Jesse David Corti

ALL THE WRONG MOVES The musical Chess highlights the tongue-twisting, swift, and pithy lyrics by Tim Rice and the soaring, dazzling music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA fame. In previous Stage and Cinema reviews of productions at MTG  and the Met Theatre, its history has been well-documented: The super-partnership of Rice-Andersson-Ulvaeus in 1979;…

MILES FURTHER, JAZZ FARTHER Pianist/keyboardist Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, trumpeter Sean Jones, and bassist Marcus Miller settled into Disney Hall to pay tribute to  arguably the greatest pioneer of Jazz music after Duke Ellington, Mr. Miles Davis. Hancock greeted the nearly sold-out audience with an emphatic “Los Angeles is in the House!”…

PASSION OVER PERFECTION wild Up is an electric ensemble of twenty-two twenty-somethings who vigorously perform a maelstrom of eclectic musical works ranging from J.S. Bach to They Might Be Giants. Led by the dynamic and skittish Artistic Director-Conductor Christopher Rountree at REDCAT in Disney Hall last Wednesday, the zestful ensemble performs  a bizarrely arranged program of…

NO SLIPS HERE After previous productions in Chicago and New York, Daniel Talbott’s first play Slipping touches down in Los Angeles and serves as both the inaugural production of Rattlestick  Playwrights Theater in Los Angeles  and his directorial debut. The deconstructed text is challenging – hopping back and forth in  place and time  utilizing a plethora of short scenes…

THE GEFFEN PRODUCTION OF AMERICAN BUFFALO PREFERS TO GRAZE RATHER THAN STAMPEDE The script of David Mamet’s assaulting and brutal American Buffalo still packs bite after thirty-eight years. The rapid-fire rat-a-tat-tat staccato dialogue crackles, and its unsentimental, unflinching portrait of two-bit low-lifes willing to scrape, scrap, and screw anything and everything to get their slice…

A BUTTERFLY THAT’S STILL IN THE COCOON Katherine Noon’s latest ensemble workshop-developed hydra creation, The Bargain and the Butterfly, takes its inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Artist of the Beautiful. In Hawthorne’s tale, Owen Warland works at a watchmaker’s shop; he is a brilliant fool with a heart of gold who is more caught up…

MYTH UNDERSTOOD Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice is classical in its mythological origins but forges a modern path with  a point of view modification and feministic flair. The original Greek myth of Orpheus is centered on the incomparable, eponymous musician who loses his wife to the netherworld too soon. He is then motivated to do whatever it takes…

HOW TO SURVIVE CHAUVINISTIC INHUMANITY WITHOUT REALLY TRYING We live in a nation where people celebrate socialite Kim Kardashian, who bore a child with a man who’s not her husband. Sexual indiscretion can be summed up as “Hey, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” And whether it’s a running joke or understood truth, the…

THE PRIDE OF JAZZ PURITANS Wynton Marsalis has received a plethora of awards from numerous countries, committees and academies for his talents and contributions to the world as a musician, arranger, composer, and cultural ambassador. In 2009, he received the Insignia Chevalier  of the Legion of Honor from France; it’s the equivalent of attaining knighthood in…

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A BAD MOM? Chalk Repertory Theatre continues presenting non-traditional, site-specific theatre with the world premiere of Dorothy Fortenberry’s newest work, Mommune. “Mommune” is the name of a childcare center, and the two-hour real-time melodrama about motherhood – featuring an all-woman ensemble – takes place at an actual day care center,…

THE PLAY ABOUT A TRIAL ULTIMATELY BECOMES A TRIAL TO WATCH Stephen Adley Guirgis’ The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a courtroom drama set in Purgatory where the guilty or not guilty verdict literally means heaven or hell for the one standing trial. The one being judged in this case is former apostle and…

RIPPED TO RAGS IN A BEAUTIFUL WAY John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize and National Book award-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath operates as both a harrowing portrait of the American struggle for life, liberty, and happiness, and an impassioned rally cry for the downtrodden; it is a fitting title (suggested by the writer’s wife) considering it…

TALK ABOUT A LONG AND WINDING ROAD So, this cool cat painter, a blonde Frau, and several Liverpool lads named John, Paul, George, and Pete walk into a bar in Hamburg: While this sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, it is actually a more accurate description of Backbeat, a bad “musical.” Based on…

THE SLIPPERY SIGNIFICANCE OF GREAT AND GOOD A person’s true character is revealed in crisis. The road to triumph is filled with battles lost and sacrifices made, but overall it is worth the pain and perseverance. Tracey Scott Wilson’s The Good Negro follows Reverend James Lawrence, who leads the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama…