Against his better judgment, Casey/Georgia (Spencer Bang, left) takes a cue from drag vet Tracy Mills (David McBean). Photos by Daren Scott.Casey and Jo are pregnant and poor (as in no-rent-money poor), but poverty is no match for Casey’s elation at the news most every young husband wants to hear.... Read more »

Claudio Raygoza’s chilling tour de force performance of Eric Bogosian’s volatile one-man play Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll blew the roof off ion theatre’s modest Sixth Avenue playhouse Saturday, October 14. Although the playwright’s 1990 work presents a catalogue of outlandish yet telling caricatures of hypermasculinity, the attitudes spewed by... Read more »

Beau Brians, Deborah Gilmour Smyth, Katie Sapper, Brian Mackey, Annie Buckley, Rik Ogden and Steve Gouveia. (Photos courtesy of Ken Jacques.)Shows that deal with faith and religion aren’t easy to pull off. If handled poorly, stories about spirituality can become too corny or preachy. There is never a moment when... Read more »

The Pirates of Penzance, San Diego Opera’s first ever Gilbert and Sullivan opera, arrived at Civic Theatre Saturday (October 14)—a kinetic, splashy, gift-wrapped production that left no humorous stone unturned. Offering several outstanding voices, enough choreography for two or three operas, and the luxurious sonic cushion of the San Diego... Read more »

Danilo Pérez Photo used by permission of La Jolla Athenaeum There was a period of time when I was deeply into creating electronic music. I concluded rather abruptly that I did not care for most of the sounds commercially available to me because they were all generated using digital sources... Read more »

Given the global outreach of the western classical music tradition, it would be foolish to restrict the performance of music composed in distinct national styles to those musicians born and raised in that native musical language. In her day, for example, African American diva Leontyne Price was a leading Verdi... Read more »

Seán Curran, noted dance guru and respected choreographer turned opera stage director can expound the theory behind his work with a steady stream of clever abstractions. But he can also cut to the chase: “My job is to tell the audience where to look.” Seán Curran [photo courtesy of San... Read more »

Esteemed conductor Edo de Waart returned to the San Diego Symphony to lead the orchestra through an impassioned season-opening concert Friday (October 6) at the Jacobs Music Center. His fourth guest appearance in the last three years only confirmed the impression from his previous visits: his congenial authority on the... Read more »

Leonard Pelkey wasn’t officially an adult when he was brutally murdered, so his specific sexuality deserves a perpetual curtain of privacy. But the vivid public image he cultivated certainly caused endless speculation on his life and probably contributed to his death. Years later, an old cop still mulls the lessons... Read more »

A new San Diego ensemble—the Ardor Trio—made an auspicious debut Saturday (September 30) at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. In the refined realm of chamber music, the string trio plays second fiddle to the august string quartet, an irony, of course, since the string trio has no second... Read more »