Joel Beers
Joel Beers has reviewed theater for OC Weekly since its inception in 1997. Among his awards are first place for entertainment criticism from the Southern California Journalism Awards in 2008, and second place in arts criticism from the Association of Alternative Weeklies in 2011.
He has also managed to forge a career as a free-lance writer since the mid-1990s, writing for publications as varied as American Theatre Magazine to Southland Golf. He spent a few years in the trenches of daily newspapers as a general assignment reporter before that, but left the industry to pursue more creative writing. He's had a dozen of his plays produced in Orange and Los Angeles counties. He holds a B.A. in political science from Cal State Fullerton, and also studied journalism at Fullerton College and San Jose State University.
In addition to writing, he is also an adjunct faculty member at California State University, Dominguez Hills, teaching feature writing to communications majors. Oh, he also helps manage a bar in downtown Fullerton. And his veins pulse with the blue blood of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
