I’m often asked “Do you watch network news on TV?”
I suspect it’s a trick question, like the asker is fishing for my political affiliation. In a way this is understandable because network TV news seems more and more to be going the way of cable news ,where partisan opinion is at the forefront. I’m looking at you, “CBS Evening News.”
Anyway, when asked I will answer “yes” and tell the curious that when I do watch the news on television it’s “BBC World News America.” That’s how it’s been since the end of 2022 when Judy Woodruff stepped down as anchor of the “NewsHour” on PBS.
A journalist of impeccable standards and integrity, she’s about the last network anchor I’ve trusted.
So here comes Woodruff to town, on Wednesday as part of the “31st Annual Writer’s Symposium By the Sea” at Point Loma Nazarene University. She’ll be interviewed by Symposium founder Dean Nelso about her autobiography “This Is Judy Woodruff at the White House.” Following Woodruff next Thursday will be Antiguan-American writer Jamaica Kincaid, whose inventive short story “Girl” I’ve taught in English classes many times. It’s written in a long, single-sentence in the voice of a mother instructing her daughter … on just about everything.
The festival wraps up Feb. 27 with author George Saunders, novelist and frequent contributor to The New Yorker. If you admire Saunders, check out Ezra Klein’s podcast interview with Saunders.
For the schedule and details, visit pointloma.edu/events/31st-annual-writers-symposium-sea.
Standup comedy
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld will perform Saturday in Temecula. AP
This year marks 50, half a century, since Jerry Seinfeld performed his first standup gig at a nightclub, at Pip’s Comedy Club in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Pip’s is long gone, but Seinfeld is still doing standup, and it’s because he wants to. When his hit TV series ended in 1998, he likely could have turned to movies or had his pick of a new sitcom setup. Instead he returned to his roots.
Seinfeld’s back in our area on Saturday night when he performs at Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula. If you’ve never seen Jerry onstage don’t expect a lot of nostalgia or throwbacks to “Seinfeld” episodes. He keeps his act current, and that means there will be surprises as only Seinfeld can spring them. For more, visit jerryseinfeld.com.
Theater
Local playwright Mabelle Reynoso is the author of the “When She Became the Moon,” a play opening this weekend at San Diego State University. (Mabelle Reynoso)
Playwright/storyteller Mabelle Reynoso, who’s also a lecturer at San Diego State University’s School of Theatre, Television, and Film, brought two intriguing works to San Diego stages last year: first, the immersive “La Llorona on the Blue Line” presented by TuYo Theatre, and later “Young Audiences” at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista. She begins 2026 with her “When She Became the Moon,” opening Friday on SDSU’s Prebys Stage in the university’s Performing Arts District.
“When She Became the Moon” is a coming-of-age story that also mingles Mexican folklore and the supernatural. Directed by SDSU School of TTF Associate Professor Peter Cirino, it will run through March 1 on Montezuma Mesa. Details at ttf.sdsu.edu/.
By the way, Reynoso’s play “La Llorona on the Blue Line,” which made its world premiere last summer with San Diego’s TuYo Theatre won the Audience Choice Award on Monday at the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle’s 2025 Craig Noel Awards.
More theater
San Diego native Leianna Weaver will play Lydia in the new national touring production of “Beetlejuice: The Musical,” which plays Feb. 24-March 1 at the San Diego Civic Theatre. (Leianna Weaver)
“Beetlejuice” is back. Less than two and a half years after the stage musical inspired by the hit Tim Burton film rocked the Civic Theatre downtown, another touring production of “Beetlejuice,” again presented by Broadway San Diego, returns to that venue beginning on Tuesday night.
This time around there’s a local connection: Leianna Weaver, who last appeared here in CCAE Theatricals’ production of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” in 2024, is portraying Lydia Deetz in the “Beetlejuice” cast. That’s the role that was memorably created by Winona Ryder in the “Beetlejuice” film and its recent sequel.
Costa Mesa surfboard shaper Lance Collins is the subject of the documentary “Shaping the Future,” playing Saturday at the Oceanside International Film Festival. (Oceanside International Film Festival)
Film festival
The annual Oceanside International Film Festival doesn’t officially get under way until Wednesday, but a special preview day of films guaranteed to make surfers smile is happening on Saturday beginning at 12:30 p.m. It’s “Surf Saturday,” an all-day showcase of surf-related films beginning with the documentary “All Or Nothing” from the U.K.
A highlight of the day will be a screening of the documentary short “Glass,” which focuses on the Oceanside surfboard shaper Isaac Cluphf. It screens at 6:45 p.m. The venue for screenings is, of course, the Brooks Theatre in downtown Oceanside.