San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Members

Charlene Baldridge Don Braunagel

Jennifer Chung Klam Carol Davis James Hebert

Pam Kragen Ruth Lepper Frankie Moran Jeff Smith

Anne Marie Welsh George Weinberg-Harter

Jeff Smith has been the theater critic for the San Diego Reader since 1980, and also writes a local history column. He has a Ph.D. in literature and critical theory from the University of California, Irvine. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Shakespeare. He has dramaturged dozens of shows. Favorites include Sam Shepard's The Tooth of Crime, Peter Barnes's Red Noses (both at SD Rep), Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (North Coast Rep), Shakespeare's Hamlet (New Village Arts) and Romulus Linney's Holy Ghosts (Sullivan Players).

Anne Marie Welsh, former theater critic for the San Diego Union-Tribune, is a free-lance writer. Welsh earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English and drama from the University of Rochester. In 1976, she joined the staff of the Washington Star where she was dance critic and backup theater critic until the paper's demise. Welsh came to the San Diego Union in 1983 serving as the paper's dance critic, second theater critic and arts reporter before a ten-year stint as the paper's theater critic. She co-edited The Longman Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Drama: A Global Perspective and co-authored Shakespeare: Script, Stage and Screen. She has served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in drama and is a member of the editorial board as well as a regular essayist for Best Plays, the national yearbook of American theater. She is also the proud mother of three sons — Adam, Martin and Casimir Morawski.

Don Braunagel has been theater critic and columnist for San Diego Magazine since 1995 and writes occasional reviews for the Los Angeles Times. He covered theater for the San Diego Tribune from 1980 until the paper's merger with the San Diego Union in 1992, and was San Diego critic for Daily Variety until 1995. Before that, Braunagel was entertainment editor and theater critic for the Oakland Press in Pontiac, MI. He's reviewed myriad productions in London, New York, Toronto and Stratford, Ontario, and in theaters across the United States, from Ashland to Asolo. San Diego theater, he believes, ranks with the best.

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Charlene Baldridge writes about theater and the arts for numerous local and regional publications, including La Jolla Village News, Riverside Press-Enterprise and Performances. She is the author of the book San Diego: Jewel of the California Coast. Read her poetry and experience her journalism at http://members.cox.net/charb81

George Weinberg-Harter was born in San Diego in 1944 as George Harter, and graduated from San Diego High School in 1962. He spent the rest of the '60s at San Diego State University earning degrees in literature (and draft avoidance) and doing graduate work on Joseph Conrad and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. In 1972, he married and combined surnames with Susan Weinberg. He has been an observer of, and a participant in, San Diego theater all his life, and for more than two decades has written freelance theater articles for the San Diego Union-Tribune, Drama-Logue, Back Stage West and sandiego.com. He has also worked occasionally as a graphic artist, has taught calligraphy, is a co-founder of the San Diego Fellow Calligraphers and has designed many theatrical posters.

Photo by Danielle Strom

Carol Davis was born in Providence, R.I., attended Boston University and graduated from Teachers College in Boston with a B.S. degree in Education with a minor in English. She later moved to San Diego and taught kindergarten in the San Diego School District. Carol writes for Turbula.net and sdjewishworld.com. She was entertainment columnist for the San Diego Jewish Times for more than 20 years, five of which she shared a byline with her late husband, Gerry. She owns Gila Rut Hair Salon with one of her daughters. She has three grown daughters, two of whom reside in San Diego and one of whom lives in Israel with her family. She has been a member of the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle since 1986. She is a past member of the American Theatre Critics Association.

Ruth Lepper has been reviewing plays throughout San Diego County for the past 25 years. She has had feature articles published in international, national and regional publications, and has been on staff for several local newspapers over the years. She is currently a free-lance writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune and North County Times. Her entertainment column, "The Play's the Thing," is published regularly in the Ramona Home Journal and Julian Journal news magazines.

Pam Kragen, the president of the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle, is the arts and features editor of the North County Times newspaper and has served as the paper's theater critic since 1999. She is a fellow from the National Endowment for the Arts' Institute for Arts Journalism at USC. She has worked full-time at daily newspapers in the San Diego area since 1981, when she joined the staff of the Daily Aztec at San Diego State University. Over the years, she has worked as a financial editor and writer, news editor and copy editor. She is also mom to two teen-agers, Matt and Aubrey.

Jennifer Chung Klam is Special Sections Editor for the San Diego business paper The Daily Transcript, where she previously served as arts editor, copy editor and staff reporter. The nearly native San Diegan writes about theater, arts and culture for a variety of online and print publications including The San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego CityBeat and sandiego.com. Before jumping into journalism, the UCSD grad dipped a toe or two in technical publications, marketing communications, higher education and vocational rehabilitation. In 2007 she married and became instant mom to two beautiful kids. She recently served as editor for her husband’s San Diego Book Award-nominated book of poetry, and she is also an avid crafter, sometimes poet and aspiring Great American Novelist.

James Hebert has been an arts writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune since 1997. He spent his early childhood in Japan before the family moved to California in 1967. After graduating from SDSU, he earned a master's degree at Columbia University in New York, then moved to Boston with his now-wife, Sophy Chaffee (a Columbia classmate), where he became assistant editor of Offshore magazine. He shortly got out of the yachting racket and returned to San Diego, joining the U-T as a copy editor. Hebert has written about pop music, film and media, and has reviewed theater here since 1995. He's a proud dad of two highly entertaining kids, Audrey and Zander. Likes: Surfing, running, Greek food. Dislikes: Weak coffee, "Starlight Express."

Frankie Moran, a freelance theater critic for sandiego.com, is a graduate of the 2008 NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater at USC's Annenberg School of Communication. Before that, he was a Phi Theta Kappa valedictorian at San Diego's own Mesa College and went on to graduate from UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television. Frankie got his start in criticism writing reviews of Broadway shows during a short stint studying law at Columbia University. Since then, he has written for the North County Times and in scenic New Mexico for the Las Cruces Bulletin, and now for www.sandiego.com.

Associate members: William Fark, Welton Jones,
Christopher Schneider, Jim Trageser

Member emeritus: Frances Bardacke