A Picture of Two Boys

MOULIN ROUGE:  All right, already.  This is probably the sixth time this year I have talked about this show plus we ran a terrific photo spread of it a couple of months ago. I’ll willingly confess that I’m smitten. The spectacle, pop music and acting make for an absolute delight. Well, this is your LAST CALL for performances in California.  This wonderful, delightful, spectacular tour leaves us after this month, so I strongly suggest you hustle your butts over to Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center to see it now 11/9-27. www.scfta.org

THE BOOK OF MORMON:  Another title I have talked about many times (and have seen at least three times), The Book of Mormon is making a quick flurry through the southland this month.  I refuse to believe that I need to tell any gay theatre goer what the show is about – merely that it’s coming back.  The only disappointment is that you have to leave all the adorable tap-dancing missionaries on the stage!  Palm Desert McCallum Theatre 11/18-20 (www.mccallumtheatre.org); San Jose Civic Center 11/22-27 (www.BroadwaySanJose.com); and Hollywood Pantages 11/29-12/11 (www.BroadwayHollywood.com).

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD: Aaron Sorkin’s (West Wing, A Few Good Men) script of this American classic opened on Broadway at the end of 2018 starring Jeff Daniels and closed in early 2020 due to Covid.  It re-opened for a couple of months after the Pandemic, but this is the play’s first visit to the west coast.  Richard Thomas (yes, John-Boy Walton) has been earning rave reviews for his performance as Atticus Finch and is scheduled to play all California dates.  The action is centered in a courtroom, a venue that Sorkin knows well.  Hollywood Pantages through 11/27 (www.BroadwayHollywood.com); San Diego Civic 11/29-12/4 (www.BroadwaySD.com ); Tempe ASU Gammage 12/6-11 (www.ASUGammage.com ); Costa Mesa Segerstrom 12/13-18 (www.scfta.org ); and Las Vegas Smith Center 1/10-15 (www.TheSmithCenter.com).

A PICTURE OF TWO BOYS:  We once had LGBTQ theatres in LA, San Diego, San Francisco, Orange County and Palm Springs.  We now only have San Diego and San Francisco producing on a regular basis, and frankly, that’s a damned shame.  The best thing we can do to perpetuate productions that look and sound like us is to patronize them, and I can promise you that neither of the remaining companies will disappoint.  San Francisco’s New Conservatory Theatre is presenting a premiere this month, A Picture of Two Boys, and I really wish I could see it.  Markey and Pete are unlikely friends, the studious Latino Markey with dreams of college and a life beyond the southeastern PA countryside, and the volatile African American Pete with drunkenly fueled fantasies. Brought together by their shared feelings of alienation in their mostly white and more than vaguely racist little town, the boys’ relationship fractures when Markey announces to Pete he’s hoping to graduate early and get out of the sticks ASAP. We see these two boys first at that critical juncture, and then almost ten years later after they are reunited in the wake of a startling event that dredges up a connected trauma from their past.  Different actors play the boys as teenagers and then in their late 20’s.  This company’s productions always feature skilled actors and top production values and are a wonderful hothouse for new works. See it through 11/27. (www.nctcsf.org)