Tommy Tran (left) and Caleb Wohlgemuth in "{title of show}."          Photo courtesy of New Village Arts

            “{title of show},” a musical about two guys making a musical, is likable. Its characters, Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen, who actually did this 20 years ago, are likable. The actors playing Hunter and Jeff at New Village Arts, Caleb Wohlgemuth and Tommy Tran, are likable. So, by the way, are the other two members of the cast – Kylie Young and Becca Myers, who play Hunter and Jeff’s actress friends and collaborators Heidi and Susan.
            Have I made myself clear enough? Everything’s likable about NVA’s production of “{title of show}” including its 90-minute running time. (OK, there was one glitch on the night I caught a performance – Wohlgemuth’s mic went out about two-thirds of the way through and was never corrected.)
            Now it helps to have some knowledge of theater history and how theater works in your back pocket. There’s a lot of insider stuff, a lot of theater references in “{title of show}.” More than a few of Hunter or Jeff’s wisecrack observations as they conceive their unconventional stage musical rely on such familiarity. Believe it or not, there’s also a Shields and Yarnell joke in the play, one that will be lost on anyone under 60. (Google ‘em!) But then I imagine that when the real Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen were writing this show they name-dropped Shields and Yarnell in a silly or fuzzy moment and thought “Wouldn’t it be hysterical if we put THEM into the script?”
            Theirs really is an astonishing story. Two struggling theater artists with outsized dreams, they decided to write a stage musical for the 2004 New York Musical Theatre Festival – and to do so in only three weeks. Enlisting pals Heidi Blickenstaff (look up her actual theater credits, which include gigs at both the Old Globe and La Jolla Playhouse) and Susan Blackwell, Hunter and Jeff began frantically and daily workshopping and cobbling together bits and songs, songs and bits. They were rewarded first with a spot in the festival and, wonder of wonders, an Off Broadway run at the Vineyard Theatre on East 15th Street.
            All of this is re-created in “{title of show}” complete with 18 musical numbers beginning with (aptly) “Untitled Opening Number.” The music and lyrics written by Bowen are bright and very clever, which surprised me more than anything else in this show. I can see why not only a festival committee but an Off Broadway theater could be charmed by them. Most of the songs are expository, moving the story along, like “Two Nobodies in New York,” “Filling Out The Form” and, when a real live Broadway engagement appears possible for our creators the self-examining, self-doubting “Change It, Don’t Change It.”
            The rousing and sly “Die Vampire, Die!” led by Susan is the highlight of the score, which for the most part, and thankfully at that, eschews solemn ballads of the sort that Broadway eats up.
            Desiree Clarke Miller, who’s artistic director at Moxie Theatre south in Rolando, recognized that the pace of “{title of show}” needed to be crisp and brisk, reflecting the what-the-hell youth and optimism of all four of the Broadway-dreaming characters. If at junctures the storytelling comes off like a series of sketches run together that only contributes to the freewheeling nature of Bowen and Bell’s quest, one that ultimately was rewarded with a Broadway run at the Lyceum. This is not dramatized in “{title of show},” which has an open-ended finale, but Bowen and Bell’s success is generally well known.
            Much fun is usually had when this musical is promoted with its unusual name. Bowen and Bell called it “{title of show}” practically as an anarchic gesture. Good on them.
            Neither Wohlgemuth, only 19, nor Tran, 24, has a ton of major theater experience, but they’re both confident and comfortable onstage, and the friendship they’re portraying is easy to buy. Young, a standout in Moxie Theatre’s “Cry It Out” two years ago, is the top singer in the cast while Myers, who was directed by Clarke Miller in Moxie’s “Our Dear Dead Drug Lord” last year, enjoys and makes the most of the broadest comedic role in “{title of show}.” Even so, the best sight gag in this production finds Wohlgemuth, wearing a costume of strips of white paper, clowning and representing the blank page that is the enemy of every enterprising (and frustrated) writer.
            Bowen and Bell got it done, however, which should be inspirational to anyone out there who has an idea, runs with it and against all urges to quit perseveres. Whether or not they know who Shields and Yarnell were.
            “{title of show}” runs through Sept. 21 at New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad.

"Fiddler on the Roof" returns to the Moonlight Amphitheatre after 13 years.     Karli Cadel Photography

          I’ve seen “Fiddler on the Roof” maybe five or six times, and twice now in 13 years at Moonlight Amphitheatre, and this was the first time my mind wandered. How could it not? As the second act evolves toward the Russian expulsion of the Jews from the shtetl of Anatevka I thought of the evil that is Vladimir Putin and the lap dog of his that is Donald Trump. The two of them riding around in “the beast” like privileged BFFs. I felt a tug at my heart when student/activist Perchik (Tanner Vydos) arrives in Anatevka and introduces himself as being from Kyiv, which is now the capital of Ukraine. I reflected on a personal history I know very little about and wondered if ancestors on my father’s side who lived in Russia were subjected to the pogroms.
          Deep breath.
          Continue.
        I have a short list of stage musicals that I can see over and over again and never tire of. “Fiddler’s” on that list. More than 60 years after its arrival, it remains an alternately moving and rousing work of theater art. Its historical and political commentaries aside (though who can put then aside?), its story of family, change, TRADITION! and the ever-constant “happiness and tears” of life will never lose its beauty or urgency.
          Moonlight’s production of “Fiddler” in 2012 is so memorable to me that, fair or not, I have to compare it to this one. I so admired David Ellenstein in the role of Tevye the milkman and father of five daughters that the 2025 Tevye, Danny Gurwin, doesn’t quite measure up. The integral warm, paternal side of Tevye, which gives “Fiddler” much of its heartbeat, is lacking – in spite of Gurwin’s obvious gifts for comic timing. Neither does Debra Wanger, in the role of Golda, linger with me as Victoria Strong did 13 years ago.
          This production’s daughters are wondrous: Megan Carmitchel as the eldest, Tzeitel; Melissa Musial as Hodel and Joy Newbegin as Chava. Solid too are Vydos’ Perchik, Ron Orbach as the spurned butcher Lazar Wolf and Austyn Myers as the earnest tailor Motel.
           Besides the dependably inspiring musical prologue “Tradition,” this “Fiddler” directed by Steve Glaudini boasts exhilarating staging of the “To Life” tavern number and the post-wedding celebration in honor of Tzeitel and Motel’s nuptials. Moonlight is known for its productions’ high-powered and crowd-pleasing dancing (choreography here by Lee Martino); “Fiddler” has that to be sure.
          The thoughtful “Sunrise, Sunset” never fails to leave a lump in my throat and this, as with the production’s solemn “Sabbath Prayer” and heart-rending “Anatevka,” is articulated at Moonlight with tenderness and grace.
           Also as always at Moonlight, the orchestral accompaniment is first rate – here it’s 24-musicians strong under the direction of Elan McMahan.
          I had three people with me at this performance, two of whom were seeing “Fiddler on the Roof” for the first time. I hope they, like I do, will remember this timeless show through all the sunrises and sunsets to come.
          “Fiddler on the Roof” runs through Aug. 30 at Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista.

Brittany Bellizeare and Travis Van Winkle face off in "Deceived."                                     Photo by Jim Cox

            Playwrights Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson have taken Patrick Hamilton’s play “Gas Light,” which also inspired two films including the 1944 gem starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, and rightfully empowered its heroine. Rather than having an intervening man solve the mystery of who and why someone’s trying to convince her she is mad, the heroine – named Bella in Wright and Jamieson’s iteration – will figure things out on her own.
            This is not a spoiler. It’s clear in the first act of “Deceived,” now onstage in the Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White space, that the fraying of Bella’s fragile nerves is being manipulated. The missing pearls. The misplaced grocery list. The appearing and reappearing portrait. The thumping noises in the attic and the temperamental gaslight overhead in the otherwise sedate London home of Jack (Travis Van Winkle) and Bella (Brittany Bellizeare) Manningham.
            What is described more as a psychological thriller than a mystery requires two acts to unfold at the Globe, where Delicia Turner Sonnenberg directs a tense, stylish production that takes advantage of the White Theatre’s intimate confines to effect a claustrophobic atmosphere for the tormented Bella. Original music and strategic sounds by Fitz Patton arrive at timely moments, providing a cinematic touch that harks back to the ‘40s film and may startle audience members lulled into passivity by the play’s Edwardian-era properness – the formal exchanges between Bella and Jack, and the comings and goings of the gruff but dutiful housekeeper Elizabeth (Maggie Carney) and a newly hired (and bored by her responsibilities) maid, Nancy (Kennedy Tolson).
            For all the startlements and sound effects, the pace of “Deceived” is languid, mainly in the first act. Bellizeare’s Bella is ever on the verge of fainting, it seems, and there’s a sense of redundancy here.
            Propelled by the discoveries and revelations of Act Two, “Deceived” finds its thrills there when Bella has steeled herself and the play is injected with much-needed physicality.
            The weight of the storytelling naturally rests upon Bellizeare, a fine actor who last year made her Broadway debut in Ayad Ahtar’s “McNeal” that starred Robert Downey Jr. Her flustered, almost frantic Bella of Act One is obviously per the script, and in any event it’s supremely satisfying to see the character metamorphose via her own wits in the second act.
            Van Winkle struts his way through the unsympathetic role of Jack; one longs for a little more nuance in the one-dimensional character from the playwrights.
            The now-Los Angeles-based Maggie Carney returned to town last year to play a terrifying Annie Wilkes in Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company’s production of “Misery.” In years prior she’d distinguished herself as one of the most reliable and talented character actors in San Diego. Her delightful and audience-pleasing performance in “Deceived” is a reminder of that.
            Tolson recently appeared at La Jolla Playhouse in “Indian Princesses,” and she does well at the Globe in a completely different sort of part. Nancy gets to have her big moment in Act Two, and Tolson takes full advantage.
            “Deceived” wouldn’t be called a costume drama, but it is dramatically and beautifully costumed for 1901 London by Nicole Jescinth Smith. Even the household staff looks impeccable.
            The Old Globe’s delivered high-style summer entertainment this season and now adds the West Coast premiere of “Deceived” to the concurrent “The Comedy of Errors” in the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre and the recently closed “Noises Off” in the proscenium space. In spite of its early slow going, “Deceived” is the elegant thriller it aspires to be and a reimagined “Gaslight” that Ingrid Bergman, who nevertheless won an Oscar for her ’44 performance, should have had.
            “Deceived” runs through Sept. 7 in the Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre in Balboa Park.

Love in the cornfields between Beau and Maizy.       Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

            The seed of Robert Horn’s musical comedy “Shucked” was planted 10 years ago with a show titled “Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical.” An homage to the corny “Hee Haw” television series that began in the late ‘60s and seemingly endured forever in syndication, “Moonshine” featured music and lyrics by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally. Its heroine was spunky Misty Mae of Kornfield Kounty.
            From “Moonshine” came “Shucked,” which retains only two songs from its predecessor (and only one character). Misty Mae became Maizy and Kornfield Kounty became Cob County. The inspiration from “Hee Haw” remains.
            I remember thinking “WTF?” when the great Jack O’Brien told me a couple of years ago, during an interview promoting his new book, about this new show he was directing in Salt Lake City for Pioneer Theatre Company. He was optimistic about this musical tale of folks who grow corn for a livelihood getting a Broadway engagement.
            So it did, running at the Nederlander Theatre in New York for nearly a year and earning nine Tony nominations. I shouldn’t have been surprised – O’Brien knows more about theater than I ever will.
            Perhaps if not for Jack O’Brien I wouldn’t have been at all interested in seeing “Shucked” as it arrives in San Diego on its current national tour. But there I was, at the Civic Theatre, not at all certain what to expect.
            What I got and what you’ll get is a sort of soft-R-rated “Hee Haw”: lots and lots and lots of puns and jokes with punchlines you can see coming a cornfield away; humor that draws heavily on the sex-related, the toilet-related and whatever groans can be elicited from either area. The characters are best personified by Peanut (Mike Nappi), who’s given far more than enough time than is warranted to crack these jokes with deadpan doltery, almost as if George “Goober” Lindsey were reincarnated from the old TV show.
            Now there is a story, a thin one. The simple (simple, not stupid, it is emphasized) folks of Cob County are in an understandable snit because their corn, their lifeblood, has suddenly stopped growing. While most resort to just scratching their heads about it, the staunchly determined Maizy (Danielle Wade, a charmer) is bound to take action. Against the stubborn do-nothingness of her beau named Beau (Jake Odmark) she decides to seek help out of town. In the BIG CITY. Tampa!
            The fun had with Tampa may be the best sequence in “Shucked,” not the least because it’s there that Maizy meets a handsome con man named Gordy (Quinn VanAntwerp – his real name sounds more like a character from this show) who’s advertising himself as a “corn doctor,” of the bunions variety. But of course Maizy misunderstands and recruits him for agricultural doctoring. Gordy, seeing what he believes is a very valuable bracelet around Maizy’s wrist and learning that the stones come from Cob County, decides to go along with her with dollar signs in his eyes.
            From there the conflict in Cob is less about the corn that won’t grow and more about the romantic complications that swirl around Maizy, Gordy, Beau and Maizy’s no-B.S. cousin Lulu (Miki Abraham, the most entertaining character in “Shucked” and then some).
            The presence of two wisecracking and knowing storytellers (Maya Lagerstam and Tyler Joseph Ellis) ensures that every eventuation and motivation is explained to the audience throughout the two-hours-plus show. They’re heavy on the pun-making as well, though as noted earlier, Peanut is in a class by himself.
            While the entire yarn is corn right off the cob, the music is surprisingly accessible and not confined to what might have been expected to be a twangy-country score. Lulu’s “Independently Owned” number is hot and sassy; Maizy’s “Walls” and “Woman of the World” are earnestly rendered by Wade; Beau’s “Somebody Will” and “OK” ballads are more interesting than his character, frankly.
            Gordy is presented as a likable con artist in the “Music Man” mold, and while VanAntwerp is no Robert Preston, he’s more satisfying to root for than the sulking Beau that Odmark has to play. In the same vein, Abraham’s Lulu is a worlds more entertaining character than the sweetly stalwart Maizy. The inevitable Gordy/Lulu byplay is suggestive like the rest of “Shucked” but a cut above in mere wit.
            With a show that includes a song titled “Holy Shit” you know you’re not getting “Les Mis” here. Audiences will be divided, no doubt, on how much punning, innuendo and down-home naughtiness they can take.
            Me? About half. Hee but not haw.
            “Shucked” runs through Aug. 17 at the Civic Theatre in downtown San Diego.

Valeria Vega (in blindfold) stars in "Fragment/o/s Of Air/e."                                     Photo by Daren Scott

            Performances don’t come much braver than Valeria Vega’s in the world premiere of Carla Navarro’s “Fragment/o/s Of Air/e” at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista. Vega plays Chilean-born Nina who with her husband Armando (Arturo Medina) and the child she’s carrying fled her native country during the human-rights horrors of the Pinochet regime.
            But some things cannot be run away from, and it’s in the telling of Nina’s story and the profound and painful scars inflicted upon her body, her psyche and her soul that Vega’s courage and Nina’s become one.
            As the play directed by James Darvas opens, Nina sits alone in the living room of her San Diego home. She awaits the arrival of her daughter Chivi (Maya Sofia Enciso), her son Flaco (Lester Isariuz) and her now ex-husband. It’s 2005 and they’re gathering to watch a debate from Chile that could be historic: A Socialist Party candidate – and a woman – (Michelle Bachelet) is squaring off against Nationalist Renewal Party candidate Sebastian Pinera.
            The loud barking of a dog heard outside the house startles Nina onto the razor’s edge. She will reside there for most of the 90 minutes that ensue.
            Navarro told me in an interview for The San Diego Union-Tribune that her play was inspired by a book given to her mother by a friend that recalled that woman’s suffering under the Pinochet dictatorship. Such a book factors into “Fragment/o/s,” and its presence in Nina’s house (an unwelcome “gift”) seems to haunt and taunt Nina.
            The three other members of the “Fragment/o/s” cast portray Nina’s family and, in flashbacks, shadowy and predatory figures from the past in Chile, where Nina’s brother was “disappeared” and where she was subsequently tortured. These time-traveling transitions are accomplished with shifts in lighting and sound – they’re at first disorienting but we come to expect and dread them.
            In the present, daughter Chivi, who’s on the verge of completing her law-school education, is a full-of-life idealist who yearns to know her family roots, no matter how dark. She also has secrets of her own that will be revealed in what becomes an evening of household turmoil … and confrontations. Son Flacco wants nothing to do with Chile or his heritage. What he wants is for his parents to go ahead with the planned sale of the family home in Chile so that he’ll have the financial means for him and his partner to adopt a child.
            As for Armando, it’s clear from the moment he enters Nina’s house that he regrets the transgressions and neglect of their marriage and wants her back.
            The family conflicts shrink beside the psychological torture that Nina is undergoing. Thirty years have passed since she left Chile, but she remains trapped inside their terrors. This culminates in a flashback torture scene that is not for the weak of heart.
            Vega’s commitment and stamina as Nina through 90 roiling minutes make hers one of the strongest performances locally this year. Enciso and Isariuz bring energy and layers to characters who clash on much but not over their love for their mother. The Armando character could use a little fleshing out.
            “Fragment/o/s” is a play with its passion and its ferocity in the right place, an indictment of an atrocity of history but at the same time an intimation that healing, at least the start of healing, can be found in the loving arms of family.
            “Fragment/o/s Of Air/e” runs through Aug. 18 at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista.

Valerie Vega and Lester Isariuz in "Fragment/o/s Of Air/e."                                       Photo by Daren Scott

            Performances don’t come much braver than Valerie Vega’s in the world premiere of Carla Navarro’s “Fragment/o/s Of Air/e” at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista. Vega plays Chilean-born Nina who with her husband Armando (Arturo Medina) and the child she’s carrying fled her native country during the human-rights horrors of the Pinochet regime.
            But some things cannot be run away from, and it’s in the telling of Nina’s story and the profound and painful scars inflicted upon her body, her psyche and her soul that Vega’s courage and Nina’s become one.
            As the play directed by James Darvas opens, Nina sits alone in the living room of her San Diego home. She awaits the arrival of her daughter Chivi (Maya Sofia Enciso), her son Flaco (Lester Isariuz) and her now ex-husband. It’s 2005 and they’re gathering to watch a debate from Chile that could be historic: A Socialist Party candidate – and a woman – (Michelle Bachelet) is squaring off against Nationalist Renewal Party candidate Sebastian Pinera.
            The loud barking of a dog heard outside the house startles Nina onto the razor’s edge. She will reside there for most of the 90 minutes that ensue.
            Navarro told me in an interview for The San Diego Union-Tribune that her play was inspired by a book given to her mother by a friend that recalled that woman’s suffering under the Pinochet dictatorship. Such a book factors into “Fragment/o/s,” and its presence in Nina’s house (an unwelcome “gift”) seems to haunt and taunt Nina.
            The three other members of the “Fragment/o/s” cast portray Nina’s family and, in flashbacks, shadowy and predatory figures from the past in Chile, where Nina’s brother was “disappeared” and where she was subsequently tortured. These time-traveling transitions are accomplished with shifts in lighting and sound – they’re at first disorienting but we come to expect and dread them.
            In the present, daughter Chivi, who’s on the verge of completing her law-school education, is a full-of-life idealist who yearns to know her family roots, no matter how dark. She also has secrets of her own that will be revealed in what becomes an evening of household turmoil … and confrontations. Son Flacco wants nothing to do with Chile or his heritage. What he wants is for his parents to go ahead with the planned sale of the family home in Chile so that he’ll have the financial means for him and his partner to adopt a child.
            As for Armando, it’s clear from the moment he enters Nina’s house that he regrets the transgressions and neglect of their marriage and wants her back.
            The family conflicts shrink beside the psychological torture that Nina is undergoing. Thirty years have passed since she left Chile, but she remains trapped inside their terrors. This culminates in a flashback torture scene that is not for the weak of heart.
            Vega’s commitment and stamina as Nina through 90 roiling minutes make hers one of the strongest performances locally this year. Enciso and Isariuz bring energy and layers to characters who clash on much but not over their love for their mother. The Armando character could use a little fleshing out.
            “Fragment/o/s” is a play with its passion and its ferocity in the right place, an indictment of an atrocity of history but at the same time an intimation that healing, at least the start of healing, can be found in the loving arms of family.
            “Fragment/o/s Of Air/e” runs through Aug. 18 at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista.
 

Lisa VillaMil, Will Blum and Brandon Micheal Hall in "The Comedy of Errors."              Photo by Jim Cox

            “The Comedy of Errors” is Shakespeare’s shortest comedy and a trifle, so why not have some unbridled havoc and giddy pop-culture nostalgia with it? Why not, oh let’s say, set it in the 1990s, the bygone decade of “Friends” and “Black Hole Sun” and Beavis & Butthead?
            They’re all nodded to in director James Vasquez’s whimsical take on “The Comedy of Errors,” the second of the Old Globe’s outdoor Shakespeare productions this summer in Balboa Park. A spinning top of mistaken-identity double takes, musical sound bites and athletic physical comedy, it makes the preceding “All’s Well That Ends Well” in the open-air Festival Theatre look staid by comparison.
            I tend to be a Shakespeare purist, but with the tragic plays. The comedies, I’m mostly down with choices to change the time period or the costumes and even with tossing in a few contemporary, anachronistic lines – as long as the foundation of The Bard’s work and words is maintained. Vasquez’s “The Comedy of Errors” may immerse itself in ‘90s garb (costumes by Amanda Vander Byl) and song samples that wouldn’t be out of place on 91X’s “Resurrection Sundays” show, but over the course of its fast-moving 90 minutes (just a coincidence), the antics of the play as written remain at the forefront.
            Nothing much to it: “The Comedy of Errors” concerns itself with the hapless confusion caused by the presence in Ephesus of two sets of identical twins. There’s separated-at-birth Antipholus of Ephesus (Joshua Echebiri) and Antipholus of Syracuse (Brandon Micheal Hall) and their respective manservants Dromio and Dromio (Daniel Petzold and Will Blum). The trouble they get into in town variously has to do with the law, with a goldsmith, with an abbess, but primarily with the indignant wife of A-of-E, Adriana (Sarah Stiles, this production’s comedic force-of-nature).
            Though intended to bolster the 1990s setting, not all the recorded musical fills seem necessary; some are distracting, or frustrating because we long to hear more of a favorite tune from that decade – like me after just a few bars of The Offspring’s “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy).” But this isn’t a jukebox musical or even close to one. It might be more apt to say that this “Comedy of Errors” suggests the ‘90s rather than trying to sound like them. Rather how Vasquez’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” staged here in 2023 suggested the 1950s.
            Rivaling the superb Stiles for laughs are the crowd-pleasing Dromios – Petzold and Blum. Not unlike the clown characters that are so much a part of Shakespearean comedy, they get to function without any pretense of dignity or solemnity. Anything goes with these two – Petzold, seen earlier this year at the Globe in its incendiary “Appropriate,” and Broadway veteran Blum (last appearing locally in CCAE Theatricals’ “Sunday in the Park with George”). I enjoyed watching these two even when they didn’t have lines to speak.
            Vasquez has somewhat of a three-ring circus to direct here and that’s accomplished without any sense that these actors are being directed. Everyone’s just uninhibitedly in play mode.
            I can’t recall seeing a 90-minute Shakespeare production outside at the Globe with no intermission – a treat in itself. That’s all the time one needs in Ephesus with the goings-on of “The Comedy of Errors.” On the warm summer night that it was, too, I didn’t even need a blanket.
            “The Comedy of Errors” runs through Aug. 24 in the Old Globe’s Lowell Davies Festival Theatre.