San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Melodrama on the menu
Interactive theater production in Bonita, which has been running for 45 years, returns this month with ‘Really Fast Food’
THEATER NOTEBOOK
For 45 years, Max Branscomb has been writing and directing the annual Bonitafest Melodrama. Branscomb said the audience-interactive melodrama project about real San Diego County history is the longestrunning uninterrupted theatrical project in San Diego County. The shows blend true stories from San Diego history with 1880s Western melodrama motifs and contemporary American musical theater. The audience is encouraged to cheer, boo, hiss and more.
This year’s melodrama, “Really Fast Food,” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 21-24 at Sweetwater Community Church Theater, 5305 Sweetwater Road, Bonita. The plot is based on a “mystery meat” scandal at a South County food chain in the 1980s, where kangaroo was included with Australian beef in some shipments.
“What it is really about, though, is that magical and scary last summer when high school graduates prepare to go off to college,” said Branscomb, a journalism professor at Southwestern College in Chula Vista. “I have always felt that too many adults are cynical and sometimes mean to teenagers, and fail to see them as potentially great, amazing people.”
The Bonitafest Melodrama was founded in 1978 by Corky Mizer (the owner of Corky’s Pest Control) and Glennalie Coleman. They recruited Branscomb, then a 20-year-old journalist, to write the script, which he drew from local history. The Bonitafest Melodrama has been honored by arts and civil rights organizations for its inclusivity, and by state and county government for its contributions to San Diego culture and heritage.
Branscomb said scores of melodrama alumni have gone on to careers in the performing arts and arts education, including Bianca Quilantan, who was named a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for her 2018 coverage of the Camp fire while still a student at Chico State University. She is now an education reporter for Politico in Washington, D.C.
To keep the annual tradition alive during the COVID-19 pandemic, Branscomb produced the melodrama last year as a radio production, just as he did his other well-known holiday theater project, “La Pastorela.” Both shows aired last year on local radio stations.
Ticket prices for the Bonitafest Melodrama are $12 for adults. Children 12 and under pay a dollar for each year of their age. The show’s opening-night performance will have a pre-show catered Mexican dinner. A ticket for dinner and show on opening night is $20. For tickets, call (619) 850-7126. Visit facebook.com/bonitafest melodrama.
News on two musicals born at San Diego’s Old Globe
Two musicals born at the Old Globe in recent years, “Almost Famous” and “Allegiance,” will soon have new life on stages in New York and London.
“Almost Famous,” based on the autobiographical 2000 film by Cameron Crowe, has begun rehearsals at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in Manhattan. Preview performances will begin on Oct. 3, with an official opening on Nov. 3. Featuring a book and lyrics by Crowe, score by Tom Kitt and direction by Jeremy Herrin, the rock ’n’ roll coming-of-age musical made its world premiere at the Globe in 2019. Most of the cast members featured at the Globe are reprising their performances on Broadway.
Meanwhile, “Allegiance,” the Old Globe-born Broadway musical about Japanese Americans interned during World War II, will make its United Kingdom premiere in January, with a 15-week engagement in a small off-west End theater in London. Two of the show’s original Globe and Broadway stars, George Takei and Telly Leung, will appear in the production.
The musical by Marc Acito, Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione premiered at the Globe in 2012 and opened on Broadway three years later. Producers say the musical has been “reconceived” for its London run.
UCSD grad Mays takes ‘Carol’ to Broadway
University of California San Diego graduate Jefferson Mays will bring his one-man “A Christmas Carol” show to Broadway this fall. Mays plays 40 characters in the special-effects-laden play, which will open in previews Nov. 8 at the Nederlander Theatre in Manhattan. Opening night will be Nov. 21, and the production will close Jan. 1.
Mays, who earned a master’s degree in acting from UC San Diego in 1991, wrote the adaptation for the Charles Dickens play with his wife, actress Susan Lyons, and director and co-conceiver Michael Arden. It was first produced in 2018 at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and then filmed for streaming last year.
Mays earned a Tony Award in 2004 for playing 40 characters in the solo play “I Am My Own Wife,” which got its start as a Page to Stage workshop at La Jolla Playhouse in 2001. He also earned a Tony nomination in 2014 for playing nine members of the same family in the musical “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” which made its world premiere at the Old Globe in 2013.
pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com