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Film Review: OUR SON (directed by Bill Oliver)
EQUAL OF THE SON In the new film Our Son, Gabriel (Billy Porter) and Nicky (Luke Evans) have been together for thirteen years. Married once gay marriage was legalized in the U.S., they also share an eight-year old son born via surrogate. Nicky is the biological father and the egg donor is his good friend…
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Dance Preview: GISELLE (The United Ukrainian Ballet at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa)
DANCING THROUGH WAR Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center, which has presented world premieres by Alexei Ratmansky for more than a decade — including American Ballet Theatre’s Of Love and Rage (2022), Whipped Cream (2017), The Sleeping Beauty (2015), and Firebird (2012) — once again proves itself as one of the country’s most exciting dance centers by presenting Ratmansky’s all-new full-length production of Giselle, appearing June…
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Theater Review: NOW OR LATER (Matrix Theatre)
BETTER MAKE THAT LATER Christopher Shinn clearly understands the American consciousness. In Now or Later, a 2008 one-act which opened at the Royal Court Theatre with a fresh-faced Eddie Redmayne, he offers an engaging discussion in lieu of a play. There’s no dramatic action — characters stand around and present their point-of-view. Shinn’s play is…
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Theater Review: A TRANSPARENT MUSICAL (World Premiere at Mark Taper Forum)
TRANSPARENT COULD ONE DAY TRANSITION FROM COCOON TO BUTTERFLY A Transparent Musical is based on the Amazon Prime TV series Transparent and written by the TV show’s creators – Joey Soloway and Faith Soloway. Yet while it features many of the same characters and themes as the TV show, this is a brand-new standalone story. Under Tina Landau‘s overwhelmed…
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Theater Review: THE MOUNTAINTOP (Geffen)
BECAUSE IT’S THERE What if Dr. Martin Luther King was a down-to-earth, simple, vulnerable human being like the rest of us? What if human existence could be viewed from another dimension, one that allowed the viewer to weigh the pluses and minuses of the greater good versus personal choice, or the path of one human…
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Dance Review: MEMORYHOUSE (Melissa Barak in collaboration with Los Angeles Ballet at The Broad Stage)
RESTRAINT Oh, restraint, that most pesky of virtues. We all begin our journeys with dance in the same way: with wild abandon, the freedom of children running in tutus or imitating bars of pop songs, or holding hands with our elders in a circle, stepping in a grapevine left or right. We know not restraint,…
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Dance Review: WOKE & LOVE ROCKS (Complexions Contemporary Ballet at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
CORTISOL ROCKSTARS I am an irreverent narrator when it comes to reviewing dance, because I delight in the mischief of disrespecting the convention of separating creation from creator. A work most interests me as either a universe in itself (for the transcendent), or, for everything else, as an expression of a human psyche – its…
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Theater Review: THE BOX (Zephyr Theater / Hollywood Fringe Festival)
A PLAY OUT OF THE BOX NO, INSIDE THE BOX NO, OUTSIDE… One of the finest offerings at this year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival is writer/director Patrick Hamilton‘s The Box which runs through June 18 at The Zephyr Theater. The title has a triple-meaning: It refers to a piece of furniture that may or may not…
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Dance Review: CONCERTO BAROCCO: A BALANCHINE BALLET (American Contemporary Ballet)
BALLET IS WOMAN What is the true nature of beauty? Do objects we find beautiful contain beauty, or, as Plato theorized, do they merely reflect its true heavenly form? These are the questions posed by American Contemporary Ballet’s evening, Concerto Barocco: A Balanchine Ballet. And when I say these are the questions posed, I am…
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Recommended Theater: MONKEYS (905 Cole Theatre; 2023 Hollywood Fringe Festival)
The Hollywood Fringe Festival is presenting the world premiere of Monkeys, a 2023 Hollywood Fringe Scholarship winner, written and directed by Bernard Badion. Monkeys is a workplace comedy set in one of the worst workplaces to ever exist, following a group of Filipino farm laborer bunkmates who go on strike to protest their abysmally low…
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Theater Review: TAKE ME AS I AM: A JONI MITCHELL TRIBUTE (Rainee Blake at Three Clubs in Hollywood)
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO YOU TO SEE RAINEE BLAKE AS JONI MITCHELL LIVE During the 2018 Music Center concert, Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration Live, Peter Gabriel sent a prescient message to the artists interpreting Joni Mitchell’s complex lyrics and melodies: “I pity the people who have to sing them tonight.” Instead of showing…
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Dance Review: DEEP RIVER (Alonzo King LINES Ballet)
THIN LOVE We go to the ballet for bodies. Don’t we? If the dance audience at The Wallis in Beverly Hills, where I saw Alonzo King LINES Ballet’s Deep River yesterday (there is one more performance tonight, June 10), were presented with a version of the AMC Theater’s Nicole Kidman promotional trailer, what would she…
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Highly Recommended Cabaret: MOONLIGHTING (Norm Lewis at Catalina Bar & Grill)
NEXT TO NORM Here’s a way to spend a Monday evening: Broadway, television, and film actor Norm Lewis is taking his night off from starring in the national tour of A Soldier’s Play at the Ahmanson Theater (which is a must-see) and will be crooning for you this Monday, June 12 at 8:30 (doors open…
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Highly Recommended Cabaret: JESSIE MUELLER and SETH RUDETSKY (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
MUELLER IS COOLER IN UP-CLOSE CABARET The Wallis in Beverly Hills lays claim to being the place to see and be seen on Friday June 16 at The Wallis in Beverly Hills, as one of Broadway’s brightest stars, Jessie Mueller, headlines a one-night-only special concert event. This superstar-sized evening of incredible music and intimate, hilarious, behind-the-scenes…
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Opera Review: STRANGER LOVE (LA Phil Commission at Walt Disney Concert Hall)
STRANGER LOVE, OR MINIMALIST MELATONIN Composer Dylan Mattingly calls his six-hour Stranger Love an opera in three acts, but it’s more like a set of three distinct pieces: an opera (Act I, 230 minutes), a ballet (Act II, 80 minutes), and an orchestral piece (Act III, 25 minutes). It premiered Saturday May 20, 2023, at…
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Theater Review: A SOLDIER’S PLAY (National Tour)
THIS WAR WITHIN A WAR IS COMMANDING AND COMPELLING The North American tour of A Soldier’s Play — Roundabout’s 2020 Tony Award-winning Best Revival of a Play — opened last Wednesday at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theater and plays through June 25, the end of this tour. Don’t miss it. Broadway star Norm Lewis leads the cast…
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Theater Review: BLUE (Rogue Machine at the Matrix)
A NEOPHYTE BROWNSHIRT UNDER A BLUE WALL OF DEFENCE Written by June Carryl and directed by Michael Matthews, Blue is a 60-minute nailbiter which has been extended to July 3. Rogue Machine Theatre Company has inaugurated The Henry Murray Stage upstairs at the Matrix on Melrose. This erstwhile rehearsal room has been transformed in this production…
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Highly Recommended Cabaret: GREATEST SONGS. GREATEST VOICES. (Aaron Lazar at Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood)
Big Broadway, A Little Pop, A Lot of Passion. Music Direction: John Boswell Guests: Paul Freeman and Darrell Morris Jr Los Angeles audiences were treated to Aaron Lazar in both Dear Evan Hansen and The Secret Garden at The Ahmanson, and now this Broadway Heartthrob, singer, and actor from Cherry Hill, NJ, is coming back…
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Theater Review: EVOLUTION OF A SONERO (Los Angeles Theatre Center)
THE SONERO, THE BETTER Here’s what tipped me off that we were about to see something special: Pianist Carlos Ordiano enters with four band members (“The Razor Blades”) at Los Angeles Theatre Center, and plays a gorgeous — and I mean GORGEOUS — piano solo, molto melodic and introspective. Then the quintet broke into a…
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Theater Review: THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE (Pacific Opera Project at Forest Lawn, Glendale)
PIFFLING PIRATES OF PENZANCE POPS WITH POP The plot of The Pirates of Penzance, a satire so cutting in Victorian days, will likely come off as inane to today’s spectators. Still, Arthur Sullivan’s music is superb and the lyrics delicious, though it takes a sharp ear to follow W.S. Gilbert’s rapid-fire libretto. The score almost…
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