Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA BRIDGES JAZZ, FOLK AND ORCHESTRAL MUSIC It’s only the first week of December and, if you’re anything like me, you may find yourself already burning out on the plethora of holiday-themed entertainment. Well, here is your chance to sneak out of that holiday party or avoid yet another staging of A…

A JOLLY OSMOND HOLIDAY To fans and detractors alike, Donny and Marie represent a cultural and show business ethos so strong, and so specific, that their actual talents sometimes get lost in the shuffle. Fifty years of Osmond entertainment creates a mythology of nostalgia, squared’”in both senses of the word’”their family friendly performance style isn’t…

SECOND CITY OFFERS A LUMP OF COAL * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Scene 1’”INTERIOR OF SPOOGE AND FARLEY’S CRITIC HOUSE (EVERWHEEZER SPOOGE, an irascible, irritated editor-in-chief and theater critic, is hunched over his laptop in his impoverished surroundings, trying to finish a review of Twist…

PALE-Y BY COMPARISON On paper, it must have seemed like such a great idea: create a new holiday show as an alternative to the onslaught of Christmas Carols and Nutcrackers, have Pulitzer-winning Donald Margulies adapt an ecumenical holiday story by literary darling, Grace Paley, add a touch of meta-nostalgia by including in the press release…

LAMC SHINES IN A HISTORICALLY INFORMED PERFORMANCE OF MONTEVERDI’S VESPERS OF 1610 After Los Angeles Master Chorale’s (LAMC) astoundingly successful performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Blessed Virgin (commonly known as the Vespers of 1610, having been published in that year), I felt the same rejuvenation and relaxation that would follow a luxuriant all-day…

BENJAMIN WALLFISCH DEBUTS HIS FIRST VIOLIN CONCERTO WITH LACO Benjamin Wallfisch, a burgeoning conductor and composer known primarily for his work on film and television scores, made his Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO)  debut conducting the world premiere of his own Violin Concerto. Guest conductor Wallfisch towered over the podium at UCLA’s Royce Hall, and led…

SLIPPED DISC NEEDS A STRONGER SPINE The mission of Green Card Theatre is to expose Los Angeles audiences to plays and playwrights from around the world. Their inaugural production entitled Slipped Disc: A Study of the Upright Walk by renowned German scribe Ingrid Lausund with translation by Henning Bochert is a mixed bag of workplace…

GREAT F. SCOTT! REDCAT’S GOT GATZ A phenomenon is arriving at the Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theatre (REDCAT) this week in Los Angeles. I promise that once its 9-performance run is over on December 9, the buzz about Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz will have seismically traveled to your doorstep, and you will kick…

CHRISTMAS ISLAND With the superfluity of Christmas-themed theater descending upon America like a Biblical plague, there is one play which is opening this week that has intrigued and even excited me for both personal and critical motives: Donald Margulies’ world premiere, Coney Island Christmas, commissioned by and playing at the Geffen Playhouse. This will be…

CALL ME SLACKJAWED It’s amazing what critics and audiences alike are willing to forgive when they’re in the presence of a true star. Regardless of some bouncy and hummable Irving Berlin tunes in Call Me Madam, the book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse is basically a dog. Based on Perle Mesta, the millionairess political…

LIKE ADDING MILK  TO GREEN TEA, A GREAT PLAY IS SPOILED BY ADDING MUSIC. Post World War II Era in America isn’t a red, white, and blue haven with a backyard and a Buick waiting for everyone who wants to work. While the newsreels spun wildly about the success of the Marshall Plan, the development of…

PLEASE SIR, WE WANT SOME MORE SeaGlass Theatre only does one show a year, which is remarkable, since they’re such a spirited bunch.   For instance, it’s a shame to miss Paul Stroili any time he’s onstage: I’ve seen him do outrageously good work in good productions, like the last SeaGlass offering, Steven Berkoff’s Kvetch –…

HIPSTER OPERA LA Opera should take note of Pacific Opera Project. The upstart company’s edgy productions explode popular perceptions of what opera is and how it should be performed. Pacific Opera Project takes this typically elite art form and strips it down to its barest essentials: stunning music and simple, enjoyable stories. Its latest production,…

SILK-SCREEN DEEP Even though icon Andy Warhol passed away twenty-five years ago, his legacy remains elastically strong in all its plastic nature; a man very “American” for being of the culture, by the culture, and for the culture. Many imitate the illustrious imitator hoping to acquire fame for a little longer than just fifteen minutes….

WHAT THEATRE 40 NEEDS IS A GUIDE TO AN EXCRUCIATINGLY CORRECT PRODUCTION Miss Manners, the alter-ego of writer Judith Martin, is my heroine. Her “Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior” is witty, practical, and is about a lot more than table settings’”though she certainly instructs in dining service í  la russe, which entails fourteen courses and…

BAD GIRL DONE GOOD Here’s a play with a fascinating history for you.   Early-mid 20th century Chicago playwright Phillip Yordan originally intended this play to be set in the Polish American community, but when he couldn’t find a producer, he re-wrote it for the American Negro Theater, which, in its famous 1944 production, carried the…