One of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s most quoted homilies was one included in his volume “Strength to Love,” published more than 60 years ago, in June of 1963: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
I’m reminded of Dr. King and his words and of how we need them today more than ever, not only because of that anniversary of sorts, but with the return of Katori Hall’s play “The Mountaintop.” I first seeing it 12 years ago in a San Diego Repertory Theatre production co-starring Larry Bates as King and Danielle Moné Truitt as Camae, a maid at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, who turns out to be someone very different in Hall’s fictionalized of King on the night before his assassination.
Now New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad is producing “The Mountaintop,” with DeAndre Simmons as King and Taylor Renee Henderson as Camae. Durwood Murray Jr. is directing.
Coming up later this summer, on July 9, the Atlanta-based King Center is celebrating its fourth “Be Love Day” with a series of events in person and virtual. You can find out more by visiting the center’s website, which also houses videos, livestreams, podcasts and a guided, interactive 3-D Coretta Scott King Rose Gallery.
The site is educational and enlightening for adults and young people alike.
Festival
Are my eyes deceiving me or is that Missing Persons listed on Saturday’s music lineup at Fiesta del Sol, the free annual event that runs this weekend in Solana Beach? This would be the ‘80s Los Angeles band fronted by Dale Bozzio that, in its time, peppered alternative radio with the likes of the catchy “Words” and “Walking in L.A.”?
It’s true. Missing Persons takes the stage Saturday at 6:45 p.m. at the festival’s Fletcher Park Cove venue. DJ Z-Trip follows at 8:15.
There’s music all day both days at Fiesta del Sol which, if you’ve gone before, you know is also kid-friendly with its Fun Zone. Of note this year: Paws 4 Thought will be onsite in the zone to teach kids about pet care and adoptions.
Television
I didn’t quite warm up to the stage musical adaptation of “Some Like It Hot” when I saw it earlier this year. But I do applaud one change from the classic 1959 film: Although the Billy Wilder cross-dressing comedy was filmed here at the Hotel del Coronado, it was ed off as a hotel in Miami in the movie. The 2022 musical corrected this, having Sweet Sue’s “all-girl” band check into the Hotel Del in Coronado.
Now that I’ve got that out of my system, the otherwise great “Some Like It Hot” movie starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, turns up Tuesday night on the Turner Classic Movies schedule. Watch it again, then imagine the filming of it next time you visit the Hotel Del. Maybe this summer.
Dance/poetry
The arts can be a balm for the pain that policy makers cause. This is at the heart of “Cautionary Tales: A Reflection on 2025 Through Words and Movement.” The dance theater work is a collaboration between local poet Michelle Smith and Spencer Powell, artistic director of Mounarath Powell Dance.
This performance combining poetry, prose and movement from the MPD dancers happens next Thursday through June 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the company’s performance space in La Mesa. Tickets are $25 ($20 if purchased online) at mpdance.org/2025-mpd-cautionarytales.
Rock music
I wonder if the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney knew when they were just 8 and 9 years old respectively growing up as friends in Akron, Ohio, that more than 40 years later they’d still be playing together, but in a band.
Indie before indie was everywhere, Auerbach and Carney recorded their first album as the Black Keys in 2002, and look where we are now: 23 years later the duo’s still performing — Wednesday night at SDSU’s open-air amphitheater — and still making records. Its new album, titled “No Rain No Flowers,” drops Aug. 8. https://as.sdsu.edu/calcoast/event/734
That’s also the title of their tour, which launches Tuesday in L.A. before heading to San Diego.
U-T arts and dining stories you may have missed this week
- 5 years after COVID, San Diego theaters are still recovering, but hope endures
- La Jolla Music Society announces first four resident arts companies at The Conrad
- Malibu Barbie Cafe will pop up in San Diego in July
- Fallbrook sisters’ arts company blends old Hollywood with ballet and opera
- Bianchi, Roppongi, Odie’s restaurants open their doors
- The Rosin Box Project, Art of Elan team up for ‘Unified Harmonies’
- TV comedy writer promises laughs in Old Globe’s ‘One of the Good Ones’
- Museum of Illusions, with 80 mind-bending exhibits, set to open in San Diego
- Review: La Jolla Playhouse’s ‘Jaja’s’ celebrates the resilience of strong women
- Review: Oceanside Theatre delivers a twist in ‘Latin History for Morons’
- Review: Diversionary’s ‘Merry Me’ a wild and wacky sapphic farce
UCTV
University of California Television invites you to enjoy this special selection of programs from throughout the University of California. Descriptions courtesy of and text written by UCTV staff:
“’Fresh Kill’ – A Conversation with Shu Lea Cheang”
Thirty years after its debut, Shu Lea Cheang’s “Fresh Kill” (1994) has been remastered by NYU’s Fales Library & Special Collections. The avant-garde film follows a lesbian couple whose daughter disappears after eating contaminated fish, leading to a conspiracy involving environmental pollution and corporate corruption. Known for its cyberpunk style and early focus on “hacktivism,” “Fresh Kill” explores themes of environmental racism and queer resistance. In 2024, Cheang toured the U.S. with a restored 35mm print, screening the film at independent cinemas and leading community discussions on environmental justice. At UC Santa Barbara, Cheang s Jigna Desai from the Center for Feminist Futures to explore the film’s enduring impact and urgent social themes.
“Reading Earth’s Diary in Natural Stone Tablets”
Paul Hoffman, the 2024 Kyoto Prize Laureate in Basic Sciences, is renowned for his groundbreaking work on Earth’s early geological history, particularly the “Snowball Earth” hypothesis. In this talk, Hoffman shares insights from decades of research and fieldwork, offering a firsthand of how near-complete global freezing events during the Proterozoic Eon may have shaped life on Earth. His work links these dramatic climate shifts to the Cambrian explosion of life around 520 million years ago. Hoffman, an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, has held positions at the Geological Survey of Canada and Harvard University, with pivotal research conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa that helped validate this transformative scientific theory.
And finally, top weekend events
The best things to do this weekend in San Diego: May 30 to June 1.
