SAN DIEGO THEATRE SCENE

"CURTAIN CALLS" #254

By Pat Launer

www.sdtheatrescene.com

08/22/08

Back from Easter Island, back to the Theatre Scene,

Managed to see A Chorus Line, and also Sight Unseen.

And the tour of Spring Awakening , with its passion by the gallon.

The week was capped by the tribute to the life of Priscilla Allen.

This is Our Youth

THE SHOW: Spring Awakening, the musical that swept the 2007 Tony Awards, winning 8 of its 11 nominations, including Best Musical (a title also bestowed by the New York Drama Critics Circle, the Drama Desk, Drama League and the Outer Critics Circle). Other Tonys were bestowed for Best Book (Steven Sater) and Best Score (Duncan Sheik). The show has come full circle, returning to San Diego, where it had its first workshop production (at the La Jolla Playhouse, 1999). This is the West coast debut, and the kickoff of the 2-year national tour. It’s also Broadway San Diego’s first presentation in the newly renovated Balboa Theatre, and the first time in 84 years that a major Broadway show is being produced in the historic space (which, you might be interested to know, has the only functioning wall-mounted water-effect in the country!).

THE STORY: The musical is based on the infamous 1891 play of the same name, by German dramatist Frank Wedekind, whose work often criticized ‘bourgeois attitudes,’ especially about sex. It was his first major play, and it caused a scandal. Set in a tight-laced, authoritarian society, the piece is an incendiary story of late 19^th century German youth reaching puberty and discovering their sexuality. The musical, like the drama, has a central love story, and includes scenes or intimations of masturbation, rape, child abuse, homosexuality, botched abortion and teen suicide. Wedekind called it ‘a tragedy of childhood.’

Early attempts at producing the play were either banned (Berlin, 1906) or shut down (New York, 1917) Wedekind wrote it. Now, since the musical has become a worldwide phenomenon (thanks to the internet), ten international productions will launch in 2009, including Germany (in German), Israel (in Hebrew), Spain, Sweden, France, Austria and South Korea.

THE PERFORMERS/THE PRODUCTION: By all accounts, this touring show is pretty much an exact replica of the New York production, which is inventive, stunning, energetic and irresistible. The direction (Michael Mayer) and agile/antic choreography (Bill T. Jones) are superb, as is the kickass, mind-blowing lighting (Kevin Adams), with its rock-concert spots and bright, wall-mounted bulbs and tubes (dots and dashes) in red, white or blue, and multiple special effects. The set (Christine Jones) makes ingenious use of chairs, platforms, ropes and ladders. The back wall features an array of shapes and symbols, starkly lit at seminal moments (a stern portrait for sexual abuse, a coffin-shaped box for death, etc.).

The production is dazzling. The adolescent exuberance and bounce infuse the evening. The costumes (Susan Hilferty) are 19^th century prim or drab. But then, the performers (who sit among some onstage audience members), deftly pull a hand-mic from their buttoned-up shirts (a suggestive act, like many in the piece), and transform the proceedings into a pop-rock concert.

Sheik’s score is bittersweet, sometimes angular, sometimes lyrical, reflecting or reacting to the dark themes of the show. Sater’s lyrics are colloquial, poetic and unpredictable, evoking beautiful or disturbing images. The melancholy tone of words and music offsets the youthful ebullience. The onstage band is superb and unique, with its mournful cello, standup bass, violin and viola, along with guitar (electric and acoustic), drums and keyboards. At times the music overpowers the singing, or the singer swallows the mic, rendering the lyrics incomprehensible. Sater’s songs, unlike those in most musicals, don’t forward the action; they are more like subtext or interior monologue, serving as confession, denial, admission or impassioned outcry.

This is the Hair or Rent of its generation. It may not be a show for the ages (that remains to be seen), but it’s certainly a show of its era. Whether you go out singing the songs or not (unlikely, except for a few), the evening’s passion and energy are undoubtedly infectious. The young devotees (teens mostly, dubbed “The Guilty Ones,” from one of the songs) were screaming repeatedly on opening night, while the older observers were transported back to their own difficult formative years. At times, the rock concert feel and the ingenuity of the staging have a distancing effect on the emotional depth, which may get crafty but superficial treatment. The show is, as Wedekind intended, a tragedy, with its brutal imagery and senseless, youthful deaths. But the musical’s creators have made a concerted effort to end on a note of hope.

The cast unequivocally delivers the goods. The two male leads come directly from the Broadway company. As the smart, soul-searching iconoclast, Melchior, who dares to defy the conventions of his repressive society, Kyle Riabko is a delight, with his adorable looks, simian agility and powerful voice. TV and film actor Blake Bashoff (recurring role on ABC’s “Lost”) made his stage debut in Spring Awakening, joining the Broadway cast last December. He plays Melchior’s ill-fated best friend, the tragically tormented Moritz, who can’t endure the anguish of adolescence, or live up to his father’s – or his own – expectations. Bashoff has a great voice, and a wild-eyed, rubber-faced look that perfectly suits the tortured character and his off-the-wall hairdos. As Melchior’s love interest, the sweet and hapless Wendla, lovely and talented Christy Altomare is living a theater dream. At 19, she just graduated with a BFA from the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. During her school’s showcase in New York, she sang Wendla’s haunting opening number, “Mama Who Bore Me,” knocking it outta the park, and snagging her the role in the touring company. Also notable, in look and voice, is Steffi D as Ilse. The two ‘grownups,’ playing all The Adult Women (Angela Reed) and Adult Men (Henry Stram), do a fine job.

Initiating the national tour is a coup for San Diego. So, get on the bus. Catch the fever and phenom. Even if just to see what everyone’s talking about. Take yourself back to your youth, or take your kids to see their current struggles musically portrayed onstage. It’s all about “The Bitch of Living.”

THE LOCATION: The Balboa Theatre, courtesy of Broadway San Diego, through August 31

BOTTOM LINE: BEST BET

Art for Art’s Sake

THE SHOW: Sight Unseen, the Donald Margulies drama that won an Obie Award when it premiered Off Broadway in 1992. First seen in San Diego in 1993 as a staged reading that was part of the Streisand Festival of New Jewish Plays (featuring Ron Choularton, who appears in the current Globe production), the piece was subsequently produced locally by the Fritz Theatre (1996) and North Coast Repertory Theatre (2003).

THE STORY: Internationally acclaimed artist Jonathan Waxman makes a visit to a rural farmhouse in Norfolk, England, to see his college lover and muse, Patricia. He comes to find something he’s left behind, and something he’s lost. He dumped Patricia 15 years ago, because she wasn’t Jewish. Now, he’s married another shiksa, and is about to become a father. His own father has recently died, and Jonathan seems to have lost his way. It’s “meaningless” to him to be rich and famous; the passion – and talent – may have gone out of his work, even though art collectors clamor for it, and pay “obscene prices” for a new piece, sight unseen, before it’s even created. “All gone,” Jonathan confesses in a rare and revealing moment of honesty and vulnerability. “All the disappointable people. There’s no one left to shock any more.”

As in many of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s works, the father-son relationship features prominently. But Margulies, as always, has a lot more on his mind: modern art and its pretentions; professional and religious identity; fame and insecurity; anti-Semitism and Jewish paranoia. More questions and issues are posed than answered. Margulies slathers on layers of anguish and subtext, unresolved issues and ultimate uncertainties.

The play unfolds by leapfrogging in time, ultimately going back to the beginning of a relationship (like Harold Pinter’s Betrayal), until we see Patricia and Jonathan in their youth, when he was a shy, tentative, rather Jewish painter and she was a proud, free-spirited dilettante. Now she lives a hardscrabble life married to a taciturn archaeologist, and she thinks “that’s the best [she] can do.” Interspersed among the revelation scenes are segments of an interview Jonathan has with a German art critic, as part of his big European retrospective in London. These are some of the most telling scenes. The sexy, confrontational, heavily-accented interviewer skewers Jonathan, cornering him in his own hypocrisies and inciting his anger with Jew-baiting questions. All the characters seem to have made self-destructive choices, and they slyly do damage to others, saying hurtful, devastating things for often unfathomable reasons. We never fully understand their motivations. But isn’t that true to life?

THE PERFORMERS/THE PRODUCTION: This is the Old Globe directing debut of local talent Esther Emery, who does a commendable job in probing the emotional layers and nuances of the drama, though she underplays its humor and sexuality. As Jonathan, Anthony Crane may not be as stylishly dressed as someone of his high-stakes art-world status would be (costumes by Laurie Churba, who provides more appropriate outfits for the other characters), but he’s arrogant enough to think he can get whatever he wants. (In the end, he does. Sort of). Sometimes, Crane doesn’t seem quite Jewish or New York enough. But other times, he nails the sensibility. He’s most potent in the father-son reminiscences and the emotional outbursts. Kelly McAndrew is more consistent in her portrayal of Patricia, making a sadly credible journey from resigned, disenchanted frump back in time to freewheeling, seductive ingénue. Ron Choularton gets the multiple layers of her frustrated husband just right, though we don’t see his deep, pained love for his wife. On the surface, he’s just a dour, non-communicative type. But when he turns his long-buried jealousy and resentment on Jonathan, he excoriates the intruder -- and modern art. Katie Fabel looks provocative enough as Grete, but she never uses her sexuality on Jonathan, and she misses a crucial dramatic moment, when she fails to show a definitive response to his storming out of their interview.

Sight Unseen is one of my favorite Margulies plays. There’s always something to talk and think about. This is a solid production any serious theatergoer would be foolish to miss.

THE LOCATION: Old Globe Theatre (in its temporary digs at the San Diego Museum of Art), through September 7

BOTTOM LINE: BEST BET

GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN…

…A Chorus Line, the 30^th anniversary touring production of the longest-running American-made musical in Broadway history (6137 performances). It was directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, written by playwright/novelist James Kirkwood, Jr. and former dancer Nicholas Dante, with lyrics by Edward Kleban, and music by Marvin Hamlisch.

When the show premiered on Broadway, it was an instant success, winning nine Tony Awards (including Best Musical, Book, Score and Choreography) and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Tony-nominated 2006 revival, which spawned this tour, was directed by Bob Avian with choreography re-created by Baayork Lee, the show’s original Connie Wong.

The unique structure of the piece was created from the stories of 22 real folks (including local actor/ choreographer/director Steve Anthony). The musical showcases a group of ‘gypsies,’ working dancers going through the grueling process of a Broadway musical audition, while revealing their individual tales of personal and professional trial and triumph, joy and disappointment. The irony is that, once the final choices are made, the eight performers come out in their gold top hats and lamé tuxes, and it’s suddenly difficult to tell them apart; each was an individual before, but they’ve become anonymous members of an ensemble.

The touring production brought to us by Broadway San Diego was wonderful, and it managed to call up all the excitement of the original. The dancing was terrific. The singing was a bit more variable, but the acting was strong. Michael Gruber proved an excellent dancer as the casting director/choreographer, Zach, though he didn’t have a commanding voice that could terrify an auditioner when it boomed over the P.A. system during the ‘interviews.’ Nikki Snelson was sassy as his former paramour, Cassie, though she seemed a bit young for the role. Her solo still brought the show to a grinding halt. Having seen the original production, I confess that I’ve never liked that dance solo, “The Music and the Mirror.” It always seemed to be too long and choreographically uninspired, even when executed by a charismatic powerhouse like Tony-winner Donna McKechnie. Now, the weakness of that segment is even more pronounced. I think the show could do very well without it. Everything else moves like the wind, and the multi-talented cast left a very satisfying impression. There’s nothing outdated about this musical. The gypsies are still hoofing and hoping, still making the same cattle-call audition rounds. So many of their stories are touching and moving. The show still packs a wallop, and I was so glad I got home in time to see it.

…Paradise was the final installment of this year’s Resilience of the Spirit Festival at Compass Theatre (formerly 6^th @ Penn). Overall, the Festival featured some intriguing plays and excellent performances. This one was written by one-time San Diego resident Glyn O’Malley, a playwright who formerly served as assistant to Edward Albee and Literary Director for the Edward Albee Foundation. Locally, he directed the world premiere of Albee's Men (1997) and Albee's People (1999) at the Old Globe. O’Malley wrote Paradise in 2002, four years before his untimely death. The play earned him a nomination for PEN America's 'Newman's Own First Amendment Award,' for “defense of freedom of expression for all writers.”

The Compass Theatre production, which ran only one weekend, was directed by 17 year-old Alice Cash, in collaboration with then theater company she founded, Broadway Kids of San Diego. The 50-minute drama was created to tour Cincinnati high schools. But a storm of protest, led by the Council of American Islamic Relations of Ohio, stopped the play from being produced. O’Malley then expanded it to a 90-minute adult version. The playwright stood staunchly behind his work, saying that “Drama should be dangerous, whether it’s the story of an American family or a Palestinian and an Israeli teenage girl.”

The taut thriller makes the political highly personal. We see fanaticism on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian divide, a defiant sense of entitlement and rightness. That’s what makes a young American/Israeli want to take photographs to document what’s going on. And in the face of her brother’s death, it makes a young Palestinian girl strap bombs onto her body. There’s no political agenda here; none of the characters’ choices is simple or straightforward. Cash did a masterful job of casting, and of teasing out the nuances of the parallel stories. Gabriela Espinal was especially potent as the beautiful, anguished Palestinian girl, and Ryan Murphy was positively terrifying as the Palestinian extremist who goads her into the heinous act that destroys both young lives in one awful moment. Potent, thought-provoking theater that makes us all wonder how the seemingly interminable Middle East conflict will ever be resolved.

THE SAD NEWS of the WEEK

The Grande Dame of San Diego theater, Priscilla Allen, passed away last week, just after her 70^th birthday, following a long battle with lymphoma. At a moving, SRO Celebration of her life and work, at the Lyceum Theatre on August 21, there were many laughs and a few tears, especially when her plucky, self-possessed 11 year-old grandson, Cedric Allen Hills, sang “No One’s Gonna Harm You,” from Sweeney Todd. Another highlight was Todd Peters, her hilariously funny former student at SCPA. The guy should do standup; his comic timing and mastery of language were impeccable. He’s moved back to San Diego, and says he’s interested in getting back onstage. Directors and producers, take note!

Jonathan McMurtry did Priscilla’s favorite speech, Prospero’s farewell (and some think, Shakespeare’s, too) from The Tempest. Actor Bill Dunnam and Priscilla’s lifelong friend Dawn Mora also shared some poignant memories. Mora cracked up the crowd reminiscing about the pair’s childhood nicknames (CaCa for Dawn and Pussy for Priscilla). It was a wonderful tribute, including photos and video performance clips\. Pussy would’ve loved it. Of course, many thought she was there somewhere, waiting in the wings, enjoying every minute of it.

In 2000, I wrote a feature story on Priscilla, just before she was about to appear as Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Here’s an excerpt of that story from On Air Magazine:

<<<Ten years in the Girl Scouts taught Priscilla Allen to Be Prepared. It gave her the strength to go on, when her husband was killed at age 34, leaving her with three young daughters. And that event, 23 years ago, primed her for the role of Amanda Wingfield, the indomitable mother in The Glass Menagerie.

"Age-wise, I'm right for Amanda now," says Allen, 61, in her deep, resonant voice. "We're exactly the same age."

… As a student at La Jolla High, she was the class clown, a dancer, athlete and trumpet player, the wild and creative one in the talent shows. She planned to be a gym teacher. It was a fluke that she landed in a drama class in her senior year ("it was that, shorthand or auto shop"). Raquel Welch was in the class, too; both were targeted for Big Things.

When Allen went on to SDSU (the first in her family to attend college), she was such a respected theater major that, at graduation (1961) the staff and students chipped in to send her to Broadway. It was a less than satisfying experience. She was extremely naïve, and totally unprepared for the business end of the business.

"I had no idea how to survive," she admits. "I stayed about a year, worked in a department store, did a few things Off Off Off Broadway. I had a boyfriend back home who was missing me madly, and when a friend asked me to play the lead in Lysistrata, I thought I'd just go back to San Diego for awhile."

She never left, and the old beau, whom she'd met while doing The Boyfriend, became her husband. Once Allen took on the role of mother, she stayed home to do it right, which included becoming a Scout leader for her girls.

She was back onstage at a fundraiser in La Jolla, when police chief and family friend Bill Kolender arrived to tell her the news. Denis, a ten-year veteran cop (and sometime actor) who was attending law school at night, was called to a Golden Hill apartment where a man was "'acting strangely'… When they broke in," Allen recalls, as if it were yesterday, "he was chopping at the sink with a big butcher knife. He also had a gun concealed. Everyone fired at once. The man was killed and Denis was shot in the chest and thrust across the balcony; he fell from the second floor. My girls were 7, 9 and 13 at the time. My life turned upside down. I found out a lot about myself and about survival."

In 1980, Allen became a wildly popular teacher at the new School for Creative and Performing Arts, where she remained for 14 years. Her two youngest daughters attended the school and did community theater. Her oldest, Jennifer Allen, went on to perform on Broadway, in Cabaret, Ragtime, Guys and Dolls (Adelaide) and Cats (Grizabella). Meanwhile, Mom began teaching at Point Loma High, continuing to take acting jobs whenever she could, and directing at Junior Theatre.

Some of her favorite roles have been Lotte Schoen in Lettice and Lovage (Lamb's Players Theatre), Mrs. Wall in Romulus Linney's Holy Ghosts at the San Diego Rep (which went on to an Off Broadway run), Fraulein Schneider in the Rep's Cabaret and Mrs. Venable, another of Tennessee Williams' monstrous mothers, in Diversionary Theatre's Suddenly Last Summer.

She's still recognized almost daily as the exploding head in "Total Recall," the blockbuster 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film. "They were looking for a large woman," Allen says. "I was up against Matilda the Hun, the world's heavyweight women's wrestler. And also someone who looked like a guy in drag. They chose me because of my acting resume."

Now, she gets to round it out with Amanda, one of the plum female roles in the American canon.

"I've been thinking a lot about the single mother issues," Allen muses. "I identify with the fear she had. I see her as a strong character who's a survivor. Even after [her son] Tom leaves at the end, she's going to survive; she'll find a way. She always holds out hope. As a mother, she's a little heavy handed. Out of her frustration, she's too intrusive, too controlling. I'd like to think I did a better job as a mother.

"But one must remember that, no matter how misguided and misdirected Amanda may be, she has enormous love for her children, even though they don't meet her expectations. That element has to be there. Sean [Murray, the director] told me I have a wonderful vulnerability. I think I come by that naturally. To play her will challenge every strength I have." Perseverance and hard work -- two more lessons she learned in Scouts.>>>

Priscilla was larger than life, and she leaves a big, gaping hole in the theater community. She will be missed.

THE REST OF THE NEWS

… End of the line... This is the final weekend for the Fritz Blitz, the 15^th incarnation of the statewide new play contest that has premiered some wonderful winners. Fritz founder/artistic director Duane Daniels promises the “absolutely, probably, last Fritz Blitz ever”… Maybe. I hope not. Through 8/24, at the Lyceum Space. www.fritztheatre.com... This is also your last chance to catch Nemesis, the self-proclaimed “immature” farcical comedy of male competition and one-upmanship, written by Mike Sears and Phil Johnson, starring the crazy-man creators and a comical Terri Park, directed by Cynthia Stokes. Ppresented in association with Vox Nova Theatre Company. At Compass Theatre, through 8/24. www.voxnovatheatrecompany.com

…Sammy and Willie… Samuel Clemens (AKA Mark Twain) will be the focus of the season opener of Write Out Loud, the company that presents great stories, read aloud. This edition includes rants and tirades from the American Bard. At Cygnet Theatre/Rolando, Saturday, August 23 at 2pm. … And speaking of Bards, the San Diego Shakespeare Society is at it again, confronting that age-old question: Who wrote those 37 plays? The debate continues, with Celeste Innocenti defending Young Will against Jack Winans, who insists that it was all done by Edward de Vere, the 17^th Earl of Oxford. Audience members can get into the act, posing some of their own tough questions. 7:30pm on Monday, Aug. 25, at the Westminster Presbyterian Church Theatre in Point Loma…. And for a little more Bardolatry, San Diego Actors Theatre will present “Simply Shakespeare in the Park: Twelfth Night, or What You Will,” on Sunday, Aug. 24, at Seagrove Park in Del Mar, overlooking the Pacific. Details at www.sdactorstheatre.net.

…Celebrate Dance!... this weekend, at the 12^th annual Celebrate Dance Festival, brought to us once again by Eveoke Dance Theatre. 57 dance organizations come together for one of the largest events of its kind. FREE performances are presented for over 10,000 residents and visitors every year. Drop in and check it out. At the Casa del Prado Theatre in Balboa Park, and outside, in front of the big fountain. Friday, 8/22, 6-10pm; Saturday. 8/23, 11:30am-10pm; Sunday, 8/24, 12-8pm. www.eveoke.org.

…Go to the Hedda the Class…. Hot on the heels of its founders’ wedding (Claudio and Glenn officially tied the knot last weekend!), ion theatre continues its yearlong ‘Intimate Ibsen’ series with a staged reading of Hedda Gabler, directed by Rosina Reynolds and featuring, among others, Jason Heil, Jeffrey Jones and Rhianna Basore. Monday, Aug. 25 at Diversionary Theatre. www.iontheatre.com.

… The Big Dream… San Diego Black Ensemble is presenting its 2^nd annual tribute to the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Hosted by Erica Boddie, with music by Brutha Earl West Coast Soul Band, the evening will include a performance of Langston Hughes’ “A Dream Deferred/A Dream Rising,” and the Ensemble Dancers, under the direction of Monique Gaffney, will interpret “Abraham, Martin and John” (sung by George Walker). All proceeds benefit SDBET and the Dr. Floyd Gaffney Memorial Fund. Aug. 30, 6-9pm at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

…The Ultimate reality show… Tales from the Far Side of Fifty, the post-menopausal Vagina Monologues, is back, with its heartfelt stories of seniors (ranging from 56-84). Look for a new bevy of golden oldies (that’s the writer/performers), at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts. Every performance over the past two years has sold out. These true tales are funny, affecting and inspiring. So get your tix while they’re hot. Proceeds benefit the Joslyn and Poway Senior Centers, and the Jewish Family Service North Senior Center. Sunday, September 7 at 2pm at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts. For tix, call 858-487-9324 x.4, or 858-748-0505

…Comings and Goings… A few transitions in local arts organizations, and a fond farewell to those who are moving on…. Becky Biegelsen, ace Public Relations Director at the Globe for 10 years, is re-situating at UCSD Communications…. Ria Hagen is leaving the PR Department at the La Jolla Playhouse …. Matt Thompson and Sunny Smith, co-founders of the newly renamed Compass Theatre, parted company with the theater after the Resilience Festival. Matt is now serving as the interim director of the theater school at North Coast Repertory Theatre, after the departure of long-time director Joe Powers.

… UCSD alums on the move… Former San Diegan and UCSD directing alum Maria Mileaf will direct A Body of Water at Primary Stages; this will be the New York premiere of the Lee Blessing play that had what the playwright called its ‘second world premiere’ at the Old Globe in 2006. The limited New York run (which has a different cast from the excellent one we saw here) is Sept. 30-Nov. 9…. Actor/MFA alum Joy Osmanski, whom I named a Face to Watch in 2002, has had a recurring role on “Grey's Anatomy,” and was recently the "celebrity host” for the ACME comedy show. “It was so much fun,” writes Joy, “and profoundly terrifying--but I loved it!”

'NOT TO BE MISSED!' (Pat’s Picks)

Spring Awakening - youthful, exuberant, unique, ingenious, exciting. See it!

Balboa Theatre, through 8/31

Sight Unseen - thought-provoking and excellent

Old Globe in the Copley Auditorium at the SD Museum of Art, through 9/7

Boomers - you gotta love it, even if you aren’t one. Fabulous band, super songs, high-energy performances

Lamb’s Players at the Horton Grand Theatre, through 9/28 (and perhaps beyond)

All’s Well That Ends Well – marvelous production, wonderfully directed and acted; lucid, funny and touching

In repertory on the Old Globe’s Festival Stage, through 9/ 28

The Merry Wives of Windsor – Shakespeare’s silly love comedy transfers amazingly well to the Old West. A funny, fun-filled production. Yee-haw!

In repertory on the Old Globe’s Festival Stage, through 9/28

Grab the final rays of summer, and then duck into a theater.

Pat

© 2008 PATTÉ PRODUCTIONS, INC.

For nearly 25 years, Pat Launer has been the only regular broadcast theater critic in San Diego. An Emmy Award-winner with a Ph.D. in Communication Arts & Sciences, Pat sees and reviews more than 200 local theater productions every year. For the past decade, she has hosted and produced The Patté Awards for Theatre Excellence, a gala community event that honors local theatermakers and celebrates the broad diversity of San Diego theater.