BLACK BOX THEATER AT THE CALIFORNIA CENTER FOR THE ARTS, ESCONDIDO

by ErinMarie Reiter - December 31, 2025

“SIX” feels like a New Year’s resolution set to a killer beat: ditch the old hierarchies, turn up the volume, and let the queens run the show. All hail, indeed....

by ErinMarie Reiter - December 16, 2025

Cygnet Theatre’s “A Magical Holiday: Christmas at The Joan” is precisely what its title promises: a bright, polished, joy-forward holiday revue that knows its job is to lift spirits, sparkle confidently, and send you back into December humming. ...

by ErinMarie Reiter - December 16, 2025

New Village Arts’ production of 'Rent' understands the heart of the piece, even if some of the sharpest edges are softened....

by ErinMarie Reiter - December 04, 2025

Warm, honest, and grounded in powerful acting,  ”Beauty’s Daughter” closed OnWord’s first season with real purpose and promise....

by ErinMarie Reiter - December 03, 2025

Backyard Renaissance delivers an exquisite reminder: we do not choose when the people we adore begin to fade, but we do get to decide how fiercely we hold them while they do....

by ErinMarie Reiter - November 23, 2025

“To My Girls” has an excellent cast and direction, and what begins as a sun-drenched escape quickly turns into a messy, deeply funny excavation of chosen family, generational baggage, and the versions of ourselves we perform for the people who know us best....

by ErinMarie Reiter - November 22, 2025

'Master Class,' running through December 14 in a co-production between The Roustabouts Theatre Company and Scripps Ranch Theatre, revisits Maria Callas in the final chapter of her performing life; when her voice had faded, yet her fervor for her art had not....

by ErinMarie Reiter - November 20, 2025

Based on the beloved 1988 film but modernized around the edges, “Working Girl” at the La Jolla Playhouse has big expectations and even bigger hair, but never quite hits the mark....

by ErinMarie Reiter - November 20, 2025

“The Strangers” is the kind of production that invites discussion; some will love its chaos, others may resist it, but Chalk Circle Collective handles its complexity with ambition and clarity....

by Ron Bierman - November 12, 2025

What did our critic think of WHERE THE SHINING TRUMPETS BLOW at Jacobs Music Center? Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magical Horn) is a collection of more than 700 German folk poems and songs compiled in the early 19th Century. Several notable composers, including Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, ...