SAN DIEGO THEATER REVIEWS

Rainy streets, shady characters, and a mysterious black bird that everyone seems willing to lie, cheat, or worse to possess, ”The Maltese Falcon” has all the ingredients of classic detective fiction but with a fun new twist in this world-premiere adaptation at North Coast Repertory Theatre....

'Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is undeniably a marathon, but in the hands of Backyard Renaissance, the journey rarely loses its grip....

There are few phrases in literature more quietly unhinged than “I would prefer not to.” And in Fiasco Theatre’s ' Bartleby, now playing at The Old Globe through March 22, that polite little sentence lands like a stick of dynamite in an otherwise well-oiled office machine....

The Broadway National Tour of Beetlejuice has landed in San Diego through March 1. The “ghost with the most” is back for a limited run, promising laughs, cringe-worthy humor, and dazzling set and projection design that fully delivers on the spectacle of a Broadway tour....

“Somewhere Over the Border,” now playing at Cygnet Theatre through March 15, wraps that hope in music, metaphor, and a road-trip structure in a production that is charming and colorful on its surface, but anchored by performances strong enough to carry its deeper weight....

At its best, “The Recipe” at La Jolla Playhouse is as warm and inviting as a kitchen in winter: fragrant with possibility, anchored by love, and anchored even more firmly by two utterly charming leads. At nearly two hours and 45 minutes, however, this ambitious new musical sometimes forgets that...

“Hedda Gabler” by Henrik Ibsen, now given a taut new version by Erin Cressida Wilson and directed with precision by Barry Edelstein at The Old Globe, stars Katie Holmes in the title role through March 15th....

“How to Succeed…” remains a slick, silly, and sharply performed romp—one that knows exactly what kind of absurd world it’s skewering, and does so with a grin....

Jaha Ling led the San Diego Symphony’s first performance of Mahler’s seventh symphony in 2014, more than a century after the orchestra was founded. He called it “the most modern of all Mahler symphonies.” Many critics have made similar judgements, the more conservative among them meant it a...

I’ve watched (and loved) enough sci-fi movies to know that any animals kept in a lab eventually come for the humans. Monkeys. Sharks. Dinosaurs. So you can’t blame me for being deeply suspicious of the bees in the lab in 'The Apiary” now playing at New Village Arts through February 22, 2026....

“Audition Sides” At Riot Productions understands a specific kind of theatrical purgatory: the audition room, and then raises the stakes even more in this one act....

Art of Elan launched the Sounds and Swells series several years ago. Artistic Director Eric Starr describes its unusual programs as “a curated pairing of surfing footage and classical music.” The music and footage vary from one performance to another, but always include one or more California co...

“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....

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. ...

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

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

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....

“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....

'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....

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....

“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....

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, ...

San Diego Opera opened its 2025-26 season on a Halloween night with an appropriately disturbing opera about a murderous clown. Its unsavory plot hasn’t kept Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci from becoming one of opera’s most popular creations. The reasons for its success? A can’t-wait-for-it t...

The concert version of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s bittersweet musical at San Diego State University offered a sharp, soulful rewind through friendship, ambition, and the cost of success....

“Arms and the Man”, the classic George Bernard Shaw play, is currently skewering the romantic ideals of going to battle or falling in love with wit at Lamb’s Players Theatre through November 16th.  Under the sharp and playful direction of Deborah Gilmour Smyth, it turns 19th-century notions o...