The Beacon Theater Company completes their 2019 season with Walter Cronkite is Dead by Joe Calarco on November 8 at Elite Theatre in Oxnard.

The Beacon Theater Company’s inaugural 2019 season comes to a close with Joe Calarco’s red-state-meets-blue-state comedy about two women—a Southerner and an Easterner—who discover common ground on a stormy night in the Reagan National Airport.  Margaret, the Washingtonian, awaits the arrival of her son, when chatty Patty on her way to London to see The Lion King takes the other seat at her table in the airport cafe. 

 Despite the political lines that may identify the boundaries of their bias, over a shared bottle of wine, Margaret begins to see that Patty is not the stereotypical Middle American.  As they circle each other, a landing strip of common ground, of motherhood, runs out before them. The allusion to the widely respected anchorman of the play’s title, Walter Cronkite, reminds us that, as Americans, we used to have more collective standards.  

The North County Times in San Diego wrote, “The play is a ninety-minute treasure chest that keeps revealing new gems of wisdom and humor, right to the end.”  

“For our last production for the 2019 season,” said Tom Eubanks, Managing Partner for Beacon Theater Company, “we moved from downtown Ventura to the more spacious and comfortable Elite Theatre in Channel Islands Harbor.  In the meantime, Beacon is seeking a permanent venue in Ventura for its 2020 season.”