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Willie C.
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Theater Review: MARILYN, MOM & ME (International City Theatre in Long Beach)
HOW I WISH MARILYN MONROE WAS MY MOM In Luke Yankee‘s Marilyn, Mom & Me, the playwright-director takes the audience on a ruminative journey based on the complex relationship with his mother, character actress Eileen Heckart, and her recollection of the unique friendship she forged with America’s timeless sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe, on the set…
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Highly Recommended Concerts: SAMORA PINDERHUGHES LIVE (tour at UCLA, NY’s Winter Jazzfest and more)
Composer, pianist, vocalist, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary artist Samora Pinderhughes will take his acclaimed performances to select cities across the U.S., including a date at New York’s Winter Jazzfest on January 12. The multidisciplinary artist will also kick off the 2024 lineup at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, bringing a combination of new and…
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Music / Concert Review: AMERICAN RAILROAD (Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens; U.S. Tour)
TUNNEL VISION In this first program post-Yo-Yo Ma artistic directorship, the American Railroad national tour by Silkroad Ensemble presents an evening of newly composed and arranged music with a slew of fresh faces joining the illustrious ensemble. Under the direction of banjoist, fiddle player, vocalist and multi-Grammy winner Rhiannon Giddens, the ensemble features a cast…
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Jazz Concert Review: MIHO HAZAMA & M_UNIT (Tour at Samueli Hall, Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa)
AN EVENING OF CACOPHONOUS DELIGHT Grammy-nominated composer/performer/arranger Miho Hazama and her 13-piece jazz chamber orchestra m_unit landed at Segerstrom Center for the Arts on October 28, 2023, kicking off the U.S. West Coast Tour showing off her vibrant new album celebrating the 10-year anniversary of her ensemble, m_unit: Beyond Orbits. Adding about six minutes to…
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Theater Review: PETER PAN GOES WRONG (Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles)
A PERFECTLY CRAFTED TRAINWRECK Having brought the house down with The Play that Goes Wrong, Mischief Theatre Company has followed up with a delicious offering: Peter Pan Goes Wrong. Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, the play introduces the fictional Cornley Youth Theater to theatergoers and their catastrophic attempt to stage a production of the 1904…
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Theater Review: RENT (Chance Theater)
VIVA LA VIE CHANCE Rent by the late Jonathan Larson (tick, tick: BOOM!) is a musical theater phenom; productions are as ubiquitous as the stars in the firmament. The show is about a year in the life of bohemian artists struggling to survive, and if that sounds familiar, Larson based his 1996 rock musical on…
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Theater Review: SIX THE MUSICAL (National Tour)
THESE SIX QUEENS SLAY IT The cast of Six riled up the audience at Segerstrom in this pop concert remix of Tudor history. Catchy earworms, check. Iconic costumes, check. American-Idol-esque belting moments, double-triple check. Thundering applause and cheers erupt from the crowd following every number? Check. Did I mention that the songs are earworms? It…
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Theater Review: THE BOTTOMING PROCESS (IAMA Theatre Company and the Los Angeles LGBT Center)
PILAPIL POPS HIS CHERRY IN HIS PLAYWRITING PREMIERE “Why won’t you let me top you? Is it because I am Asian?!” This ear-catching line is decried robustly by the very passionate protagonist Milo (the expressive George Salazar), a Filipino neurotic social media account manager to his lover, young adult book writer and celebrity, John (Rick…
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Theater Review: CHICAGO (National Tour)
ALL THAT JAZZ AND MORE Bandstand, shining lights, and sexy murderers in lingerie. Chicago celebrates 25 years of razzle dazzle with this national tour featuring the original New York production directed by Walter Bobbie and choreographed by Ann Reinkingin the style of Bob Fosse. With the bandstand as the centerpiece of this City Center’s Encores!…
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Theater Review: AVAAZ (South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa)
A TRAILBLAZING VOICE EMERGES It is tough to capture what Avaaz is in writing. On the surface, it is a one-person play in which author Michael Shayan plays his mother, Roya, a Jewish-Iranian woman who is quite a character. The narrative journey can be traced back to Roya’s father, Shayan’s grandfather, who was jailed for…
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Theater Review: COLEMAN ’72 (South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa)
A LOVE LETTER TO AN IMMIGRANT FATHER Coleman ’72 is getting a fantastic world premiere production from South Coast Repertory. It is a melodrama about nostalgia, the immigrant experience, cross-generational trauma, and familial love. Told through the unreliable accounts of three siblings, this trip down memory lane brings up complicated family dynamics between each sibling…
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Concert Review: INVOCATIONS (Serj Tankian at The Soraya, Cal State Northridge)
A SURGE OF SERJ Serj Tankian, a world-class musician, peace activist, and frontman of Grammy-winning nu-metal band System of Down, had the mixed crowd — metal T-shirts, ripped jeans, and dress-up — buzzing with excitement. Tankian is also an alumnus of Cal State University, Northridge, the home of The Soraya. The homecoming last Saturday April…
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Theater Review: HAIRSPRAY (National Tour)
THIS HEAVYWEIGHT TAKES THE PRIZE Can you ask for a more perfect pairing than a drag queen and the high camp of musical theater? In this national tour production of Hairspray, Tracy Turnblad and friends turn up the heat with their dance movies on the stage of Segerstrom Hall. The band is tight, the movements…
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Music Review: Mí„LKKI LEADS DVOŘíK (LA Phil)
DONE WELL INDIVIDUALLY, BUT A CURIOUS AND UNNECESSARY PAIRING Conductor Susanna Målkki returned to Disney Hall with a contrasting program of Antonin Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances, Op. 46 and a U.S. premiere of an LA Phil commissioned Double Concerto by Felipe Lara written for Claire Chase, flute and esperanza spalding, bass and voice. The Slavonic Dances…
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Theater Review: DID YOU SEE WHAT WALTER PAISLEY DID TODAY? (La Mirada Theatre)
DROP-DEAD FUNNY What happens when you take Little Shop of Horrors and mix it with The Pink Panther cartoons, and throw in a little dash of Urinetown? You get this fantastic dark musical comedy Did You See What Walter Paisley Did Today? Based on Roger Corman’s 1959 horror-tinged beatnik satire A Bucket of Blood, the…
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Theater Review: ONCE (Laguna Playhouse)
ONCE UPON AN AMAZING TIME Good theater allows audiences to see the world from the eyes of the creators. In this triumphant production of Once, which opened last night March 12 at Laguna Playhouse, we are invited into the world of a downtrodden buttery-voiced Irish man and a struggling single immigrant mother. A whirlwind of…
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Event Review: HINOTORI – THE WINGS OF PHOENIX (Yamato Drummers of Japan)
HUBBA HUBBA! YAMATO LIGHTS THE STAGE ON FIRE Have you ever attended a performance where you felt like you ran a marathon? Still, all you did was sit on the edge of your seat from the sheer awesomeness on the stage. The Yamato Drummers of Japan’s HINOTORI – THE WINGS OF PHOENIX tour landed in…
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DANCE REVIEW: BYOULNORRI (DaEun Jung; 2023 Dance at the Odyssey)
PLAYFUL SINGULARITY DaEun Jung‘s Byoulnorri closes Odyssey Theatre Ensemble’s dance festival, 2023 Dance at the Odyssey, with playful austerity. The hour-long concert is performed in two parts, Byoul (별): “star,” a solo performance by the Choreographer herself, and Norri (놀씴): “play’, a four men ensemble work. DaEun Jung, a trained performer of Korean traditional dance,…
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Theater Review: NIMROD (Theatre of NOTE)
THIS JOYOUS TRIUMPH IS LIKE A PIG IN SHIT Mixed with the contradictory language of William Shakespeare and Trump-speak, Nimrod is a gut-busting, refreshing, sharp, irreverent, and often cacophonous satirical play delivered by a big, superbly talented cast at Theatre of NOTE. Phinneas Kiyomura is The Bard of our time — writing in the form…
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Film Review: MILLENNIUM MAMBO (4-K restoration; directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE MEETS REQUIEM FOR A DREAM Hou Hsiao-Hsien, a veteran new-wave filmmaker from Taiwan, has captured the idiosyncrasies of the small island nation for over two decades. In this 4K restoration of his seminal film, Millennium Mambo (åƒç¦§æ›¼æ³¢), Hou’s turn-of-the-century (2001) pessimistic take on the future of Taiwanese youths comes alive…
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in New York, Theater
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