‘Kingdom' Crowns Old Globe Season

"Kingdom," a potent new hip-hop musical, is being produced this month by the Old Globe, reports the North County Times.

"As a theater writer you need to write about that which makes you afraid," says Aaron Jafferis, who wrote the book and lyrics for "Kingdom," a potent new hip-hop musical being produced this month by the Old Globe. "In dangerous and difficult times, theater should be dangerous and difficult or we're not doing our job."

"Kingdom" is about a pair of young friends, Juan and Andres, who choose the path of violence within the Latin Kings, a gang culture they join to gain power and respect.

The show premieres at southeast San Diego's Lincoln High in a new state-of-the art 750-seat theater on Thursday. More performances follow, Feb. 19-22, at the Old Globe, which is also sponsoring related activities and dialogs, both there and at Lincoln.

"This is not a project that is, or should be, Broadway-bound," said Lou Spisto, the Globe's executive producer and a champion of the work. "But it should be seen by more people, and we wanted to find a way to do that. Aaron and Ian (composer Ian Williams) have never had a major theater behind it and we have now brought to it the same resources and the full forces of our staff that we would have to any other show."