Los Angeles

DANIEL EZRALOW: WHAT IS DANCE? To say that Daniel Ezralow is a busy man this week is an understatement. After making a worldwide name for himself as a dancemaker and aerial choreographer for theater, film, opera, concerts, and television, Ezralow is debuting his new Los Angeles-based company, Ezralow Dance, at the Ford Amphitheatre this Saturday,…

NOT AS TRYING AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN A slight bio-drama is given heft by larger-than-life performances in this latest outing from International City Theatre in Long Beach. Trying is based on playwright Joanna McClelland Glass’s own experiences as a 25-year-old woman from Saskatoon working as a secretary for the great, cantankerous Francis Biddle’”attorney general…

ONE IN A MILLION Rabid theatergoers who often attend plays are akin to miners panning for gold: The drudgery and disappointment from months of discovering rocks is dissipated when a precious nugget arrives. One in the Chamber is one such gem. Writer/director Marja-Lewis Ryan has crafted a harrowing account of a normal American family torn…

FORD INTO PECKINPAH VIA THE CHICKEN HYMN I’m a big fan of John Ford and Howard Hawks; My Darling Clementine and Red River are apex achievements in Hollywood studio storytelling. But Ford and Hawks were limited in ways that Impro Theatre is not. When Impro addresses the American Western as a system of philosophy and…

FIRST PERSIAN PLURAL To see the oldest extant Greek tragedy performed  sort-of  as it was 2500 years ago, but excluding masks and including Anne Bogart’s affection for fabric and yoga positions, you may now attend Aeschylus’s Persians  in a lovely amphitheater up in the Malibu hills. Essentially an after-the-fact ode to the Greek fighting spirit, delivered by a…

MORE MEAT If you are one of the many theatergoers who caught Pacific Resident Theatre’s production of Out There on Fried Meat Ridge Road (and possibly the special Christmas follow-up) during its unprecedented 6-month run, then you’ll likely be anticipating the third installment, The Unfryable Meatness of Being. If you missed Out There you might…

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE OF LOS ANGELES BALLET Along with the film industry, one of Los Angeles’ greatest entertainment assets is music. While theater, dance, opera, and other mediums continually attempt to match world-class cities such as New York, Chicago, and those in Europe, music’”especially classical music’”is thriving. (This may well be due to…

THE RUBRICS OF FAITH A play as well presented and satisfyingly written as most of Robin Uriel Russin’s new The Face in the Reeds deserves special mention. The Family Holiday Dramedy with Heart is normally a dismal category, rarely featuring characters this sharp or dialogue this funny. The genre has its limitations, and through prudence…

HOLLYWOOD COMES TO PASADENA Surrounded by lush vegetation and a seemingly endless expanse of verdant lawn, with a clear, starry sky overhead, the L.A. Arboretum was a perfect setting to enjoy Hooray for Hollywood, the Pasadena POPS’ celebration of Hollywood film music, hosted (and at times conducted) by the charming and talented principal conductor, Michael…

ALLEY HIGH There are many reasons why some previously produced Broadway musicals are rarely performed: The sheer size of the show makes it prohibitively expensive (The Most Happy Fella, 1956); the terrific score is hampered by a troubled book (Chess, 1986); or the material is so hackneyed that modern audiences won’t go for it (Bajour,…

SOUR CHERRIES It’s been 110 years since The Cherry Orchard premiered. While Chekhov insisted that his play about the fall of Russian aristocracy’”and the fallout from the abolition of serfdom’”was a comedy, director Constantin Stanislavski saw the now oft-produced, 14-character, 4-act script as a tragedy. Clearly, they are both correct. The tragicomedy centers on Ranevskaya,…

STRAWBERRY FIELDS I’m not sure what, but it says something about our young writers and aging audiences that the most durable millennial genre is the coming-of-middle-age medical trauma family drama.   David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, car accident), Jenny Schwartz (God’s Ear, drowning), Margaret Edson (Wit, cancer), Kathryn Walat (Creation, struck by lightning), Brian Yorkey & Tom…

ONE ACT IS COMPANY, SIX IS A CROWD Here’s the thing: an evening of one-act plays always reminds me of those Night of Scenes showcases back in school.   It’s a good chance for writers, actors, directors, and designers to work out, but for the audience…it’s a night of scenes.   So much can go wrong.   In…

BROADWAY VIA THE CATSKILLS AND THE ACTORS STUDIO I like plays featuring middle-aged guys who did everything right and still can’t figure anything out.   So Ron Sossi and Larry Field’s new production of Neil Simon’s 1986 Broadway Bound has a present for me in the character of Jack, the no-nonsense garment cutter whose wife and…

FLAMENCO FEVER AT THE FORD AMPHITHEATRE Last year, after the thrilling, fiery, and passionate flamenco dancer Manuel Gutiérrez displayed a crackling tap and pedal pyrotechnics the likes of which confirmed why Flamenco is so compelling, my companion leaned over and said, “That’s it. I’m booking us on the next flight to Seville.” Well, we never…

DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME Ah Hollywood.   How it glitters.   How it glistens.   How true it is that when you scrape off the layers of tinsel, you find, well, more tinsel.   This musical (Adrian Bewley, book; Joe Blodgett, music; Chana Wise, lyrics) is an affectionate paean to the Good Ol’ Days of Hollywood, when Movie…

SWEET, DREAMY Based on the true story of a rabid blue-collar fan whose dream of making friends with her favorite Grand Ole Opry star came true in 1961, Always… Patsy Cline is an enormously successful 1990 jukebox musical written and “originally directed” by Ted Swindley.   In its latest incarnation at the El Portal through Sunday,…