Los Angeles

THE LATEST FASHION Since its founding in 2004, Vs. Theatre Company has upped the ante for storefront theater in Los Angeles, offering both original works and LA premieres with the kind of love and professionalism I associate with Chicago theater (the best in the nation). Among Vs.’s productions are In Arabia We’d All Be Kings,…

GO FACE THE MUSIC+DANCE Assuredly, Artistic Director Lincoln Jones’ American Contemporary Ballet (ACB) has become the go-to organization for thrilling dance in Los Angeles. Along with his muse Theresa Farrell (ACB’s associate director), Jones offers two programs that are always accompanied by live music. The polished technique of the company’s dancers combined with highly original…

MOVIES THE WAY THEY WERE MEANT TO BE SEEN 28 years ago, a handful of volunteers from The Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit that recognizes, preserves, and revitalizes the historic architectural of L.A. County, dreamt up Last Remaining Seats, a summertime program which presents classic films and live entertainment in historic movie palaces. The brilliantly…

ON HENRY  AND HISTORY Henry IV Part 1 opens with a lengthy speech delivered by King Henry IV himself: “So shaken are we, so wan with care:” begins James Sutorius, one of the double-cast actors to play the King. “No more the thirsty entrance of the soil / Shall daub her lips with her own children’s…

FINDING JUST A BIT In his solo show, playwright Nicholas Guest describes his life and travels around the world.   He’s accompanied by Hillary Smith on the cello and by Tony Carafone on the guitar (in the play, not his travels) – and they turn out to be a helpful pair, too, because Guest intersperses his…

MUSICAL THEATRE WEST KNOWS HOW TO SUCCEED Reams can and have been written about the glories of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock & Willie Gilbert, the 1961 musical satire that landed virtually unanimous raves would go on to…

LOVE THAT GOES BUMP IN THE NIGHT Conor McPherson’s plays are so rooted in the characters that plot is really revelation. With unforced warmth, he captures loneliness in the act of self-effacement, and love as the best way to prove we’re really here. Geffen Playhouse’s offering  The Night Alive  is no nocturne’”much in the vein of McPherson’s…

A RIDE YOU WON’T FIND IN ANAHEIM Any neighborhood with the elevated name of Silver Lake should have freshwater dolphins and interesting old hotels and a disfigured serial killer who stalks the shrubbery on the anniversary of his parasailing accident. Instead recently on a steep pavement I witnessed this conversation between an attractive pedestrian and…

A FAMOUS LITERARY FEUD MAKES GREAT DRAMA In a 1980 television interview with Dick Cavett, novelist and literary critic Mary McCarthy made an especially biting comment about her longtime adversary and fellow writer, playwright and memoirist Lillian Hellman, saying that “every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’” Unfortunately, Hellman was watching…

NOTHING FISHY ABOUT THIS PROGRAM Former music critic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra program annotator Phillip Huscher wrote that Anselm Hí¼ttenbrenner, one of Franz Schubert’s regular drinking partners, loved to tell the story of the night he invited the composer over to share some bottles of Szekszárd, a Hungarian red wine he had received as a…

UP THE RABBIT HOLE There’s been a good deal of speculation over the last hundred-and-something years regarding the sexuality of Charles Dodgson, an Oxford professor of mathematics more famous for his writings under the pen name Lewis Carroll. Severally, storytellers Dennis Potter and Robert Wilson have investigated the subject; so have many market-minded biographers.  That Dodgson…

EVERYONE’S INTERESTED IN THE LATEST PASSION The majority of Bach’s choral music dates from 1723 onward during his long tenure as Cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. It was during that lengthy period, which lasted until his death, that he composed more than 230 cantatas (many lost to posterity) and five “passions,” of…