95 paintings from SDWS members—from 5 to 8 p.m. during Arts District Liberty Station’s First Fridays event. This free exhibition will be on display during the gallery’s normal hours (from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday) until July 27. Visitors to First Fridays can also check out the grand opening of ceramics gallery Faces by Miche from 4 to 8 p.m.

2825 Dewey Road, Point Loma

San Diego Black Pride Festival

July 5–7

The San Diego Black Pride Festival opens with a pair of events Friday night: the Harmony Hour Kickoff Party and Express Your Essence Mini Ball. Saturday’s all-day fun at the beach begins with the free Fam Bam Beach BBQ from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by the 21-plus Freaknik Beach Party from 5 to 11 p.m. The festival closes out Sunday with the Decadent Day Party from 3 to 9 p.m. at Rich’s in Hillcrest. Tickets are available here. 

Citywide

Lester Machado’s In Pursuit of Light at Union Hall Gallery 

Opens July 6

Local plein air painter Lester Machado’s new exhibition, In Pursuit of Light, will premiere this Saturday at Union Hall Gallery with a free opening reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Fifty new paintings from the San Diego artist, as well as several works that were influential to Machado, will be on display to the public on Fridays from 2 to 6 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. through August 18. 

2323 Broadway, Golden Hill

Athenaeum Summer Festival

Begins July 7

Pianist Gustavo Romero will explore Frédéric Chopin’s artistry over the course of four Sunday afternoons in July as part of the Athenaeum Summer Festival. The first festival performance will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday night in the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Music Room. Tickets to individual shows are $50 for members and $55 for nonmembers; for $200, guests at the performances on the 7th and 28th can enjoy priority seating and dinner following the concerts and get the chance to meet Romero. 

1008 Wall Street, La Jolla

Concerts & Theater in San Diego This Weekend

Fourth of July with The Commodores

July 4

The Rady Shell will host a special Independence Day concert from The Commodores, featuring hit songs like “Brick House” and “Three Times a Lady.” On top of the show-stopping performance from these kings of Motown, audiences will have a spectacular view of the Big Bay Boom. Ticket prices range from $52 to $162. 

222 Marina Park Way, Embarcadero

University Heights Summer in the Park

July 5–August 2

The 26th season of University Heights Summer in the Park kicks off this Friday at Trolley Barn Park. Enjoy free concert programming from the University Heights Community Development Corporation from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday evenings all month long. This week, concertgoers can pack a picnic and enjoy live music from multi-genre cover band CCnE as the sun sets. 

Adams Avenue & Florida Street, University Heights

Almost Nakey Freedom Fest

July 6

This Saturday, head to Belmont Park in your best red, white, and blue regalia for an all-day EDM festival featuring three live music stages headlined by hard-partying acts like Bauuer and the Ying Yang Twins. To keep the fun going all night long, head to the official festival afterparty at Spin Nightclub from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tickets start at $75. 

3125 Ocean Front Walk, Mission Beach

New Kids On The Block with Paula Abdul & DJ Jazzy Jeff

July 7

New Kids on the Block will bring boy band nostalgia to the North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre this Sunday night. This year marks four decades since the group got their start as teen pop stars in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Now, they’re embarking their Magic Summer Tour following the release of Still Kids, their first album in 11 years. Icons Paula Abdul and DJ Jazzy Jeff will join them. Tickets for this concert, available via LiveNation, start at $32.55. 

2050 Entertainment Circle, Chula Vista

More Fun Things To Do in San Diego This Weekend

Big Bay Boom

July 4

Starting at 9 p.m., see California’s biggest fireworks show from several vantage points: Shelter Island, Harbor Island, North Embarcadero, Marina District, and the Coronado Ferry Landing—or make a bayside restaurant reservation or ask your buddy with a boat if you can float with a view. It’ll be busy, so plan ahead and take advantage of additional trolley service and several spectator locations offering free parking. While watching the show, be sure to listen along to the musical simulcast on 100.7 BIG FM. 

Various locations

Lakehouse Resort 4th of July Carnival

July 4

The Lakehouse Resort hosts an afternoon of family-friendly fun this Independence Day from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Lakeside Lawn. Attendees can compete for prizes and enjoy classic carnival games like ring toss, dunk tank, and mechanical bull. Dress your dog up like Uncle Sam for the patriotic dog contest. There will also be live country music, line dancing, and plenty of BBQ hot off the grill. Entry is $5 for adults. Kids ages ten and under receive free admission.

1025 La Bonita Drive, San Marcos

San Diego Padres vs. Arizona Diamondbacks

July 5–7

Even with key players like Fernando Tatis Jr. and Joe Musgrove currently injured, the San Diego Padres are on a tear, anchored by All Star–worthy play from Jurickson Profar. The Friars will have the chance to pull away in the NL Wild Card race during their upcoming eight-game homestand at Petco Park, beginning with three against the Diamondbacks. The Pads will celebrate Star Wars Weekend with a cantina-style party, theme night fireworks, and a kids’ fest with character photo ops. Purchase tickets for this weekend’s series here; fans can also buy a special Theme Game package for July 6 or 7 to receive a Nando Calrissian Bobblehead. 

100 Park Boulevard, Downtown

The post 13 Things to Do in San Diego This Weekend: July 4–7 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

20th Anniversary of Petco Park + Gallagher Square Renovation

It’s a loaded request when you sing “take me out to the ballgame” in San Diego—gone are the days of a paltry selection of peanuts and Cracker Jacks. Now in its 20th year in East Village, Petco Park packs an amenities punch with fab eats from restaurants all over town, not to mention stellar views of the game (and the city). Its stadium sidecar, the freshly renovated Gallagher Square, highlights the history of baseball and offers a place for kids to run amuck and explore activities before games.

Best Reason to Give Spotify a Rest

Rez Radio 91.3

Pala Rez Radio’s signal reaches only five miles—but it amplifies the reservation’s voice worldwide. Tune in while driving through San Luis Rey River valley, or stream on the free Rez Radio app. It’s the only place you’ll hear the Cupeño native language on the airwaves. Listen to local music, Native songs, rez-dub reggae with tribal member Elijah Duro, Saturday night party tracks, old-timey radio shows, daily live North County news, and the award-winning Pala Life Past and Present broadcast.

Best Platform for Your Experimental Poetry

The Perfect Healthy

The local independent paper The Perfect Healthy marries retro zine sensibilities with Gen-Z idiosyncrasy, packing no-holds-barred art, articles, and poetry and many, many different fonts dizzyingly into a few black-and-white pages, all sourced from the publication’s community of “total freaks [and] mutants” (per its founder). Volunteers distribute 10,000 free copies to bookstores, coffee shops, art supply stores, record stores, skate shops, and other outlets across the county every month. Long live print.

Best Sexagenarian Singers

San Diego Opera

With its 2024–2025 season, the San Diego Opera rings in its 60th year of bringing our region all the arias your Puccini-loving heart can handle. The institution is leaning hard into the operatic icons this anniversary season, starting in November with La bohème (the OG Rent), followed by Salome (based on the play of the same name by Oscar Wilde) and La traviata (Verdi’s classic love story). If you’ve let your Italian and German slip, no biggie—follow along with subtitles in English and Spanish.

Best Way to Awaken Your Inner Mary Oliver

San Diego Writers, Ink

Do you think in sonnets? Do characters whisper plot twists inside your dreams? Whether you’re picking up your pen again after a few years or need feedback on your freshly finished memoir, San Diego Writers, Ink has it all: Local authors offer more than 30 affordable classes, workshops, and writing groups each month at coffee shops, at libraries, over Zoom, and at the nonprofit’s hub in Liberty Station. This year, the org celebrates two decades of building SD’s writing community and helping transform blank pages into fire.

Best Bounceback

Lowrider Ban Lift

Do you hear that? It’s the rumble of garage doors sending tremors throughout the city. After nearly four decades of slumber, lowriders are finally waking and rolling out into the sun-spotted streets. A lift on a longtime lowrider ban, in effect throughout California since January, has allowed hundreds of locals to return to the art of driving “low and slow,” an important symbol of cultural expression for the Chicano community. Pop Champagne (and your car hood) in celebration.

Best Mess Hall

The Rainbow

In 2022, a landlord let Nicole Zappala put her art studio in a North Park storefront that was slated for teardown. It was the first in a string of “dead” spaces she has used to paint and host adults-only art experiences that encourage creativity, community, and freedom. Rainbow participants throw paint, adorn themselves in neon colors, and decorate flower pots with faux insects and mini food. “Play is such a part of the ability to be present and connect and find joy,” Zappala says. “Our modern focus on productivity doesn’t lend well to that.”

Best Tony Award Incubator

La Jolla Playhouse

If you’re even a little thespian-curious, you know this theater is the place to find out who will become the next Anton Chekhov, John Barrymore, Chita Rivera, or Stephen Sondheim. Not just an incubator for the best in live theater in San Diego, LJP acts as a funnel for productions that are Broadway-bound. This year, shows that originated at LPJ picked up more than 15 Tony nominations. Their 2023 adaptation of The Outsiders, for instance, went on to win the award for Best New Musical at the 2024 ceremonies.

Best Slice of Local Rock and Roll History

Belly Up’s 50th Anniversary

It’s been half a century of rocking and rolling, thrashing and moshing, vibing and jiving at this Solana Beach culture hub. In 1974, Dave Hodges (with the help of music promoter Steve Brigotti) established the Belly Up in a repurposed WWII Navy building. Launched with a handful of mics and no stage, the North County watering hole blossomed into a local music venue empire spanning three locations, including The Sound, which opened in Del Mar last year.

Best Wildin’ Out on Social

@SanDiegoZoo

The ultimate pet-stagram? The San Diego Zoo’s meme-filled updates on their massive brood of wild creatures. Brightening feeds with posts that are hilarious, relatable, and occasionally naughty (all the dik-dik jokes, accompanied by adorable baby antelope pics), the zoo also packs their captions with animal facts. The account has made celebs of some of the zoo’s cutest critters, including aardvark Nandi and a bunch of baby capybaras.

Best Use of Cacophony

Museum of Making Music

More interactive spaces, learning galleries, and historical presentations to explore at the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad? That’s music to our ears. Following a major renovation, new additions include The Backstage Lounge (where adults can give high-end instruments a whirl) and The Center Stage (where kids of all ages can get hands-on music-making experience). Explore revamped galleries alongside special exhibits with new products from brands like Yamaha, Vox, and Boss.

Best Cross-Border Collab

World Design Capital

San Diego and Tijuana made history this year as the first-ever dual-city World Design Capital, a distinction designed to draw attention (and action) to the region’s cultural infrastructure (or lack thereof). Artists and designers of all disciplines are convening in these sister cities to share their work and ideas through a slate of sponsored events that aim to bring ideas and solutions to the forefront of artistic, environmental, civic, and social spaces within our communities.

Best Shakespeare Shake-Ups

Loud Fridge Theatre Group

Antony, shmantony. Cleopatra’s the focus in Loud Fridge Theatre Group’s avant-garde adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic, running next month in partnership with Moxie Theatre. Founded in 2019 with a commitment to centering historically silenced and marginalized voices, Loud Fridge mounts bold, experimental plays written, directed, and performed by local creatives. Their 2024 season is chock-full of can’t-miss shows, including a BIPOC burlesque series running through October.

Best Art Talks

Two Rooms

Founded by San Diego artist Lizzie Zelter, La Jolla gallery Two Rooms is one of the county’s newest and boldest spaces for contemporary art. It opened with an all-local, nine-artist exhibition in February 2023, and has since mounted six relentlessly curious, sometimes-interactive shows, with another arriving this month. Zelter excels at placing works in conversation with one another— the gallery’s group shows are an exercise in drawing connections across disparate styles and mediums.

Best Vibes

Winyl Club

Picnic blankets cover the grass like a quilt haphazardly half-stitched together. Music is in the air, mixed with the smell of food, some smoke. In the middle of this multicolored cloth expanse, someone is steaming dumplings on a gas burner, serving strangers and friends. Down the hill, a group juggles a soccer ball, while others play frisbee and a handful of people take turns slacklining. Doordashers arrive with pizzas. Kids weave in and out of a labyrinth of beach chairs and coolers. Balloons. A cat on a leash. This is where it’s at on a Wednesday.

Read the Full Story Here

Best Playbill Archive

Balboa Theatre 100th Birthday

Far from its inaugural vaudeville days of straw boat hats, soft-shoe acts, and the dreaded hook, Balboa Theatre stands proud as one of the architectural and cultural gems of downtown San Diego. Along with the Civic Theatre, it’s the home of Broadway San Diego, bringing in icons of voice and stage. Beyond Broadway, the venue hosts acts ranging from indie rock stalwarts to comedy legends. The theater is turning 100 years young this year, a true testament that the show goes on.

See our complete list of the Best of San Diego here

The post The Best of San Diego 2024: Arts & Culture appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The Untitled, Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical begins with a bang as a smoking typewriter crashes to the ground from the ceiling. With the opening act, the show establishes itself as funny, freaky, informal, fiercely independent.

I suppose I should start where the show does, and explain a bit about who Hunter S. Thompson was—a pioneering American journalist who had a penchant for the wild side, a rebel and an artist. His writing coined the term “gonzo journalism,” a highly personal style characterized by its rawness. It puts the journalist at the center of the story, and, for Thompson, gonzo was a way of life. He is best known for his novels Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, but it was his social critique pieces, like 1970’s “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” that put gonzo on the map.

As a writer, he was bold, forward-thinking, dedicated to the celebration of individuality and critique of the status quo. As a man, he was a recalcitrant drug enthusiast who constantly toed the line between moral and amoral.

Born in 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky, he experienced his coming of age in the 1950s and ’60s when America was embroiled in the fight for civil rights and the debate over community ideals. The Vietnam war and the rise of Richard Nixon made Americans question their views on militarization, authoritarian governments, police violence, and growing corporate interests.

In 2023, we are facing startlingly similar issues. The musical leans into that idea, continuously referencing the cyclical nature of history. Thompson was intensely patriotic, but not in a blinded sense. He cared for a country that was willing to change, to hold itself accountable and to include everyone—especially the outcasts. He viewed journalism as an opportunity to protest and rejected the objective point of view when it gave a voice to those that championed injustice.

The musical embodies that spirit. Darkness does not hide in the corners or stand behind innuendos in this show—it is front and center, along with comedy, raunchiness, fear, failure, and success. It breaks the fourth wall often and challenges what the audience expects from theater.

Joe Iconis, who wrote the lyrics and music for the show, wanted to showcase “the good and the bad,” he says, adding that he wanted to create something that reflected the “rock-and-roll poetry of Thompson as a character.” The show intentionally shatters musical theater rules in the same way that Thompson broke journalism rules.

Iconis’ writing is poetic and blunt, and his music includes protest songs, rebel yells, and ballads about love and loss, legacy and politics. He brilliantly uses the click and tap of fingers punching letters on a keyboard to create rhythm like a speeding heartbeat, a tornado of words that need to be released. An electric guitar joins the beat, then clapping of hands and stomping of feet, and, finally, the booming voices of the wildly talented cast.

Gabriel Ebert gives a knockout performance as Thompson, capturing the energy of his youth, his struggles to balance life and the party, his intense yearning for greatness, and, finally, Thompson in his final stage, grappling with what his legacy is. Marcy Harriell portrays Hunter’s wife Sandy and wows as the woman behind the man, shedding light on her unseen labor and devotion and the abuse she faced throughout her marriage. Together with the rest of the cast, they grapple with the line where passion meets destruction.

Ultimately, The Untitled is about more than journalism. It is about the villains we create for ourselves and out of ourselves. It asks viewers to question the meaning of greatness, success, and legacy.

As a whole, the show is an emotional passing of the torch to the future activists of the world, a celebration of and a primal call to the freaks and misfits. It is an opportunity to reflect not only on the society around us, but what role we want to play in it.

The Untitled, Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical runs through October 8 at the La Jolla Playhouse.

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The post Review: La Jolla Playhouse’s Hunter S. Thompson Musical appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“To think about playing it in San Diego, where I’m from, where I’ve listened to this album driving down PCH, where I’ve danced to these songs in the gymnasium of where I went to middle school at Tri-City Christian… It truly is the biggest blessing for me.”

As a kid growing up, Melendez’s family had a special love for the music of ABBA. After her parents saw a production of Mamma Mia! in San Diego and bought a copy of the play’s soundtrack, the entire family became huge fans. So it’s only fitting that Melendez will grace the Broadway San Diego stage as the lead role of Sophie Sheridan when the nationally touring musical hits San Diego in November. This is the 25th anniversary of the Mamma Mia! tour, which officially launches in Denver on Oct. 31. The tour will hit 35+ cities through August of 2024.

Melendez has always been an entertainer, despite growing up in a family of chiropractors—both of her parents, two brothers, and their wives are chiropractors. But Melendez didn’t see a future for herself in the medical world. Her family, she said, have never been anything but supportive of her stage aspirations.

Growing up, she performed in local shows at school, community theater, and church while idolizing stars like Miley Cyrus and Bernadette Peters. Her room was papered with photos of her favorites, including a photo of Sophie from Mamma Mia! hanging just above her bed.

Melendez said she has been lucky enough to know what she wanted to do in life since middle school. After a year at Coronado High School, she convinced her family to let her attend the Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA) for high school, commuting each day from Carlsbad. She would wake up at dawn to catch the train to the OC, and would often not return until after dark due to rehearsals.

“It was hard leaving a school where I knew everyone to go to a new to go to a new school… part of me didn’t want to leave. But [my family was] like, ‘You love this so much. You’re really passionate about it,'” she said. “They encouraged me to go.”

Following high school, Melendez made the big move to the Big Apple. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in musical theater from Pace University in New York City, where she currently lives.

Since graduating, Melendez’s theatrical career has taken off, with roles in plays like Rent, Les Miserables, and Almost Famous right here at the Old Globe. But the role of Sophie is close to her heart.

“The first tour I ever saw was Mamma Mia! in San Francisco for my 16th birthday. I begged my mom to take me. And I was like, ‘I want to play Sophie one day,’” she said. “I just can’t believe it.”

Tickets for Broadway SD’s production of Mamma Mia! are currently on sale. The show runs from Nov. 7 through Nov. 12 at the San Diego Civic Theatre.

The post Carlsbad Native Stars in Upcoming Mamma Mia! US Tour appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Adams Ave Theater

Madeline Yang

Last seen loaded with bolts of discount fabric for sale, San Diego’s favorite vintage movie palace-turned-punk rock concert hall is newly renovated and ready for its latest incarnation as an events and performance space. Normal Heights’ landmark Adams Avenue Theater will officially reclaim neighborhood venue status in early November.The redesign has been a multiyear effort by Jillian Ziska, and her events planning business To Be Designed—a subsidiary of management group Social Anthology, which also operates Verbena Kitchen and Hangar 858. Ziska remodeled Adams Avenue Theater with an eye toward hosting weddings and other private events, while also plotting community-oriented gatherings akin to holiday bazaars, and shows ranging from live music to stand-up comedy. As a result, its tastefully re-imagined interior remains something of a blank canvas for planners and promoters. “Blank enough for people to envision their own aesthetic,” Ziska explains. Much of the character comes from the 100-year-old building itself. Ziska was so determined to develop a space that feels like more than “four walls and a roof,” that she spent years pursuing the historic theater, ultimately signing a lease in February 2020. “We wanted something with a past that we could revitalize and bring back,” she stresses. To anyone under 30 years old, Adams Avenue Theater has only ever been a fabric store fronted by a theatrical marquee. But its history goes back to 1924, when it opened as The Carteri Theatre, a movie-house designed by Louis J. Gill—best known as the original architect of the San Diego Zoo (and, to architecture nerds, as the nephew of Irving Gill). 

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Over the next several decades, the original, Spanish Colonial façade got an art deco makeover, including its red, green, and gold terrazzo. But by the 1960s, the cinema shuttered, effectively sitting empty until given a second life by—who else?—punk rockers. Back in 1982, Casbah owner Tim Mays was cutting his teeth as a rock impresario when he began booking shows at the theater, delivering standout acts from punk’s heyday, like Black Flag, The Cramps, and Iggy Pop. “We used to cram 900 people in there,” recalls Mays, who also remembers San Diego police cruisers would park across the street, waiting for the shows to let out, “so they could, you know, round up any miscreants and troublemakers.” To wit, in 1986, a return engagement by English hard rock band Motörhead had to be canceled at the last minute, angering ticket holders who “broke into the place and trashed the theater.” That spelled the beginning of the end for Adams Avenue Theater as a rock venue. But such bygones won’t stop Ziska’s team from booking music events for what is now a more welcoming, a 289-person venue. She and Mays have been discussing a revival of the space as a decidedly quieter, non-punk performance space. “There’s more mature artists out there that would probably work,” notes May with a chuckle. Ziska also plans to redeem the space as a moviehouse. It’s equipped with a digital projector to screen classic and cult films. “We’d essentially create a living room setting,” she says, imagining a theater with plush, lounge seating.As a private events space, Adams Avenue Theater will offer packages ranging from $5,500 to $10,500, but it will undoubtedly be the occasional public events that Normal Heights residents will appreciate most. “The more in-person, community stuff we can do, the better. It’s going to be for the neighborhood, and the businesses around us,” says Ziska.

The post Reviving the Historic Adams Ave Theater appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

And he couldn’t be prouder of it, especially considering his new title as associate producer of San Diego’s very own Tony Award–winning Old Globe theater. That’s because, as he explains: “There’s no traditional place for me in American theater. My presence in itself is a rebellion. It hasn’t impacted how I do work. What’s changed is I’m looking at a revolution in the country and in American theater that I’m hoping we can capitalize on. I, as Lamar, deserve to be able to walk into a theater and see myself as much as anyone else.”

Perry was named to his position in May—a promotion from his post as an artistic associate—alongside Kim Montelibano. He brings with him not only the chops to develop new plays from mere scripts to full productions, but also a determination for inclusion at the Globe and beyond.

That applies to digital formats, too. Perry launched the Globe’s first podcast, Gather Round, in December 2020. A limited series, Gather Round explored how holidays are celebrated across different cultures in San Diego. Perry’s second podcast for the Globe, Cocktails with the Canon, is an interview-based series that seeks to paint a picture of how inclusive American theater truly is, through raw conversations with playwrights about communities that are not traditionally represented in the medium.“It’s my indictment, but also my love letter to the American theater,” Perry says. “It’s saying, ‘I see you, but I also want to challenge you.’”Needless to say, this comes from a personal place. Oscar Wilde may have said that life imitates art, but Perry believes you can’t truly know yourself unless you’ve seen your life “mirrored back to you” through art.

Growing up, he never saw that on the stage. The first time that came close was when he saw In the Heights in college. “It blew the door open. I’m not Latinx, but I have so many friends who are, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is what it can look like.’

”Perry graduated from St. John’s University with a bachelor’s of science in health service administration. All the while, he was supplementing his education through acting and touring with a gospel choir. By his senior year, he was producing plays as part of a theater troupe on campus. Following an AmeriCorps tour, Perry eventually returned to New York and became a producing associate at The Classical Theatre of Harlem. By the time he came to The Old Globe in 2018, he had many productions under his belt—including directing Watch Me by Dave Harris and assistant directing Actually by Anna Ziegler, Detroit 67 by Dominique Morisseau, and The Hot Wing King by Katori Hall, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

“The tea,” Perry points out, “is I’m only 30.”

Which might also explain his stamina. In addition to his associate producer role at the Globe, Perry serves as a freelance director and also teaches at UC San Diego. Some days, you might find him posted up at the beach with his laptop, reading a script. Other days he’s in casting meetings, or giving notes on rehearsals for in-person productions, which are returning to the Globe’s indoor theaters this fall.

“I’m excited the industry is opening the doors to a fat, Black, queer storyteller and is making space for me without going through the traditional path of graduate school,” he says. “I want artists and community members who’ve felt like they haven’t had access to the Globe to walk in and know they are part owners to feel good, seen, and safe. That’s what I’m hoping my legacy will be.”

Old Globe – Lamar Perry

The post Lamar Perry Is On a Quest to Make the American Theater Inclusive for All appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The Nazo Box is a dramatic presentation of nine omakase courses of sushi

Kimberly Motos

Smoke is billowing from Akira Back’s mouth and eyes, as if he’s demonically possessed in a cool way, or learning how to smoke a blunt and somehow got his eyes involved. It’s not his real face, of course, but a caricature etched into a large, black, wooden box that’s been set in the middle of our table. A server pauses to make sure our phones are ready, then ceremoniously lifts the lid. The clouds stuck inside spill out onto the table.Slowly but surely the fog dissipates, revealing nine compartments, each filled with ornate pieces of silken sushi in various sauces and roe and microgreens. This is the Nazo Box, the David Blaine-y way omakase is served at Lumi, the sushi-and-things rooftop restaurant created by Michelin-star chef Back and RMD Group (Side Bar, Float, Rustic Root), helmed by executive chef James Jung (Nobu Malibu). Sure, it’s over-the-top and theatrical. But, please, give me Broadway. Juggle some Brussels sprouts while I wildly applaud. Set my table on fire. After this grim epoch of microdosing fear and macrodosing Netflix, of actively avoiding the very thing that makes us human (other humans), after 15 months of canceled dinners and no-shows—this misty, magic box of fancy fish, unveiled by a hand that’s not my own, feels hopeful and humbling.

A mural inside the 5,000-square-foot restaurant

Kimberly Motos

It’s a show. The theater of restaurants is back. For now, it’s different—a more reverent bonhomie, a tad subdued—but their business of joy conjuring has resumed.I’m writing this the week California fully reopened. My wife and I went to a Padres game. It was sold out. Forty thousand fans did the wave. It’s hokey, and amazing. I didn’t expect to get choked up. My wife did me one better and shed a tear. “The unity,” she laugh-cried. The Lumi rooftop is also sold out (it’s all rooftop, 5,000 square feet of it, at the former Grand Pacific Hotel). Neither of us  cry. I had to wait 10 days for a grandparental 5:15 p.m. reservation. Point is, there’s a primal, insatiable demand to be around humans in public. To sit face to face, eat, drink, resolder old connections. This is what restaurants do. They’re not utilitarian feed troughs; they’re the (hopefully artful) facilitators of shared experience.And Lumi is more artful than most. It would probably be sold out even if the pandemic never happened. Akira Back is both a talent and a bankable name, with his Michelin-starred restaurant in Seoul (Dosa), plus Yellowtail in Vegas and other restaurants popping up around the world soon, and appearances on Food Network (including Iron Chef). I get the sense he  hasn’t been at Lumi much since it opened in June 2020, but Jung is a benevolent force of his own.

Lumi’s rooftop scene

Kimberly Motos

Miso pork belly kimchi chaufa

Kimberly Motos

Executive chef James Jung

Kimberly Motos

Lumi is first and foremost a sushi restaurant, and the sushi is excellent. It says something when a nine-course omakase (the practice of letting the itamae, or sushi chef, send you their best stuff) doesn’t have a single flop. There’s albacore in an intensely thick, almost- caramelized tosazu (a vinegar-based sauce with katsuobushi, dried tuna flakes), red snapper in a tiny pool of yuzu truffle, Baja bluefin toro (belly, whose high fat content ratchets up the flavor) in real wasabi relish (not dyed horseradish, though they have this as well with some dishes), Baja kanpachi (yellowtail) with ají amarillo lime sauce.Ají is the national pepper of Peru, and South American influences are all over Lumi’s menu. Eating hearts on a stick may sound like something best left to serial killers and Joe Rogan, but if you can get over it, don’t miss the corazón skewers—grilled beef heart with an anticucho sauce (chiles, garlic, etc.), a zesty yuzu aioli, peewee potatoes roasted so simply they have no right to be as good as they are, and giant Peruvian corn (choclo) over a corn puree. Then there’s Akira Back Pizza, a delicately fried tortilla topped with a thin layer of raw tuna (so it looks like the tomato sauce on a pie), thinly sliced serrano peppers, red onion, beets, micro shiso, ponzu mayo, and truffle oil. It’s basically a sushi tostada and a form of happiness.

Akira Back pizza with tuna

Kimberly Motos

Eggplant skewers

Kimberly Motos

The south-of-the-border dish that wowed us twice is the yellowtail serrano—slices of the whitefish in garlic yuzu soy, pickled Fresno chile, serrano onion tomato salsa, and slices of serrano. The best analogy to describe that yellowtail is a “tight” band, where every musician plays just loud enough and long enough, sacrificing their egos for the good of the whole. The kanpachi ceviche, in comparison, is that band whose drummer thinks he’s Neil Peart. A rocoto (spicy red pepper sauce) leche de tigre is so acidic it might be conducting electricity, and a thick sweet potato puree acts like quicksand, swallowing the star of the show (the kanpachi).I’ve always said that vegetarians are doing missionary work for all of us because, even as a dirty evil meat eater, I’ve noticed restaurants no longer cook plants like they actively hate them—as evidenced at Lumi by those eggplant skewers. Fair warning, you’re gonna wonder if they messed up and brought you a dessert, some kind of wondrous eggplant cake. It’s that sticky-sweet, caramelized miso glaze. Bottle it, baptize me in it. I have a friend who hates seafood. She’s obviously broken in many ways, but she’d do well at Lumi. She could order the rack of baby back ribs with a sesame jalapeño sauce and rocoto aioli over a cabbage-apple slaw. Cooked sous vide, the meat is so tender that teeth are optional. Or she could get the miso pork belly kimchi chaufa—pork roasted the way ramen joints do it, with English peas and puffed quinoa for texture and jalapeño huacatay sauce (a Peruvian salsa).

Lucuma “cigar” dessert

Kimberly Motos

The Momotaro “Peach Boy” cocktail

Kimberly Motos

I sip one of the better cocktails I’ve had in a while—the Yasai, with Los Vecinos mezcal, nixta licor de elote (sweet corn liqueur), carrot, honey, ginger, and fresh lemon. I look around at the alfresco gathering of people who seem to be enjoying themselves in slow motion and in hushed tones. I wonder how long it’ll be before the acidic dew of guilt burns off. How long will there be that low murmur, that vague tug? How long will it feel a bit unfair that I’m sitting here with my wife and daughter experiencing this great thing? Maybe years, maybe eons. The year left a mark. Burned a gratitude into us. Burned a gratuitousness out of us. Maybe that’s why the DJ booth perched in front of the wall mural is dormant both times we’re here.Resuming life in the wake of loss requires a slow step.

a caricature of founding chef Akira Back is etched into the lid of the Nazo Box

Kimberly Motos

The post The Theater of Dining Out Returns at Lumi appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The play’s licensor, Dramatist’s Play Service, gave them permission to film a performance for limited-time access. Executive director Jessica John and artistic director Francis Gerke (also two of the play’s actors, along with Tom Zohar) worked with local videographer Stand Up 8 Productions to modify their Tenth Avenue Arts Center set so each of them could maintain proper social distance.

Rehearsing over Zoom was a new challenge, since The Dazzle’s dialogue is fast paced and frequently overlaps. So they secured a warehouse space for three days where, from opposite ends of the room, they could freely talk over one another and work out the physical blocking.

Equipment setup had to be done in shifts. Project manager Anna Younce recalls, “The film crew was there for spacing, but the designers weren’t. Then the designers were there for tech, but the film crew wasn’t. The first time everybody saw it come together was on day one of filming.”

Each actor having a buffer zone worked out, since The Dazzle “literally is a play about isolation,” John says, “about people who can’t connect, who are separated within the same house.” For actions that required them to touch, a narrator character (producing director Anthony Methvin) announced stage directions from the empty seats. Despite these unique obstacles, The Dazzle received so much interest on its sole weekend run that it was granted an extension for a second. The final product was cut together with an editor’s attention to timing and point of view, while retaining its theatricality. Younce says this point was crucial to director Rosina Reynolds: “She was like, ‘I don’t want it to feel like a film. Even though we don’t have an audience, we still need to respect the form.’

She really wanted to see everything empty, that everyone’s got their own space on stage—and that this room is feeling the same thing the world is feeling right now.”

Max Macke, Jacque Wilke, Terrell Donnell Sledge, and Allison Spratt Pearce in Human Error by North Coast Rep.

Aaron Rumley

At the same time up in Solana Beach, North Coast Repertory Theatre was facing a similar dilemma with the Eric Pfeffinger comedy Human Error, when the lockdown stranded one of the five actors, Terrell Donnell Sledge, in Alabama. “I auditioned and submitted a tape,” he says, “but then didn’t get to meet anyone in person at all.”

The company decided to record the play in Zoom. Luckily, stage manager Aaron Rumley had video editing experience. “The trick was to make it visually interesting,” he says; “more fun than a standard Brady Bunch box.”

So instead of squares, director Jane Page had the idea to vignette the actors against a scenic backdrop. “I had these very vivid dreams about slating locations with postcards,” she says, “contextualizing like a matte on framed artwork.”

North Coast had two weeks each to rehearse, shoot, and edit. One difficult aspect was maintaining eye lines.

“We have to know exactly how the actors are going to be framed in post-production to figure out which way they look,” Page says. Some moments called for looking “at” one another; other times they could simply face their camera, and it was clear through context whom they were speaking to.

The dedication everyone put into the project paid off. As a viewer, you stopped noticing the newness of the format after a while because you were invested in the characters and their story—just like with any good play.

Marci Anne Wuebben, Jason Heil, Antonio TJ Johnson, Salomon Maya, Mondis Vakili, and Sandra Ruiz in Beachtown Live by San Diego Rep.

Courtesy of San Diego Repertory Theatre

San Diego Repertory Theatre put its own spin on the medium with a reprise of Herbert Siguenza’s audience-participation show as Beachtown Live. For nine weekly sessions, the fictional SoCal city’s leaders convened to discuss real-world events, first in a comedic scripted opening, then an improv section when viewers (aka “fellow Beachtonians”) could speak their mind.

Actor Sandra Ruiz says it was one of the scariest things she’s ever done. “The first time we did the breakout rooms, all I could see was someone eating. They don’t want to talk right now!” But she’s glad she stepped out of her comfort zone. “When you talk to the audience afterward, everybody’s really grateful, because they miss theater too.”

When asked if they see potential in further online theater projects, the professional opinions are mixed. Younce hopes people see the medium more as a challenge than a restriction: “There may not be as many ways to make existing theater work in this way, but then that’s an invitation to create new things.”Sledge enjoyed the experience. “It’s still performance. There are a lot of ways to do it. You can trust that if you are in the experience of telling the story, you will also discover the best ways to tell it.”

But for Ruiz, there’s ultimately no replacing the real deal: “It has been a great experience, but I honestly can’t wait to go back to doing live theater.”

What everyone seems to share is a sense of yearning for the aspects of their craft that are lost in translation. “It’s so magical to be in an audience on that day when something unbelievable happens,” Reynolds says. “Actors know if they go looking for that the next day they won’t find it. If you’re lucky enough to be there, you’ll remember it forever.”Likewise, Gerke identifies the live group setting as essential. “In an audience, we recognize implicitly that everything we’re about to see is fake. And somehow, we get to the end and all believe what’s happening. It’s one of the few endeavors where we experience whatever the hell faith is. When you’re all hooked into watching the same thing—I don’t think anyone can recapture that.” He pauses a moment, sighs, and adds, “Yeah. Let’s get a vaccine.”

Tom Zohar in The Dazzle by Backyard Renaissance.

Anna Younce

The post What San Diego Theater Looks Like in the Age of Social Distancing appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company

The Dazzle and Tarrytown

Available to stream any time June 26–28 (this Friday through Sunday) | Tickets $20 per householdThe Dazzle is a quixotic, “almost true” story of two brothers (Francis Gercke and Tom Zohar) living in 1920s Harlem whose lives are suddenly turned upside down by an eccentric socialite (Jessica John). It was part of Backyard Renaissance’s regular season schedule, and the cast, crew, and director Rosina Reynolds soldiered on with it despite the lockdown, conducting production meetings and rehearsals over Zoom, and set design in solo shifts. They used a multi-camera setup to film a socially distanced performance reading, then edited it together into a cohesive production available to stream this weekend only.Plus, make it a double feature with a filmed production of their 2017 San Diego Critics Circle Best New Musical winner, Tarrytown. This modern interpretation of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow stars Bryan Banville, Kay Marian McNellen, and Tom Zohar, directed by Francis Gercke and Anthony Methvin. Gerke says, “We had very limited seating, so very few people got to see it. But those who did come, ended up coming back multiple times. We’ve had a lot of people tell us that they wish they had been able to see it. We couldn’t think of a more perfect show to remind people what artists can do, in the midst of some pretty incredible challenges.”

Trinity Theatre Company

Blackademics

Streaming live on June 27 (this Saturday), 7 p.m. | Tickets free (donations welcome)Trinity artists are holding live play readings via Zoom every other Saturday, and this week it’s Blackademics by Idris Goodwin, directed by Kandace Crystal. It’s a satire about two friends meeting for dinner at a trendy new restaurant to commiserate on their experiences as black women in academia, all while their meal service becomes increasingly surreal. Starring Emily Candia, Jaeonnie Davis-Crawford, and Ashley Graham.

North Coast Repertory Theatre

Human Error

Available to stream anytime through June 29 (this Monday) | Tickets $10This West Coast premiere by Eric Pfeffinger was originally planned to be fully staged in the regular season; instead, North Coast Rep has undertaken their first digital production using advanced Zoom editing technology. It’s a comedy about a liberal couple and a conservative couple who have to strike an unlikely friendship after a medical mixup forces them together. Artistic director David Ellenstein says that “audiences will be experiencing a professionally produced piece, and not simply a staged reading.” Directed by Jane Page, starring Allison Spratt Pearce, Terrell Donnell Sledge, Max Macke, Jacque Wilke, and Martin Kildare.

San Diego Repertory Theatre

Beachtown Live

Streaming live every Wednesday through July 29 at 7 p.m. (next show July 1) | Tickets freeThe fictional Southern California community of Beachtown is facing a pandemic, and you, a resident, are invited to attend a live Zoom meeting of the city’s Road to the Future Task Force as they debate when and how to begin opening back up for business. The “meetings” are free to join, and participation is welcome (but not mandatory). This immersive, interactive, one-of-a-kind experience has been running for a few weeks now, and every week is different, so citizens are encouraged to attend more than once. The project is the brainchild of SD Rep’s very funny playwright-in-residence, Herbert Siguenza, who plays a senator. Sandra Ruiz, Salomon Maya, Mondis Vakili, and Marci Anne Wuebben also star, as various chairpeople, medical experts, and lobbyists who all have their own agendas at work.

La Jolla Playhouse

Digital Without Walls Festival

Some programs available now, with more to come in July and August | Tickets range from free to $25The playhouse’s annual celebration of nontraditional and site-specific performance art is a natural fit for going digital, and they’re rolling out groundbreaking new work to experience in a variety of ways all summer long.Closing July 12 is Binge, by far the most intimate of all the play-enjoying methods on this list: a one-on-one performance “tailor-made to fit the life of each individual audience member,” where your very own artist companion prescribes which television shows to watch. For something a little less personal, check out Ancient, a video installation meditating on the beauty of the routine. If you need to stretch your legs, take a walk around your neighborhood while listening to Blindspot Collective’s Walks of Life, each episode of which imagines what drama might be unfolding inside the houses you pass by. Or, if you can’t get enough Herbert Siguenza, join him, Richard Montoya, and Ricardo Salinas (aka the nation’s premier Latino performance trio) for The Totally Fake Latino News with Culture Clash, ten-minute snippets of social satire; the first of six episodes is available now.

Diversionary Theatre

The Boy Who Danced on Air

Available to stream any time July 6–19 | Tickets $15–35 per householdDiversionary was in the middle of rehearsals for their regular-season production of Plot Points in Our Sexual Development when California’s stay-at-home order hit back in March, but rather than call the whole thing off, they filmed their last rehearsal and released it for home viewing for a limited time. It went over so well that for two weeks in July, they’re bringing back an archived recording of their 2016 Craig Noel Award–winning, world premiere musical The Boy Who Danced on Air. It tells the story of two young men caught up in the illicit Afghan trade of Bacha Bazi, in which poor boys are purchased by wealthy older men and forced to dress as women and dance at parties. The Union-Tribune hailed it as “solid, subtle, sad, and often inspiring work that’s smartly staged by director Tony Speciale with a first-rate cast.” Tickets are available on a sliding scale, with discounts for families who’ve been financially affected by the pandemic.

Troy Iwata and Sittichai Chaiyahat in The Boy Who Danced on Air, streaming soon from Diversionary Theatre

Simpatika

The post 10 San Diego Theater Productions You Can Stream from Home appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

8 San Diego Actors Share What Makes the Local Theater Scene Unique

1. Javier Guerrero; 2. Rachael VanWormer; 3. Tom Stephenson; 4. Cortez L. Johnson; 5. Eileen Bowman; 6. Joy Yvonne Jones; 7. Victor E. Chan; 8. Rosina Reynolds | Photo: Madison Parker

How did you get your start in the San Diego theater community?

Stephenson: I started here in 1981 in the San Diego Rep’s production of A Christmas Carol—I think we were six, seven actors playing 66 roles. And this was before Horton Plaza, in the old Lyceum, which isn’t around anymore. And I kinda set to work after that: Got a full-time job to pay the bills, and worked at Lamb’s Players and the Rep, and that was enough to keep me busy at the time.Bowman: I was the angel in the Nativity show every year in grade school… but I did my first professional show at The Old Globe when I was 12, and that’s when I got the bug. I’ve been acting ever since.Reynolds: I was in northern Wisconsin and saw a magazine about The Old Globe; that’s what prompted me and my husband to come here. I called Craig Noel at the Globe and said I’d like to audition. It was shortly after their theater had burned down, but still he invited me in.Johnson: My start here was with Ruff Yeager at Southwestern College. We did a really cool production entitled The Bomb-itty of Errors. Hip-hop Shakespeare—need I say more?Guerrero: I started acting in high school because I used to be deadly shy, but I felt like I had a voice. I always wanted to speak up in class, but there was something stopping me. To deal with the shyness I took a drama class, but I never really took it seriously until college. Then I looked at it as something I could do with my life.VanWormer: I started professionally at 18, and because I’ve always looked younger than I am, for many years I was always cast as a teenager. That continued even into my late 20s, because it’s easier for a company to hire an adult who can drive and legally work than an actual teenager. As I was starting to push 30, I thought, You know, I would really like to play a grown-up once in a while.

What’s unique about San Diego’s theater scene that you might not find in other cities, like LA?

Johnson: I really admire the level of education and professionalism here. Los Angeles follows suit, but San Diego deserves recognition for being the home of top-ranking theatre programs in our nation, like UCSD and The Old Globe.Bowman: Goodness. I love how everyone knows of one another. All the theaters support one another. I want to say it’s the same everywhere, but I can’t speak to that.Chan: Sizable as it is, the community here is very intimate. You tend to see the same faces over and over again. Whereas up in LA, people are more pursuing television and film, adding in theater to cultivate their need for an “artistic outlet.” Actors here really do theater for the love and artistry of it.Jones: People who create theater here go see other theater. The friends I’ve gained in this community have come to see my things, and I make it a habit to go see theirs. It’s almost like a reunion every time I see another show, and it doesn’t matter how big the show is. That is a real and very supportive community.Guerrero: When I first started I lived in LA, because I thought that’s just where you go. LA is awful. There’s no theater there! It’s all film, film, film. Then I come back here thinking I won’t be doing film because I’m in San Diego, but lo and behold there’s stuff being filmed here too and there’s a big theater community. It’s awesome.Stephenson: I heard somewhere that two percent of the general population goes to the theater. We’ve got a pretty thriving community. When I started in 1981 it seemed like there were less than 20 actors in town, and now—gosh, you go to the awards night and there’s what, 400 people there? Designers, directors, actors, it’s amazing. The growth has been remarkable.Reynolds: In LA you live, eat, and breathe the business and can’t get away from that sense of anxiety. What’s the next thing? And actors have that anyway. But San Diego is a much more encouraging environment. The hardest thing I’ve discovered here is doing any production when it’s single-ticket sales. It’s a catch-22—theaters rely on subscriptions to finance their season, but sometimes they’re beholden to their subscription base. Musicals and comedies work every time. I’m always pushing theaters to do drama; sometimes they underestimate the interest their audience might have in something that challenges them. It takes a skilled artistic director to challenge your base without alienating them. A large part of it is “getting bums in seats,” to quote Shakespeare in Love.

What’s going on right now in local theater that you’re excited to be a part of?

Chan: Bold, nontraditional casting choices, and doors opening for actors of color. Specifically, if you look at my résumé—I don’t know how this happened, but with the exception of Miss Saigon I’ve never played an Asian. Which I’m rather proud of. I hope that trend continues, because it’s breaking down a lot of barriers that I’ve experienced coming up.Jones: As an African American woman, I’ve gotten very good at trying to figure out how to make myself safe. I even change my hair depending on what theater or what role I receive, and I’m super excited to see the acceptance of what I come with. In Voyeurs de Venus I was able to wear my natural hair. It was a uniquely black story; it was bold and unapologetic, not sugarcoating or trying to make black culture or black experience safe. Sometimes it’s raw. It’s scary, and this is truth.Bowman: A lot of theaters are doing work by new playwrights and new composers, and that’s exciting, especially if they’re from San Diego. Years ago, there weren’t five theaters; now a lot of new ones have started and people are taking chances, going out on a limb.Johnson: A whole lot of August Wilson plays are coming to our town in upcoming seasons, in some pretty major theaters. I’m excited to see those produced (if not fortunate to be cast).Guerrero: San Diego does mostly musicals, and I hope they start doing plays that are a little grittier. San Diego doesn’t tend to challenge the audience. I wish they would balance it out.VanWormer: About 15 years ago there was a whole crop of new companies—New Village Arts, Cygnet, Moxie—that popped up within the same few years of each other, and it’s really cool to see the longevity they’ve had, how they’ve rooted themselves to make room for newer folks like Backyard Renaissance and the Roustabouts and New Fortune.

Who has been your favorite role to play so far?

Bowman: That’s like asking who your favorite child is! You know, for me the most challenging were the most gratifying. When I played Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow, that was terrifying. Playing someone who’s such a legend, and was so specific in how she looked, moved, and sang. I thought the pressure might be too much. Sometimes I would come home from rehearsals and just cry. You can only do your homework so much, and then you just hope.Chan: I got to play Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar; that had always been a bucket-list role for me. And I believe I’m the first Asian American to play Lonny in a professional Equity production of Rock of Ages. Hats off to Sean Murray, the director; I don’t think I would’ve gotten the opportunity without him.Reynolds: Mary in Long Day’s Journey into Night is one of the most amazing things I did. There’s such an overarching theme of despair. O’Neill’s writing is operatic; he has these long riffs of dialogue that you’ve just got to run with; you can’t break them up. And The Glass Menagerie, for similar reasons. Tennessee Williams is a poet, so to submerge yourself into that musicality and roll with it is amazing.Guerrero: Nelson in Cloud Tectonics at New Village Arts. He’s a crazy, war-torn kid who’s brash, rude, but also has compassion. So it was nice playing both sides of that character. He jumped from one end of the spectrum to the next in a matter of two lines. I also enjoyed playing Abel in Fade. His arc wasn’t as intense as Nelson’s, but he had a really intense backstory. The character was very similar to me, so it was easier to bite my teeth into him.Jones: In high school, I was fortunate to do a production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. I did not know how my 17-year-old brain would wrap around playing Lady in Green. Not the most dramatic or traumatizing character in the show, but still, stepping up to the plate with other powerful women was a huge feat for me. That was the moment when my family accepted—and I myself accepted—that this was going to be what I do for my life.Johnson: I played multiple characters in a two-man production called Blue Door, directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg. And to be challenged in that way, finding all those guys, telling all their stories truthfully, was a task that made me grow as an actor. I really appreciate Delicia; she’s always giving me roles that teach me how to be a better man.Stephenson: This is my eighth year doing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at Cygnet. I may be painting with a broad brush, but Scrooge is on every actor’s bucket list. It’s such a great opportunity.VanWormer: Many years ago, when Cygnet was in Rolando, I played Thomasina Coverley in Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, which Sean Murray directed. That role is a 13-year-old, and it’s one I might be ready to tackle now. She’s a math genius in the Jane Austen era, when intelligent young female people were not even acknowledged. She’s a genius and a child at the same time; you see that a kid can be a kid and understand more than we give them credit for; that doesn’t mean they’re not childish, and doesn’t mean they’re not brilliant.

When a role requires you to summon huge, even traumatic emotions night after night, how do you leave those feelings at the stage door when you go home? Or do they follow you?

Reynolds: It does follow you. When I played Mary, I lived a very eccentric life; my husband and daughter were in Wisconsin, so I wouldn’t get to bed until three in the morning and my indulgences certainly increased. Generally, there’s a wonderful sense of escape, going to the theater and for two hours being somebody else so completely. I do a lot of work finding their emotional range and balance, but I’m not digging up my own personal experiences. Some actors do, and good for them. I can’t substitute my own life experiences into this character’s, because it’s not the character. It’s powerfully cathartic to have that much pain onstage, so that when I’m done I actually feel pretty good. It’s not me going through that; I’m a conduit. Sometimes you cry and sometimes you don’t; I can’t anticipate it. But if you’re truly in your character’s experience, then it’s spontaneous that certain moments move you to tears or to rage. There’s always nights when it feels flat. Then you don’t push it. Anyway, only a very small portion of the audience sees tears. The objective is to make the audience cry, not you. There are many ways you can suggest to the audience what a person is feeling even if you’re not feeling it. Gesture is tremendously important. As humans, it’s built into us to recognize what another person is feeling by their physical actions.VanWormer: I do very much leave the show at the theater. Not that it isn’t on my mind, but for the sake of sanity, health, relationship, and day job, it’s important to have a strong emotional delineation between life and stage. My main goal when presented with a new character is to first understand before feel. If I can understand where a character’s coming from, from an objective point of view, then it’s much easier for me to do it.Bowman: You know, it’s never been an issue for me. Judy Garland was as traumatic as you could get; she deals with everything at a 25, and I try to keep things calm and positive and happy. Sometimes your body doesn’t know the difference. I would feel exhausted physically.Stephenson: I don’t believe they follow you and I do. I see the work as work, and don’t carry much around that I’m conscious of. I just try to ride the roller coaster of their emotions in the story as it goes.Chan: Learning how to separate that comes with experience. To make those moments real, you have to bring in something very personal to yourself—then you have to learn the coping mechanisms to get back to zero before you go home. I know when I did This Beautiful City, putting on Mikey Weinstein’s skin was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, because he was so angry. I would walk offstage and have to take, like, five cleansing breaths just to get him out of my system because I would be shaking. All of the actors backstage knew to leave me alone for that moment. It’s definitely a skill you learn.Johnson: That might actually be the part I enjoy most. But it’s also the hardest task. Summoning a character’s emotional state takes a level of spirituality that I consider an accomplishment if you get there. I’m usually really thankful if I’m used as a channel. I usually shed by just being social. My friends and I are pretty honest with each other, so I rely on them to tell me if I’m trippin’ after a particularly heavy role. Because sometimes your perspective is changed on a lot of things because of what you’ve been studying or portraying.Guerrero: There’s an exercise you practice in acting school called the “magic what-if.” In Fade, for instance: I’ve never had to punch a woman to protect my daughter, but what situation in my life evoked the emotions I needed to get to that place? So I replace it. I only use it at the beginning; once I get there and I know the feeling, I don’t think about it anymore.Jones: Saartjie Baartman in Voyeurs de Venus—she took me through it. I had to. She was a real person and I wanted to honor her story the best I could. My grandmother told me to let God protect Joy and fully let Saartjie step in and have this vessel. One of the first things my teacher in high school taught me, Ms. Jennings, was that when you’re done with the show, you have to step away and say, “I am Joy; I am not Saartjie. I have to leave you here at this theatre; I will come back tomorrow.” But you do take certain things. There was a lot of physical contact in the show, so in my personal life, I was very aware how people touched me. If I didn’t know you or didn’t know the intentions behind your touch, it made me very uncomfortable. Onstage if Joy was upset with how someone touched me, I can’t respond with however Joy would; I have to respond with how Saartjie would. So I would become more sensitive to that in life, because I have the agency to say, “Don’t touch me.” She did not.

Tell me about your other creative pursuits or side gigs. Do they inform your acting in turn?

Jones: All of it does. I started modeling when I was eight years old. Once I got into Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, I realized I wasn’t being artistically fulfilled by modeling alone; I wanted to do more. I created this silly character every time I hit the runway. The little things I brought to modeling, I got to expand onstage, because I’ve always said it’s not Joy doing these things, it’s my character. Once I got married, the opportunity to perform was not as frequent. I had all this creative energy pent up and I started writing. I’m working on putting my great-grandmother’s stories into a show now.VanWormer: I make my living gig by gig, and I’m fortunate that there are enough arts organizations in San Diego that I’m able to make almost all of my income in some capacity from the arts. I do show camps in Solana Beach with 8-to-12-year-olds; I work for North Coast Rep, teaching; I do the coordination every year for the California Young Playwrights Contest. I also do a lot of work with Write Out Loud; they’re a theater company that performs literature read by professional actors. We go into schools with poetry and literary and public speaking programs.Chan: Before I became a full-time professional actor, I was a sound design guy. I also arranged music. I got to meet Rick Dees—this really big radio DJ personality—and he said, “Everyone is built to do something.” It feels like all of my experiences have built me to do what I do onstage. If for some reason I wasn’t able to do this, I think everything I do would be related to it.Guerrero: I’m also a musician; I’ve been playing music for far longer than I’ve been acting. I use it a lot in my acting—for me a play is like a song. An arrangement with ups and downs, times of calm, and there’s almost a meter in my head while I’m doing a monologue. Like a beat; it comes out in a rhythm.Reynolds: I’m lucky to be acting and directing, because one informs the other. As an actor I know what I want out of the director, so I try to apply that when I’m directing—encouraging actors without telling them exactly “I want you to do this.” I try to give them room but also gently guide them where I want them (and hopefully make them think it’s all their idea). Manipulative? Sure. But in a gentle way. Actors can be very indulgent. They love to cry, to wail, to be angry. Those are the easiest emotions to do, because it’s juicy and it feels good. They’ll come up with stuff that doesn’t fit the big picture. You have to find a balance with everybody. But it’s the nuances of humanity and the unpredictable elements you want to bring out. You have to let the audience do some of the work.Bowman: I’ve had a dog walking company for six or seven years because I love animals so much. I do that and I do my acting. I don’t really have time to do anything else! Having a job during the day helps with my nervous energy. There’s nothing better than knowing you get to perform that night, and there’s nothing worse than sitting at home going, “I have seven hours before I have to go to the theater; what am I going to do?”

What’s your advice for someone just starting out in this field?

Stephenson: Training is good, experience is good. Training and experience is best. Denzel Washington’s advice to actors is “be prepared, be prepared, be prepared.”Guerrero: First, get good training. Before you audition, you should know what you’re doing. That’s the most important thing. I’ve seen a lot of people who are so in their head about everything—caught up thinking about their next line, where they should go next, what they look like—but good acting calls for letting go of all that, being focused on the people you’re acting with and delivering the lines as truthfully as you can.Chan: Learn that rejection is not personal. There will be a thousand reasons why you won’t get cast in something, and it’s not because of you. Just brush off the rejection and move on to the next thing; that’s the best skill you can learn.Jones: Be kind to yourself. Learn from your failures. And—you’re invincible! Honestly, that’s the biggest thing. Don’t be afraid of going for the big stuff. Do it!VanWormer: The best advice I ever got was “do plays.” Find a way to do the thing you want to do. Which means persistence, showing up to every audition, every open call, signing up for workshops, for classes, reading, educating yourself as much as possible. And always recognizing that you have room to improve and grow. Work hard, show up, represent yourself as best you can.Johnson: Have a lot of fun. Save your money! And in the words of my great mentor, Professor Segun Ojewuyi, head of directing at Southern Illinois University: “If you are here to be famous, leave.”

Who would play you in the Hollywood movie adaptation of your life?

Reynolds: That’s kind of sneaky, because whoever you choose is an interesting perspective of how you see yourself. For some reason I thought Judy Carne, who used to be on Laugh-In.Guerrero: Maybe Andy Garcia.Chan: That kid who plays Ned in the Spider-Man movies.VanWormer: Meryl Streep. Why not? Or Judi Dench.Stephenson: Well, the obvious answer is Brad Pitt. But that’s not gonna happen. Maybe a low-key Charles Laughton.Bowman: A fabulous drag queen. That’s what I would want.Jones: The easy answer would be Gabrielle Union in her Bring It On days. But the real answer is myself. I plan on keeping this face for the rest of my life.

Javier Guerrero

Local Bonafides

“I was born in Tijuana, and I’ve been living here pretty much my whole life.”

Recent Standout Role

Abel in Fade at Moxie Theatre* (2018)

Craig Noel Award

*2018 Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, Male (nominated)

Where to See Him Next

Latinx New Play Festival at the Lyceum Space, August 30-September 1

Rachael VanWormer

Local Bonafides

“I have lived in San Diego my whole life.”

Recent Standout Role

Harper Pitt in Angels in America at Cygnet Theatre (2019)

Craig Noel Award

2008 Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, Female

Where to See Her Next

Ring Around the Moon at Lamb’s Players Theatre, October 10–November 11

Tom Stephenson

Local Bonafides

“I started here in 1981.”

Recent Standout Role

Roger in The Hour of Great Mercy at Diversionary Theatre (2019)

Also Known For

Playing Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at Cygnet Theatre eight years running

Craig Noel Award

2017 Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, Male; 2014 Actor of the Year; 2014 Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play, Male; 2002 Performance in a Musical

Where to See Him Next

The Virgin Trial at Cygnet Theatre, September 11–October 6

Cortez L. Johnson

Local Bonafides

“I’m from Chicago originally. Been in San Diego five years now.”

Recent Standout Role

Chris in Sweat by San Diego Repertory Theatre (2019)

Craig Noel Award

2017 Actor of the Year, Male; 2017 Lead Performance in a Play, Male (nominated)

Eileen Bowman

Local Bonafides

“Born and raised here.”

Recent Standout Role

Lily Garland in On the 20th Century at Cygnet Theatre (2017)

Also Known For

Being the lead singer of the 61st Academy Awards opening act

Craig Noel Award

2012 Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical, Female

Where to See Her Next

Roadshow by Off Broadway Live in Santee, September 7–October 20

Joy Yvonne Jones

Local Bonafides

“I’m from Houston, Texas; this is my second year in San Diego.”

Recent Standout Role

Saartjie Baartman in Voyeurs de Venus at Moxie Theatre* (2018)

Craig Noel Award

*2018 Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, Female

Where to See Her Next

Dance Nation at Moxie Theatre, August 17–September 15

Victor E. Chan

Local Bonafides

With brief exceptions, “I’ve always been in San Diego.”

Recent Standout Role

Lonny in Rock of Ages at Cygnet Theatre (2019)

Also Known For

Originating the role of Crush in Finding Nemo: The Musical at Disney World

Rosina Reynolds

Local Bonafides

“I first came to San Diego from Wisconsin in… ’78? ’79?”

Recent Standout Role

Hannah Pitt in Angels in America at Cygnet Theatre (2019)

Craig Noel Award

2016 Outstanding Solo Performance; 2011 Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play, Female; 2007 Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play, Female; 2004 Outstanding Solo Performance; 2002 Direction

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