‘Ain’t Too Proud’ a joyful survey of Temptations history

The Temptations pose in their reunion tour onstage, wearing suits with lights behind them.

Ain’t Too Proud’s national tour has arrived, bringing the joy and energy of the Temptations to life at Broadway San Diego’s Civic Theatre through January 8th. Featuring music from The Legendary Motown Catalog and book by Dominique Morisseau, Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations is a force of nature: after all, in two and a half hours, it manages to be a Motown concert tour, a history lesson, and an ode to the sound that has been sweeping America since 1960. 

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A RomCom by Any Other Name… Wouldn’t Be Pretty Woman

The cast poses in Pretty Woman: The Musical.

Nostalgia is the name of the game in Pretty Woman: The Musical, playing a one-week run at Broadway San Diego’s Civic Theater from July 26-31, 2022. This production by Grammy winner Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, with book by movie director and screenwriter Gerry Marshall and J. F. Lawton, is exactly what it sounds like: a faithful adaptation of a cherished romcom.

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A “My Fair Lady” that Draws Gender Battle Lines

Dripping with sexism and class snobbery, “My Fair Lady” is one of those musicals so grating to 21st century sensibilities, one might feel it should remain on the shelf. Ah, but the Lerner-Loewe tunes are magnificent. And any tale that’s persisted from Greek mythology to Shaw’s “Pygmalion” to “Pretty Woman” clearly touches deep psychological chords.

Enter Bartlett Sher, whose “My Fair Lady” shifts the story’s focus from its Pygmalion, the arrogant Henry Higgins, to Eliza Doolittle as a smart, scrappy woman who insists on dictating the terms of her own life.

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