By Charlene Baldridge | Downtown News
June marks the beginning of San Diego’s al fresco fine arts, and it also brings in the annual Mainly Mozart Festival and a touring Broadway classic.
10th Avenue Theatre
Mo`olelo Performing Arts Theatre presents Katori Hall’s “Hoodoo Love,” a play with blues music called “an aching folktale in the tradition of Zora Neale Hurston.” Set during the Great Depression, it concerns a woman who uses hoodoo magic to capture a rambling blues man. Performances June 7-July 1 at Mo`olelo at 10th Avenue Theatre, 930 10th Avenue (just south of Broadway), Downtown San Diego, $22-$30, www.moolelo.net or 619-342-7295.
Embarcadero Marina Park
San Diego Symphony kicks off the Summer Pops season with “Star Spangled Pops,” conducted by Marvin Hamlisch and featuring guest vocalists and the San Diego Master Chorale in a program of patriotic and pop favorites. All that, the outdoors, and fireworks, too! Performances: 7:30 p.m. June 29-July 1, Embarcadero Marina Park South, $18-$76 depending on location (everything from champagne and cabaret to blankets and beach chairs, certain restrictions apply), www.sandiegosymphony.org or 619-235-0804.
The Balboa Theatre
The Mainly Mozart Festival – going strong for 24 years – with Maestro David Atherton, eminent guest soloists, and the Mainly Mozart “all-star” orchestra, composed of top musicians from organizations around the nation, fill this acoustically superior venue with a series of concerts showcasing masterworks by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and oh, yes, Mozart. Performances: 7:30 p.m. June 6, 9, 12, 14 and 16, at the Balboa Theatre, 868 4th Ave, Downtown San Diego, $24-$85, www.mainlymozart.org or 619-46-MUSIC (6872)
Civic Theatre
Defy gravity when Broadway San Diego presents the Broadway tour of Stephen Schwartz’s award-winning hit musical “Wicked,” which tells the “real” behind-the-scenes story of what happened in Oz and asks who is truly wicked in this fairy tale, the green-faced girl or the Judy Garland type. Various times and prices June 20 – July 15, Civic Theatre, 202 C Street, Downtown San Diego, www.broadwaysd.com, www.ticketmaster.com 619-570-1100.
The Old Globe
Gear up for the Old Globe Shakespeare Festival 2012, comprising Shakespeare’s Machiavellian tragedy “Richard III,” his pastoral comedy “As You Like It,” and Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s timely courtroom drama, “Inherit the Wind,” in which a teacher is accused of the crime of teaching evolution. These three productions, employing a repertory company of top professionals (Adrian Noble is artistic director), play in rotating repertory in the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre beginning June 3. Performances: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays, through September 30, Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park, $29-$95, www.theoldglobe.org or (619) 23-GLOBE. (4562).
Charlene Baldridge moved to San Diego from the Chicago area in 1962. She’s been writing about the arts since 1979, and has had her features, critiques, surveys and interviews included in various publications ever since. Her book San Diego, Jewel of the California Coast (Northland Publishing) is currently available in bookstores. She can be reached at [email protected].
