Old Globe Theatre

I have attended the Old Globe for 25 years. Same seats, same night, every night. We have never had a problem exchanging seats, as another reviewer wrote, nor had a problem with the Old Globe not holding our seats.



I am going to stop short of giving the theater five stars. I'd give them a 7/10.



The reason I would give the Old Globe 7/10 is the quality of the plays. For awhile, about 15 years ago, the Old Globe was Producing absolute crap, they were putting only three plays on a year in their normal rotation and they were leaning towards small appeal audiences, with multicultural emphases.



They have more recently begun producing better and more widely appealing plays. They still seem mired in throwing at least one play in that has a more limited appeal, rather than focusing on the classics and new plays that are bound for greatness. They are still missing the mark in terms of their productions, in my opinion. They are hitting it much better than in years past, however.



Some of the new plays are "Bound for Broadway" and they are trying the plays at local venues, like the Old Globe, before going to Broadway. Some have been great, like "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" starring John Lithgow. Absolutely fabulous. "Forever Plaid" was a well produced piece of theater, although I don't like musical live theater that much. On the other hand, the Old Globe put on "The Chita Rivera Story", which was written and starred...Chita Rivera. I could go on into specifics, but this play was "Bound for Broadway". The reviews for it in the local fish-wrapper (AKA Newspapers) were quite fulsome. We found the play to be self-serving tripe. It was clearly a pointless play that in the final analysis was essentially a woman trying to paint herself into popular culture. We walked out in the middle of the first act...which is the only time we have done that. A friend of mine who does production on Broadway later told me "The Chita Rivera Story" did indeed open on Broadway and close in a week. I understand trying to take a risk, but something about a tap-dancer starring in a biographical play makes me think "No mass appeal". She might be the greatest tap dancer of all time. It doesn't impinge on anybody's life...tap dancing is merely a footnote in our culture. Now, the producers of the Old Globe Don't see things the same way. They think everybody should watch a play about a tap dancer. This is the perfect illustration about them producing plays that don't have mass appeal.



Some other favorite plays of mine they have produced were Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" starring the late David Huffman (killed on the night of the wrap party in San Diego, 1985) and Larry Drake. Additionally, "Boeing, Boeing" was quite good from 2009 and a lesser known Maugham play which name escapes me at this point. The Old Globe essentially seems to be still putting on two or three plays a year and having one or two hosted there of dubious origin. the plays, overall, are getting better on average, but they're lacking the really big, great performances they had in the three play format.



That about sums it up: 7/10 currently for the Old Globe. At one time it could have been 9/10 and as low as 5/10, so 7/10 ain't that bad.