Areas We Cover
Categories
Los Angeles
-
Theater Review: PIPELINE (Art of Acting Studio)
A PIPELINE TO THE TROUBLED SOUL One of our era’s greatest dramatists, Dominique Morisseau (Skeleton Crew, Ain’t Too Proud) sheds light on the complicated realities of urban African-American communities. Her 2017 Pipeline, which opened last night at The Art of Acting Studio, concerns Nya Joseph (beautifully underplayed by Fadhia Carmelle Marcelin), a divorced mom and teacher…
-
Theater Review: LA HAVANA MADRID (South Coast Rep at Mission San Juan Capistrano)
HOT CHA-CHA-CHA As I stepped into the beautiful grounds of the San Juan Capistrano mission for La Havana Madrid, I was filled with anticipation and curiosity about the promised time travel through the vibrant and tumultuous history of Chicago’s Latino community. Eduardo Enrikez and Marlene Martinez Tristan Turner La Havana Madrid is an enchanting and…
-
Dance Review: ESTANCIA WITH DUDAMEL (LA Phil and Grupo Corpo at The Hollywood Bowl)
PAMPAS PASTORAL A glimpse of “disappearing Argentine Gaucho culture” at the Bowl The Ballet Estancia is one of two musical suites by Spanish composer Alberto Ginastera. Originally intended for a 1942 Latin America tour, the ballet is a love story between an Argentinian city boy and a rancher’s daughter, demarcated by time of day over…
-
Theater Review: CRABS IN A BUCKET (World Premiere by Echo Theatre Company at Atwater Theater)
CRAB’S LAST TAPE Ah, Theatre of the Absurd. a place where characters can grapple with existentialism, that which is the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will. Well, not always people. In the case of Crabs in a Bucket, it’s, well, crabs….
-
Music and Concert Review: QUINCY JONES’ 90TH BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE: A MUSICAL CELEBRATION (Hollywood Bowl)
JONESING FOR JONES For two nights at the Hollywood Bowl, quite an all-star cast paid tribute to arranger-composer-producer Quincy Jones. His 90th birthday actually took place last March 14 but it was a good excuse to celebrate “the Dude’s” musical legacy. Angélique Kidjo Samara Joy, Patti Austin, Jacob Collier Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born in…
-
Recommended Theater: GROUP THERAPY (Theatre 68)
THEATER AS THERAPY The waiting room at a psychiatrist’s office is an emotional airlock between the chaos of the outside world and the sanctuary of the therapy office. It’s public yet private, a shared place of solitude. It’s a space to transition and collect your breath as well as your thoughts and feelings while entering…
-
Theater Review: CINDERELLA (5-Star Theatricals)
DELIGHTFUL PRODUCTION; SLIPPER-Y NEW SCRIPT Arriving for last Saturday’s matinee performance and observing the front of house community support made for a welcoming atmosphere. It was delightful to see all the little girls in their sparkly gowns and tiaras, (crowns and wands were also available for purchase should you have forgotten yours at home). I…
-
Theater Review: STEW (Pasadena Playhouse)
STEWPENDOUS Pulitzer-Prize finalist Stew by Zora Howard, and directed by Tyler Thomas, opened last Sunday at the Pasadena Playhouse. This play invites audiences into the intimate and transformative space of a kitchen, where Mama and her daughters prepare a special stew while confronting their past and present. With a seamless narrative, Howard delves into the complexities…
-
Theater Review: THE TEMPEST (Antaeus Theatre Co.)
THE TEMPEST AS RADIO PLAY One can only wonder why productions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest have been sprouting up like magical vines in the jungle. Is it because the tale is about revenge as much as it is about redemption? What I can say is this: When the sorcerer Prospero discards his magic staff and…
-
Theater Review: THE ANTS (Geffen Playhouse)
ANTSY The subject of “haves” and “have-nots” in the theater is nothing new, having been explored from The Greeks to Molière. More recent hallmarks are the Industrial Age’s The Hairy Ape by O’Neill; Odets’ Depression era Awake and Sing!; and John Osbourne’s “Angry Young Man” hurled in the world’s consciousness in Look Back in Anger….
-
Concert Reviews: DUDAMEL CONDUCTS RAVEL AND FALLA (Gustavo Dudamel, LA Phil, Hollywood Bowl)
A HELLUVA FALLA There is something different – more beautiful – about the Hollywood Bowl this year. Immediately following the COVID shutdown, the audiences were becoming fairly unruly, including classical concerts. Even at a Joshua Bell concert last year, the crowd was talking, consuming loudly, and applauding throughout Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto whenever Bell would hit…
-
Theater Review: THE WIZARD OF OZ (Musical Theatre West in Long Beach)
OOHS AND OZ Just in time, a new, colorful and fun version of everyone’s childhood favorite movie is here in Long Beach. Musical Theatre West’s Royal Shakespeare version of The Wizard of Oz — a faithful recreation of the 1939 movie — which opened last Saturday at the Carpenter Center, isn’t just for kids. Over the…
-
Theater Review: LAST SUMMER AT BLUEFISH COVE (Fountain Theatre in Hollywood)
LAST SUMMER THIS SUMMER Written in 1976 by the late Jane Chambers, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove — which opened in 1980, NYC — is a milestone in lesbian theatre history. Chambers’ name is legend as a daring playwright who put lesbian writing on stage before it was widely accepted to have out lesbians in…
-
Theater Review: INTO THE WOODS (National Tour)
WISHES ARE CHILDEN In the wake of news that Center Theatre Group, home of three major L.A. theaters, is “pausing” productions at their mid-size Mark Taper Forum and offering “select programming” at their smaller Kirk Douglas Theatre for the 2023/24 season, all eyes are on its largest and most commercially viable venue, the Ahmanson Theatre,…
-
Dance Review and Commentary: GISELLE (United Ukrainian Ballet, West Coast Premiere)
PETIPA AND POLITICS In college I took one of those life-changing, niche courses that liberal arts schools like to put on their brochures, called Dancing the State: Dance and the Political. In it, we watched Ballet Folklórico de México and dissected how its aesthetics were used in the construction of the Mexican statehood project. We…
-
Highly Recommended Concert Tour: PATTI LUPONE: DON’T MONKEY WITH BROADWAY (Segerstrom)
START POURING THAT MARTINI Patti LuPone has hit the road with her new tour Don’t Monkey with Broadway, which played Provincetown last month before heading to California. If you’re in the L.A./Orange County area, that means in just under two weeks, July 15, 2023 at 8pm, the three-time Tony Award winner La LuPone is coming…
-
Opera Concert Review: AN EVENING WITH RENÉE FLEMING (Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
SUBLIME STORYTELLING IN SONG At the start of this event a voice reminded us to silence our cell phones and to refrain from talking or singing along. Lucky for the crowd I don’t know the lyrics to Penelope, the vocal-theatrical work by composer André Previn and playwright Tom Stoppard. Few would as this is the…
-
Music Review: SAMUEL MARIÑO (Camerata Pacifica)
SAMUEL MARIÑO MAKES U.S. DEBUT WITH CAMERATA PACIFICA As many more SoCal music lovers are discovering, Camerata Pacifica is a chamber music ensemble based in Santa Barbara that performs a monthly series of concerts in Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Marino (at the Huntington), and DTLA’s Zipper Hall (at Colburn School). Founded by Adrian Spence in…
-
Concert Review: UNAMERICANS: TALENTED AND TARGETED (MUSE/IQUE at Huntington and Skirball)
TESTIFY This past weekend, the patrons at MUSE/IQUE were told some hard truths about what America was like during the mid-20th century as the powers that be feared far-left movements and those who embraced, or were suspected to embrace, ideologies like communism and socialism. The concert, UNAMERICANS: Talented and Targeted, chronicles the Hollywood Red Scare…
-
Concert Review: DIVAS THROUGH THE DECADES (Pasadena POPS with Michael Feinstein)
DIVAS IN FULL BLOOM Guests took advantage of the beautiful backdrop of the LA Arboretum & Botanic Garden with picnics and wine last Saturday, June 24, when Pasadena POPS presented Divas Through the Decades, conducted by Michael Feinstein, as their second show in their Summer Concert Series Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven” set the…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
