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Nick McCall
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Exhibit Review: MACHINE DREAMS: RAINFOREST (DATALAND / Los Angeles)
ALL SENSATION, LITTLE REVELATION A high-tech amusement park disguised as a museum. While the world loses its collective mind over artificial intelligence’s encroachment on every facet of our lives, with calls to restrict AI, Refik Anadol Studio has plunged wholeheartedly in the opposite direction with the opening of DATALAND, the world’s first Museum of AI…
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Exhibit Review: MARILYN MONROE: HOLLYWOOD ICON (Academy Museum of Motion Pictures / LA)
THE ART OF BEING MARILYN The woman, the myth, and the image she carefully controlled Superstar Marilyn Monroe was born one hundred years ago this summer. In honor of the centennial of her birth, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures presents Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon, now on display through Feb. 28, 2027. Covering Monroe’s entire…
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Music Review: GUSTAVO DUDAMEL: CELEBRATING THE MUSICIANS OF THE LA PHIL (Walt Disney Concert Hall / Los Angeles)
THE STARS WERE HERE ALL ALONG A celebration of the musicians who make the LA Phil extraordinary If you come to the LA Phil often enough, you’ll begin to recognize the individual players. Now consider how often you see them take center stage. Amazing players, all of them, but it’s unusual for them to be…
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Theater Review: DIE WALKÜRE (LA Phil / Disney Hall / Los Angeles)
A RING BROKEN OUT OF SHAPE A misguided presentation undermines Wagner’s masterpiece and Gustavo Dudamel’s farewell-season ambitions The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s presentation of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel during the final month of his tenure as Music and Artistic Director, should have been one of the crown jewels of the season. Instead,…
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Opera Review: ZORRO (Pacific Opera Project / San Gabriel Mission Playhouse)
THIS ZORRO NEVER LEAVES A MARK Pacific Opera Project’s lavish production can’t rescue an opera that rarely catches fire Pacific Opera Project gave composer-librettist Héctor Armienta’s 2022 opera, Zorro, a lavish Los Angeles premiere last weekend at San Gabriel Mission Playhouse. Alas, strong production value was not enough to put life into this instantly forgettable…
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Opera Review: DIE KLUGE (THE WISE WOMAN) (Independent Opera Company, Los Angeles)
A GEM FINDS ITS VOICE A charming, rarely staged Orff opera gets a smart, scrappy revival Did you know that composer Carl Orff wrote more than Carmina Burana? It’s true. While most audiences know “O Fortuna” and its bombastic spectacle, Orff also composed lighter fare such as Die Kluge, a fairy-tale opera that Independent Opera…
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Opera Review: GILGAMESH: THE OPERA (Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts)
EPIC SOURCE, EPIC SCORE, EPIC PRODUCTION An ambitious new opera that struggles to connect its spectacle to a coherent narrative Want to know the quickest way to make me hesitate seeing a new musical? Append “: The Musical” to the title. So, here we have Gilgamesh: The Opera (which seems oblivious to at least seven…
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Theater Review: THE COLOR PURPLE (Zephyr Theatre, Chromolume Theatre Company)
CAN ANYONE SAVE THIS MUSICAL? A committed cast and strong vocals can’t overcome a rushed, softened adaptation that drains the story’s power In their mission statement, Chromolume Theatre is “dedicated to presenting Broadway’s forgotten musical theatre gems.” So, for their current production, they’re doing The Color Purple at The Zephyr Theatre. With two major Broadway…
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Dance Review: BALANCHINE: TWIN MASTERPIECES (American Contemporary Ballet)
BAD MOOD? BALANCHINE WILL FIX THAT American Contemporary Ballet’s twin masterpieces turn live strings into a reset button for the soul Two string duos. Two ballets. Both pairs similar in structure and running time, but containing glimpses of unlimited invention within fixed limitations. For their spring program, American Contemporary Ballet performs two works from George…
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Theater Review: FOURSOME (IAMA & Celebration at Atwater Village Theatre)
FOR SOME, MAYBE — FOR OTHERS, A CHORE An exhausting exercise in enforced fun and emotional emptiness (Seated) Felix (Jimin Moon), Noah (Matthew Scott Montgomery, (on floor) Kobe (Calvin Seabrooks, and Tahj (Adrián Javier) are two couples You know that one friend who exhausts everyone in the room? That annoying one in your wider friend…
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Theater Review: INCITATION TO THE DANCE (Theatre West)
A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE A smart, suggestive script meets a production that can’t quite generate the heat it promises. No, it’s not a typo. With a title guaranteed to make you double-take, Michael Van Duzer’s unabashedly gay new play, Incitation to the Dance, opened last Friday at Theatre West. David Mingrino, Casey Alcoser, Michael…
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Music Review: WILD UP: THE GREAT LEARNING (The Broad)
EXPERIMENTAL SOUND MEETS MUSEUM SPACE — WITH MIXED RESULTS A well-intentioned immersion in Cardew’s radical score undone by acoustics, logistics, and audience reality On Saturday February 7, Wild Up performed The Great Learning, Paragraphs 2 and 7 by radical English composer Cornelius Cardew inside The Broad, in conjunction with the exhibition Robert Therrien: This is…
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Theater Review: PUNISH ME: A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER (Hudson Backstage Theatre)
A SELF-INFLICTED WOUND POSING AS THEATER. SAFE WORD: CURTAIN An erotic psychological thriller script without the erotic, psychology, thrill, or script Dear Gay Theater-makers, I am writing today to encourage you to see the terrible new play Punish Me, by triple-threat writer-producer-actor Michael Dukakis, currently renting space at the Hudson Backstage Theatre. Do I recommend…
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Theater Review: SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (La Mirada Theatre)
SWEENEY TODD SLICES DEEP — EVEN WITH A FEW MISSTEPS Jason Alexander’s ambitious concept does not blunt the impact of a blisteringly performed revival McCoy Rigby Entertainment has been doing solid work for decades, but they have outdone themselves with their new production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, now playing in…
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Opera Review: ALICE RYLEY & BIG DEATHS (Source/Filter Music Collective at Heritage Square)
OPERA AMONG THE GHOSTS From playful parlor deaths to a chilling one-act about crime, punishment, and memory, Source/Filter Music Collective made Heritage Square sing. On November 8, Source/Filter Music Collective returned to Heritage Square Museum with the west coast premiere of Michael Ching’s 2015 true-crime opera Alice Ryley, about the first woman executed in Georgia….
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Opera Review: HILDEGARD (World Premiere, LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects at The Wallis)
BEST BE ON YOUR HILDEGARD WATCHING THIS THING When approaching a work based on history, it’s expected that there will be some degree of fictionalization. Even though it won’t be completely true, the broad strokes will be, and you’ll leave having learned a tiny bit of something new. However, Hildegard, the dull new opera by…
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Dance Review: DEATH AND THE MAIDEN WITH BURLESQUE: VARIATION IX (American Contemporary Ballet)
CORPS MEETS CORPSE: ACB DANCES LIFE TO DEATH (AND BACK AGAIN) Loss and longing pervade the revival of American Contemporary Ballet‘s surprisingly optimistic Death and the Maiden, now running at Bank of America Plaza through November 1, paired with a brand-new installment in the company’s Burlesque series, all accompanied by live music. Death and the…
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Concert Review: THOMAS KOTCHOFF: BETWEEN SYSTEMS (Piano Spheres at 2220 Arts + Archives)
SONIC AND CHER Have you ever wondered what a Cher and György Ligeti mashup would sound like? Me, neither, but that’s how last week’s Piano Spheres concert at 2220 Arts + Archives began, which also doubled as the release party for Thomas Kotcheff’s new album, Between Systems, an exploration of interpreting existing works without relying…
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Theater Review: ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (A Noise Within)
ONE MAN, TWO HOURS TOO LONG Ask yourself how much you liked The Play That Goes Wrong series. That’s a pretty good indicator as to your enjoyment of Richard Bean’s 2011 play, One Man, Two Guvnors, now running at A Noise Within. If you liked it, stop reading and go. You’ll have a great time….
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Theater Review: BRILLIANT TRACES (Hudson Theatre)
TRACES OF POSSIBILITY Premiering Off-Broadway in 1989, Cindy Lou Johnson’s Brilliant Traces is one of those plays that can be either mesmerizing or exasperating and tiresome. Lacking a firm idea of what it wants to be, Soul Gym Productions’ new mounting at the Hudson for a brief three-day run, fell firmly in the latter. In the middle of…
Theater Review: OCTET (Goodman Theatre)
by Mitchell Oldham | July 19, 2026
in Chicago, TheaterTheater Preview: PROOF (El Portal Theatre / North Hollywood)
by pwsadmin | July 17, 2026
in Los Angeles, TheaterTheater Review: TREASURE ISLAND (Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum / Topanga)
by Judson Feder | July 16, 2026
in Los Angeles, Theater
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