STAGE WEST: The Best Productions of 2025

Left to right: Daniel Petzold, Maggie Lacey and Steve Kazee in "Appropriate."               Photo by Jim Cox

        You know that expression “being in the moment”? I’ve been thinking a lot this year about live theater, about how important it is and how singularly immersive it is, and I believe this is why: We are “in the moment” when we sit together in the darkness and watch, hear, feel what’s happening on stage. The artists in front of us, too, are in the moment. Each performance is unique, no matter how many times it’s been repeated. Theater is now, theater is alive, theater is everyone in a sense being in the moment.
        It’s been another stellar year for San Diego theater. My list of the 10 best productions of 2025 do not reflect the full breadth and ambition of what was presented on our local stages. But they stand out for me because in each of them, I found myself in the moment. That wasn’t always comfortable, but it was human. It was genuine.
         So, with much ado …
        1. “Appropriate,” Old Globe Theatre. This harrowing production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Tony-winning (for Best Revival of a Play) melodrama was absolutely, positively NOT appropriate for the faint of heart. As I wrote way back in January when I reviewed it: “I can’t remember the last time I experienced a dramatic production as unsettling and frequently unpleasant as this one, while at once being completely engrossed.” Ostensibly the story of a disconnected family gathering at a rundown plantation mansion to settle their patriarch’s estate, “Appropriate” quickly escalated into a nasty, no-holds barred battle of words and recriminations. A ferocious cast led in ferocity by Maggie Lacey and directed by Steve H. Broadnax scorched through and savored shock after shock.
        2. “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company. Another unnerving family drama set in the South – in this case, New Orleans’ Elysian Fields – Tennessee Williams’ classic “A Streetcar Named Desire” is often produced, and I’ve seen it onstage multiple times. My most memorable so far was Backyard’s bold and haunting (complete with an appearance by a whispering La Llorona) interpretation this summer, directed by Rob Lutfy. Blanche Dubois’ descent from the genteel into madness was portrayed with poignancy and torment by Jessica John, putting her own stamp on one of American theater’s most famous characters. With its two intermissions and its three-hour-plus running time, this production HAD to be compelling. It was.
        3. “3 Summers of Lincoln,” La Jolla Playhouse. A crucial, quintessential American history lesson set to music (by Joe DiPietro and Daniel J. Watts), this richly conceived production gave us an Abraham Lincoln who was less the iconized figure played on film by Henry Fonda or Daniel Day Lewis and more a man of not just complexity and courage, but doubt as well. The titular “3 Summers” are those pitting Lincoln (Ivan Hernandez) against abolitionist Frederick Douglass (Quentin Earl Darrington), with the stakes being the soul and conscience of a nation. The musical score reflected the breadth of Americana, the story a reminder of the tragedy of war but at the same time the causes that need to be fought for. To director Christopher Ashley, now bound for New York’s Roundabout Theatre, bravo. For this and many others in La Jolla.
        4. “Follies,” Cygnet Theatre. The most notable event NOT on a San Diego theater stage in 2025 was without question the opening of a brand-new venue: Cygnet Theatre’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center (aka The Joan) in Liberty Station with its two performance spaces. The larger Joseph Clayes III Theater was inaugurated with a stylish production of the rarely staged musical “Follies,” a 1971 collaboration between Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman. In a daring and inspired choice, Cygnet’s Sean Murray not only brought “Follies” to San Diego for the first time in more than 30 years, but cast many of our theater scene’s most esteemed actresses, including in the ex-showgirl leads Karole Foreman and Sandy Campbell. Even with its bizarro wind-up, “Follies” was sophisticated, nostalgic and often thrilling.
        5. “Beauty’s Daughter,” OnWord Theatre. OnWord Theatre’s first full year producing culminated with a stirring one-person show written by Dael Orlandersmith and performed by OnWord co-founder Marti Gobel. Set in Harlem sometime in the ‘90s, “Beauty’s Daughter” is 31-year-old Diane, a scarred survivor in search of love, inner truth and reconciliation with an inescapable dark past. Over the course of 80 minutes, Gobel changed costumes and personas, becoming those either on the periphery or in the wheelhouse of Diane’s life – a streetwise teenager, a blind, drug addicted surrogate father, a philandering suitor among them. And Beauty herself, bitter and boozed out. All this accomplished in the tiny confines of Diversionary Theatre’s upstairs Blackbox space.
        6. “La Llorona on the Blue Line,” TuYo Theatre. Leading ticket-holders from one vintage light-rail train to another with the wispy elusiveness of a butterfly by moonlight, La Llorona (Vanessa Flores) was the connective thread between three 15- to 20-minute stories written by Mabelle Reynoso and performed inside those retired railway or trolley cars. TuYo Theatre’s immersive production went down at the 1880s-built National City Depot operated by the San Diego Electric Railway Association. Reynoso’s vignettes, acted out practically in one’s lap, mingled haunting moments with evocations of gender equity and tales of women in the South Bay. Of all the site-specific theater events I attended this past year, including those at the Without Walls (WOW) Festival, this one was the most engrossing.
        7. “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” North Coast Repertory Theatre. Two artists central to this rousing production of Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak’s hit Broadway show deserve a call-out: First, director Noelle Marion, who succeeded in translating this kinetic – and big -- musical comedy to a smaller stage; and actor Andrew Polec, who reveled in the role of likable but murder-minded Monty Navarro who’s seeking the D’Ysquith family lordship. Fortunately, I’d forgotten most of the Old Globe’s 2013 world premiere of this costumed romp (though not the unforgettable Jefferson Mays), so the North Coast Rep production was almost like seeing “Guide” for the first time. It wasn’t long during the evening before I remembered that this was – and is – one very funny affair.
        8. “Fragment/o/s Of Air/e,” OnStage Playhouse. This year saw a rich offering of lead performances by female artists, including John in “Streetcar,” Gobel in “Beauty’s Daughter” and Deborah Gilmour Smyth in Backyard’s “The Waverly Gallery.” Bravest of all was Valeria Vega’s star turn in OnStage Playhouse’s production of “Fragment/o/s Of Air/e.” Carla Navarro’s tense drama finds the Chilean-born Nina (Vega) and her family, since residing in America, gathered to watch a historic presidential debate in Chile. Looming over the various family conflicts is the psychological torture Nina is enduring – aftermath of another brand of torture and more from the Pinochet years. “Fragment/o/s” was the highlight of OnStage’s ambitious year, a production that stayed with me on the long drive home from Chula Vista to Mission Valley. And beyond.
        9. “Other Desert Cities,” Cygnet Theatre. Families in turmoil seemed to be a recurring theme on San Diego stages in 2025. The Wyeths of Palm Springs were no exception. Cygnet’s production of “Other Desert Cities” came 12 years after the play was staged at the Old Globe. Once again it delivered personal and political confrontations with urgency and ambience. Its most riveting moments were those between mother Polly (Rosina Reynolds) and daughter Brooke (Melanie Lora), the latter whose memoir lit the fuse for what be less than a holly-jolly yuletide family reunion. “Other Desert Cities” is one of those rare politics-minded plays that doesn’t mire itself in polemics and tired, self-important oratory. Of course it helped to have an ensemble like Cygnet’s which also included Debra Wanger, Alan Rust and Geoffrey Ulysses Geissinger.
        10. “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” Moxie Theatre. It was back to Harlem, this time in the 1930s, for Moxie’s best production of the year, of Pearl Cleage’s slow-burning about those who live in and around a neighborhood apartment house. Chief among them is a drinking, despairing chanteuse named Angel (Deja Fields) and her best friend Guy (Kevanne La’Marr Coleman), the pair directed by Moxie’s Desiree Clarke Miller. The onstage chemistry between Fields and Coleman carried the day, supported by a cast that also featured Xavier Daniels, Carter Piggee and Janine Taylor. The intertwining character studies, grounded in the social change and music of the period, made “Blues” an absorbing, and heart-rending, few hours in a theater.
        Honorable mention: “The Waverly Gallery,” Backyard Renaissance; “The Heart,” La Jolla Playhouse; “Waitress,” Moonlight Stage Productions; “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground,” North Coast Rep; Yvonne Brown’s “Fre3sty13,” San Diego International Fringe Festival