Areas We Cover
Categories
Los Angeles
-
Recommended Concert: OPENING NIGHT WITH BERNADETTE PETERS (Pacific Symphony Pops at Segerstom Concert Hall)
Let her entertain you! Legendary Broadway, film and TV star Bernadette Peters returns to Pacific Symphony at Segerstrom Concert Hall for two nights — Friday-Saturday, Nov. 1 and 2, at 8 — to open the 2024-25 Pops Season, led by Principal Pops Conductor Enrico Lopez-Yaí±ez for the second year. Dazzling with show tunes and masterpieces…
-
Theater Review: RENT (Jaxx Theatre)
It’s amazing that this earnest, energetic, enthusiastic ensemble doesn’t spontaneously combust navigating the tiny playing area between viewers on both sides in an alley theater configuration. It’s truly a remarkable feat while executing the large crowd scenes and tight choreography. Rent has a romantic history: Jonathan Larson, its author and composer, died suddenly of an…
-
Highly Recommended Theater: HOME ALONE-LY HEARTS CLUB BAND (The Troubies at the Colony in Burbank)
I’M DREAMING OF A PSYCHEDLIC CHRISTMAS Well, Halloween is here soon, but you know what’s really scary ’” aside from Christmas items for sale at Costco before Valentine’s Day? By Thanksgiving, tickets will no doubt be sold out for The Troubies’ newest Holiday Show, Home Alone-ly Hearts Club Band, which plays December 5-22, 2024. For those…
-
Theater Review: GLORIA (Chance Theater)
GLORIA, HALLELUJAH! Unless you can see Gloria at The Chance Theater tonight or tomorrow, this may be a review of record, as it ran only two weeks after opening night, but I tell you this is what theater should be: unique, sharp, funny, adventurous. The author, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, continues to be one of contemporary theater’s…
-
Music Review: LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA (Edward Gardner, conductor; Randall Goosby, violin; The Soraya)
GOOSBY + GARDNER = GOOSEBUMPS There was a happening at The Soraya in Northridge on October 10. I call it that for three reasons: The London Philharmonic Orchestra; violinist Randall Goosby; and The Soraya itself. This strikingly beautiful concert hall on the campus of CSUN easily has the best sound of any large performance venue…
-
Dance & Music Review: INFERNO & BURLESQUE (American Contemporary Ballet at Television City)
ACB’S FANTASTIC JOURNEY INTO HELL-OWEEN In the same Television City soundstage that The Price is Right and The Carol Burnett Show was recorded, American Contemporary Ballet began its current season on Oct. 11 with a revival of its original works, Inferno and Burlesque. A third work, The Rite [of Spring], alternates with Inferno. Entering the…
-
Theater Review: KIMBERLY AKIMBO (National Tour, Pantages)
YOUR GREAT ADVENTURE AWAITS If you rearrange the letters of “progeria,” you can get “opera rig,” or “rigor ape,” or “prior age.” That last one is befitting. Progeria is an incredibly rare syndrome that causes people to age faster than normal. Though the turmoil of high school, a troubled home, and growing up in New…
-
Theater Review: ROBBIN, FROM THE HOOD (Road Theatre)
A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money. — W. C. Fields I highly recommend the World Premiere of Robbin, From the Hood, which opened last Friday at Road Theatre. It is playwright Marlow Wyatt’s creative protest to American capitalism. It’s entertaining and timely with surprising plot twists. In Wyatt’s re-imagined tale, corporate…
-
Highly Recommended Theater: SYMPHONY OF RATS (West Coast Premiere, The Wooster Group at REDCAT in Los Angeles)
In Symphony of Rats, a President of the United States has strange encounters of the phantasmagorical kind. Surrounded by his presidential aides, he plunges into a series of incidents where he meets otherworldly beings, among them a giant rat with a special message. October 18-20 & 22-23, 2024, the legendary Wooster Group transforms REDCAT in downtown L.A. into a sort of mad laboratory for their latest deliriously trippy production Symphony of Rats, directed by Elizabeth LeCompte,…
-
Theater Review: THE WISDOM OF EVE (Whitefire Theatre)
BACKSTAGE BROADWAY BACKSTABBING: ALL ABOUT THE WISDOM OF EVE Any fan of film noir most assuredly has seen the 1950 major motion picture All About Eve, which shares the story of a young Broadway hopeful who schemes her way into the backstage life of an established star just to replace her in the ingenue role…
-
Music Review: LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA (Edward Gardner, conductor; Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin at Segerstrom Concert Hall)
SHOSTAKOVICH AND TCHAIKOVSKY Under the expert direction of its principal conductor Edward Gardner, London Philharmonic Orchestra recently graced Segerstrom Concert Hall in Orange County with an enthralling performance. Known for his energetic and nuanced interpretations, Gardner masterfully drew out the orchestra’s full expressive capabilities, allowing every note to resonate deeply with the audience. This concert,…
-
Theater Review: GREEN DAY’S AMERICAN IDIOT (Deaf West and Center Theatre Group at Mark Taper Forum)
IDIOT IS AS IDIOT DOES Unlike the jukebox musicals Mamma Mia and Escape to Margaritaville, which invented stories around the songs of ABBA and Jimmy Buffett, American Idiot ’” inspired by the eponymous 2004 rock concept album by the American punk rock band Green Day ’” has a book by lyricist Billie Joe Armstrong and original director Michael Meyer with about…
-
Highly Recommended Theater: AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ (Musical Theatre West at The Carpenter Center in Long Beach)
ONE OF THE ALL-TIME FEEL-GOOD MUSICALS COMES TO THE CARPENTER CENTER Ain’t Misbehavin’ is a sizzling celebration of Fats Waller’s music ’” songs that he made famous in a career that ranged from uptown clubs to downtown Tin Pan Alley to Hollywood and concert stages around the world. This delightful revue conceived by Murray Horwitz &…
-
Theater Review: BLOOD/LOVE (Crimson Nightclub, Hollywood)
VOCALIZING VAMPIRES & THE UNDULATING UNDEAD BITE ME! SUCK ME! ROCK ME! From Dracula to Dark Shadows, vampires have always been an entertainment staple during the Halloween season. This year, it’s the all-original “popera” Blood/Love with book and music by Carey Sharpe and Dru DeCaro, and additional music by Concord Records’ artist Erin Boehme and Adam…
-
Theater Review: THE (MOSTLY) TRUE STORY OF A COMMON SCOLD (L.A. Performing Arts Productions, Promenade Playhouse)
As a female journalist myself, I was curious to learn about the life of Anne Royall, a former maid who married her employer, a landed gentleman in the early 1800s when such marriages were rarely allowed, and then rose to become America’s first female journalist at a time when women were “supposed” to stay home…
-
Theater Review: TESLA: A RADIO PLAY FOR THE STAGE (Tour at Cal Tech and Big Bear Lake Performing Arts Center)
AN ELECTRIFYING TESLA Much has been written about Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating current, radio and so much more, ever since his name became one of the world’s most known electric automobile brand names in 2003. Robbed of the scientific accolades he deserved by others more in tune with how to make…
-
Theater Review: THE VERY BEST PEOPLE (IAMA Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre)
BLOOD AND RANCH DRESSING In December of 2020, the world was still in the grip of COVID-19’s unpredictable terror. Moderna and Pfizer had just released their vaccines, but supply was scarce and available only to a few high-risk groups. Physical distancing, masking, and sanitizing were all top of mind, as were, shall we say, “competing”…
-
Event Review: ONE NIGHT STAND WITH STORMY DANIELS (The Bourbon Room in Hollywood)
STORMY, WHO STORMED VOLDEMORT’S CASTLE “It was a dark and Stormy night:” That was my favorite of the various taglines printed on the shirts of the eclectic crowd who attended One Night Stand with Stormy Daniels at The Bourbon Room in Hollywood, Saturday, October 5th, 2024. This was a crowd brought together by an uncanny…
-
Recommended Exhibits & Performances: WAVES UPON WAVES (Fulcrum Festival 2024 in L.A. | Citywide, Oct 16-20, 2024)
Fulcrum Festival offers opportunities for discovering the fascinations, curiosities, and tensions ignited by the integrations of art and science. For over 20 years, Fulcrum Festival (formerly the AxS Festival) has presented a regional celebration across Greater Los Angeles that foregrounds the union of art and science as a powerful engine of contemporary culture. This year’s…
-
Theater Review: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (South Coast Rep)
FEED ME MORE OF THIS DELICIOUS PRODUCTION Stroll down Skid Row to visit Mushnik’s Flower Shop and immerse yourself in Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s musical masterpiece Little Shop of Horrors at South Coast Repertory. This musical has it all. A love story, a dream for the future, a chance of a lifetime, and a Faustian…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
