Theater choices in San Diego can range from Tony® Award-winning, Broadway-bound classic and contemporary plays to esoteric puppetry in the Pacific Ocean. Here are some of the goings-on in the dramatic world of San Diego theater.
The Old Globe
Old Globe is a Tony® Award winning theater complex located in Balboa Park featuring Shakespearean classics, contemporary plays and popular musicals. Upcoming shows include:
Time and the Conways by J.B. Priestley
This story opens in a gorgeous English country home in 1919 and later flash forwards to 1937 in the same house: the grown children have gathered to settle family accounts in a world not so bright as it was.
Run Dates: Now through May 4, 2014
> Find out more about Time and the Conways
Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes.
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This exciting new play from the playwright behind the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights follows Elliot Ortiz back in the States after serving in Iraq, reconnecting with family and starting a new life. At the same time, four strangers in an internet chat room seek support to face demons of their own, and soon the real world and the virtual one start to intersect in unexpected ways.
Run Dates: April 12 – May 11, 2014
> Find out more about Water by the Spoonful
Other upcoming shows include What You Will, Thinking Shakespeare Live, Vanya and Sonia and Masha an Spike, Dog and Pony, Othello, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Into the Woods, and Quartet.
La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse, another of San Diego’s Tony® Award-winning theatre complexes, presents bold and innovative productions on the University of California, San Diego campus in La Jolla. Upcoming shows include:
Chasing the Song, book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro.
The creators of the Tony Award-winning musical Memphis follow the evolving American music scene into the early 1960s in this rock ‘n’ roll-inspired new musical in which the female lead, Ginny, strives to earn her place in the male-dominated world of songwriting and American rock ‘n’ roll finds itself under siege from the incoming British Invasion.
Show Dates: May 13 – June 15, 2014
> Find out more about Chasing the Song
El Henry
A Without Walls adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, part 1 by Herbert Siguenza. El Henry is performed in San Diego’s East Village performance space called Maker’s Quarter and set in the year 2045 in a huge, run-down metropolis called Aztlan City (formerly San Diego), where political apathy and corruption run the city while violent barrio families run the streets. Written in a unique poetic cadence called Calo, which mixes urban Spanish and English slang, this world- premiere adaptation of Shakespeare explores the universal themes of this classic through the lens of Mexican-American machismo.
Show Dates: June 14 – 29, 2014
> Find out more about El Henry
Other upcoming shows include The Orphan of Zao and Ether Dome.
Lamb’s Players Theatre
Lamb’s Players Theatre produces timeless classics and lesser-known theatre gems year-round on their resident stage in Coronado and in their downtown San Diego space at the Horton Grand Theatre. Upcoming shows include:
Quilters
Funny, moving, and gorgeous to look at, this musical celebrates the extraordinary, everyday women who settled the American West.
Show Dates: Now through April 27, 2014
> Find out more about Quilters
Twelfth Night
We celebrate our 20th Year in Coronado with the Bard’s effervescent comedy of love, longing, impersonation and mistaken identity by setting it at the Hotel Del in the 1940s.
Show Dates: May 23 – June 29, 2014
> Find out more about Twelfth Night
The Foreigner
A wild production of Larry Shue’s comic romp has been extended now through May 18th. Please note: this production is at the Horton Grand Theatre in Downtown San Diego.
Show Dates: Now through May 18, 2014
> Find out more about The Foreigner
http://www.lambsplayers.org/show.php?id=334
Other upcoming shows include Les Miserable.
The National Comedy Theatre
The National Comedy Theatre is San Diego’s nationally acclaimed improv comedy show. Now in its 15th season, NCT is San Diego’s longest running show and is appropriate for all audiences and runs Thursdays through Sundays in downtown San Diego.
San Diego Repertory Theatre
San Diego Repertory Theatre presents six contemporary productions and four annual festivals in the Lyceum Theatre, located at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego. Upcoming shows include:
Red by John Logan
The story is set in 1958 at a critical point in the career of the superstar abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko.
Show Dates: Now through April 27, 2014
> Find out more about Red
Old Jews Telling Jokes created by Peter Gethers and Daniel Okrent.
Watch an evening of one-liners, double-entendres and hysterical routines that pay tribute to and reinvents classic jokes of the past and present.
Show Dates: April 23 – May 25, 2014
> Find out more about Old Jews Telling Jokes
North Coast Repertory Theatre
North Coast Repertory Theatre features seven top-notch productions year-round in an intimate setting in Solana Beach. Upcoming shows include:
Mandate Memories by Lionel Goldstein
In this taut and witty drama filled with revelations of love affairs, dreams and the founding of Israel, layers are peeled away to reveal the deep hearts of two caring and compassionate human beings.
Show Dates: April 9 – May 4, 2014
> Find out more about Mandate Memories
Faded Glory by Timothy Burns
Meet Daniel Sickles, a 19th-century congressman, friend to presidents, Civil War general, lover of Queen Isabella of Spain, notorious philanderer, embezzler, murderer, and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Based on this real figure from American history, Faded Glory promises to be a rollicking comedic romp through this amazing life.
Show Dates: May 28 – June 22, 2014
> Find out more about Faded Glory
Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company
Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company partners with the San Diego Asian Film Festival for the San Diego Premiere of 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, a comedy with an Asian American flair. The Warriors comic duo of Michael Chih Ming Hornbuckle and Greg Watanabe (and special guest stars Jully Lee and Albert Park) probe the Pacific Rim for the funniest topics.
Show Dates: April 18-20, 2014
> Find out more about 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors
San Diego Civic Theater
The Civic Theater and historic Balboa Theater downtown play host to traveling Broadway shows and one-of-a-kind performances throughout the year. Upcoming shows include Mike Epps – After Dark Tour on June 21 and Sleeping Beauty at The Balboa Theatre May 17 – 18, 2014.
San Diego Junior Theater
San Diego Junior Theater has trained thousands of San Diego thespians over the years and entertained locals and visitors alike with their high-quality, family friendly shows at the Casa del Prado theater in Balboa Park. Upcoming shows include Shrek April 25-May 11, Snoopy, June 27- July 13.
More exciting San Diego Theater:
- Cygnet Theatre, San Diego’s fastest growing theater company, produces critically acclaimed shows in their new resident stage in Old Town San Diego.
- Diversionary Theatre, one of the oldest LGBT theaters in the country, produces edgy dramatic productions and playful musicals in University Heights.
- Ion Theatre in Hillcrest produces bold and diverse new works from emerging artists.
- Moxie Theatre expands the idea of what is feminine by using the intimate art of theatre to create more honest and diverse female images for our culture.
- SDSU School of Theatre, Television & Film feature performances in the Don Powell Theater and are currently showing The Jungle Book, April 25 – May 4, 2014.