Los Angeles

EVERYTHING NEEDS A RETOUCH 30-year-old Jess is a mess. A New York-based dotcom genius, Jess is fraught with low self-esteem, making her an overweight, smelly, anti-social, stressed-out, aggressive, iconoclastic nerd who picks at her zits. She tells fellow nerd and co-worker Lewis during lunch at Chipotle that her mother, estranged for years, is dying back…

TITTY GARAGE Shows that are listed at two hours and fifteen minutes shouldn’t be forgiven for running three hours, unless they are written by a genius like Mikhail Bulgakov. One of that early Soviet dissident’s plays is in fact embedded in Charles A. Duncombe’s new play, sort of, but it’s a dream version that takes…

WHAT’S DE MATERIE? Of all the offerings during LA Phil’s Minimalist Jukebox Festival, the hard-core lovers might prefer Europe’s leading Minimalist, Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. His rarely performed, abstract, non-traditional, quasi-operatic work De Materie (“Matter”) will receive a huge production, the work’s first performance on the West Coast, on April 18 at Disney Hall. Written…

BACH TO BASICS If anything, Iranian pianist Ramin Bahrami’s American debut at the Wallis in Beverly Hills last Wednesday was just more evidence for soloists needing a director. The discussion need not be about his mastery of Bach (which he has in spades) or whether his playing is innovative or not (my vote is “not”…

IT’S ALL IN THE TIEMPO The excitement in Ana Maria Alvarez’s voice is contagious: “When we got the news it was like one of those Ed McMahon calls that everyone sees on television.” The Artistic Director and founder of CONTRA-TIEMPO Urban Latin Dance Theater is referring to her company’s upcoming dance tour supported by DanceMotion…

INVENTIVE MEMORY PLAY COULD USE JUST A BIT MORE MAGIC Inspired by the work of Johanna Cooper’”a broadcaster who was commonly drawn to Jewish tales’”Nicola Behrman, David Kersnar, Abbie Phillips, Heidi Stillman, and Andy White based The Last Act of Lilka Kadison on a story recounted for the NPR series “One People, Many Stories.” It…

COME BACK TO A NOISE WITHIN The current production of Come Back, Little Sheba at Pasadena’s A Noise Within proves that William Inge’s breakout 1950 Broadway hit is still relevant today. The Tony Award-winning play (for actors Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer), later made into an Oscar-winning film, follows a middle-aged couple, Lola and Doc,…

IS THERE A SHOW DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? There is a method of political activism called a “zap.” Basically, zaps are militant but non-violent face-to-face confrontations with persons in positions of authority, but when used in tandem with a media alert, they can be powerful weapons when furthering a cause. Since gay activists in the…

MINIMALIST JUKEBOX OFFERS MAXIMUM JOY Minimalism. The very notion of this form of music can send some musical lovers running for the hills, while others see it the most exciting and wholly refreshing form of music in the world today. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is presenting an opportunity for you to decide for yourself. Through…

I’LL TAKE ASTAIRE’S WAY TO PARADISE The great ballet choreographer George Balanchine compared Fred Astaire to Bach, and Baryshnikov claimed Astaire gave him in inferiority complex. On April 5 and 6, the second program of the DANCE+DESIGN series will examine the beloved Fred Astaire and his extraordinary talent as a dancer and choreographer. This installment…

NEWS FLASH! CIVIL WARS HITS LOS ANGELES! As part of LA Phil’s Minimalist Jukebox Festival, Jacaranda and the Los Angeles Philharmonic will be presenting two sections of Robert Wilson’s vast, ambitious, and unfinished opera, the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down. On April 5 in Santa Monica, the Minneapolis Section’”a…

HAVING A “‘S WONDERFUL” TIME It should come as no surprise that the song catalog of George and Ira Gershwin’”according to Los Angeles Times’”generates about $8 million a year.  The treasure-trove of tunes created by the Gershwin brothers between the early 1920s and 1937, when George died, include “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” “Shall We…

SHAKESPEARE WISHES HE WERE THIS FUNNY Mistaken identities, cross-dressing, puns, fart jokes and dick jokes and pussy jokes.   You know where you can find these?   Movies starring Saturday Night Live alumni.   That’s about how funny they are: they’re not.   And they’re about as funny as Shakespeare ever got.   The only people who buy tickets to…

HELL COMES TO THE GARMENT DISTRICT Melbourne-based Four Larks is performing their ghostly junkyard opera, Orpheus, in a secret space on the outskirts of the Fashion District. Workshopped at Getty Villa Theater Lab, Four Larks narrates the mythology of Orpheus and Eurydice, navigating the Grecian hero through an ancient underworld as he attempts to resurrect…