The Music Circus production of “West Side Story” last week was everything you’d want a production of this great musical to be. It had inspired staging (directed by Bob Richards), terrific dancing (choreography by Diane Laurenson from Jerome Robbins’ original creations), excellent acting (with especially top-flight performances from the five lead roles), and great singing […]

Before I started my stint as a policy consultant for the California Legislature’s Assembly Committee on Housing back in 1989, I was in favor of rent control. It seemed to me wholly unfair that landlords (I’m not aware of a gender neutral term) could raise rents on low-income tenants whenever they wanted to improve their […]

More than a few grandparents had their grandchildren in tow at the Music Circus production of “Peter Pan” (at the Wells Fargo Pavilion) last month, just as their grandparents might have sat with them in front of a TV when the musical was broadcast some sixty years earlier. Mary Martin starred as the title character […]

“There’s always a place for the angry young man, with his fist in the air and his head in the sand;               And he’s never been able to learn from mistakes, so he can’t understand why his heart always breaks.               His honor is pure and his courage is well, and he’s fair and he’s […]