Play review: ‘My Ex- Step- Mother- in- Law’
Actually, the one-woman show of the above title that I saw last week has very little to do with the subject of the title, namely, mothers-in-law. I am one such, and even an ex-one...
‘Bluish’ concert features Jews and African-Americans
From the creative muse of Yale Strom comes another concert with the intriguing title, “BLUEISH: JEWS AND THE BLUES.”
The multi-talented Strom, scholar-in-residence at SDSU’s Judaic Studies Department, has brought concerts combining his klezmer forces...
‘Desert Rock Garden:’ A Landmark Piece of History With the Full Array of Emotions
I believe I was in my final years of high school or perhaps even early years of college when I first learned of the Japanese internment camps. What horrified me most of all was one...
Mother-Daughter Conflict Plays Out in ‘The Garden’
Novelist and historian, Leo Tolstoy once said, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This is born out in La Jolla Playhouse’s current production, The Garden. This two-woman...
Israeli Netta Barzilai to sing in finals of Eurovision contest
Israeli singer Netta Barzilai was voted on Tuesday to be one of the 10 singers in the final of the Eurovision song contest.
Barzilai, who performed the song “Toy,” will join finalists from Estonia, Cyprus,...
Experiencing the horrors of war through music
A new arrangement of a powerful composition conveying the horrors of war, written by a Toronto musician while he was interned in a displaced persons’ camp in 1946, will premiere at the Jewish Music...
An opera about Auschwitz!?
I was one of the brave souls who attended a performance of the opera, The Passenger’ by Mieczyslaw Weinberg. I did so mainly because a friend of ours was the revival director of the production...
‘The Wiz’: A Celebration of Color and Dance
Usually the path of Broadway touring shows is that the show goes on tour after some considerable time and success on Broadway. But for The Wiz, now playing at Broadway San Diego, the opposite is...
Felder’s ‘Before Fiddler’ Highlights Music of Sholem Aleichem Era
Hershey Felder continues to stream one-man shows from his current residence in Florence, Italy. Among his many portrayals of famous composers such as Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikowsky and Debussy, he also featured three great Jewish...
‘The Mechanicals’ Features Summer Camp Nostalgia
Who doesn’t wax nostalgic for those halcyon days of summer camp? Even if there are snakes in the lake or bug juice or pit toilets, there is nothing that connotes summer vacation like a...