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Los Angeles
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Theater Review: THE BOTTOMING PROCESS (IAMA Theatre Company and the Los Angeles LGBT Center)
PILAPIL POPS HIS CHERRY IN HIS PLAYWRITING PREMIERE “Why won’t you let me top you? Is it because I am Asian?!” This ear-catching line is decried robustly by the very passionate protagonist Milo (the expressive George Salazar), a Filipino neurotic social media account manager to his lover, young adult book writer and celebrity, John (Rick…
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Theater Review: A NEW BRAIN (Celebration Theatre)
CELEBRATION THEATRE GOT IT RIGHT! (BUT THEY DIDN’T) When William Finn‘s autobiographical musical A New Brain opened at Lincoln Center in 1998, I couldn’t understand why the reviews were so higgledy-piggledy. True, I hadn’t actually seen the production, but the original cast recording had me hooked. I was champing at the bit to see why his…
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Highly Recommended Event: IMMERSIVE DISNEY ANIMATION (Lighthouse Immersive Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios in Hollywood
[Editor’s Note: The opening of the Los Angeles venue for Immersive Disney Animation has been delayed until further notice. There is no further comment at this time apart to say that guests have been notified, and tickets holders are being issued refunds. Lighthouse Immersive Studios apologizes for any inconvenience or disappointment.] IMMERSIVE DISNEY ANIMATIONPREMIERING IN…
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Music Review: SCHUMANN AND SCHEHERAZADE (LA Phil with Guest Conductor Tianyi Lu; Pianist Sunwook Kim at Disney Hall)
BIG, MAGICAL & CLIMACTIC For the first Los Angeles Philharmonic performance of British composer Anna Klein’s This Midnight Hour, guest conductor Chinese-born New Zealander Tianyi Lu in a sparkly blouse conducted precisely and clearly but with incredible elegance, oftentimes pulling notes out of the instrumentalists like a single thread; her gestures reminded me like those…
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Opera Review: OTELLO (LA Opera)
EXQUISITE MUSIC BROUGHT TO LIFE BY LA OPERA Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Otello is a timeless masterpiece that showcases the composer’s genius in capturing the dramatic intensity and emotional complexity of William Shakespeare’s tragic play. The opera, which premiered in 1887, has become one of Verdi’s most powerful and musically captivating works, blending intricate vocal lines,…
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Theater Review: AVAAZ (South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa)
A TRAILBLAZING VOICE EMERGES It is tough to capture what Avaaz is in writing. On the surface, it is a one-person play in which author Michael Shayan plays his mother, Roya, a Jewish-Iranian woman who is quite a character. The narrative journey can be traced back to Roya’s father, Shayan’s grandfather, who was jailed for…
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Theater Recommendation: GREAT BROADWAY LINE-UP (Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa)
2023–24 Broadway SeasonSUBSCRIBE
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Theater Review: ASSASSINS (Long Beach Landmark Theatre, First Congregational Church of Long Beach)
ASSASSINS SINGS! BUT THE COMPEXITY OF ITS THEMES GO MISSING ALONG WITH THE GUNS Assassins, with music and lyrics by the late Stephen Sondheim and a book by John Weidman, opened Off-Broadway at the Playwrights Horizon in the winter of 1990 and played seventy-three performances. Reviews were mixed to poor, applauding the music but questioning…
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Theater Review: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena)
A LUMINOUS NIGHT MUSIC I’m a little dizzy, bubbly’”not from any reception champagne, mind you, but from seeing my very first production of A Little Night Music. It’s left me floating. (The music, I confess, is still coursing through me; I hope they don’t ask for it back.) With its 20 cast members and 22-piece…
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Music Review: PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN (Six Trio Sonatas of J.S. Bach at Disney Hall)
JACOBS’ LADDER TO HEAVEN Courtesy of the LA Phil, the awesome organist Paul Jacobs came to Disney Hall on April 16 to delight us with a most exquisite rendition of the famous Six Trio Sonatas of J.S. Bach, BWV525-530. With a charming sense of humor, he addressed the audience with his vast knowledge, peaking our…
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Theater Review: THE REALISTIC JONESES (Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach)
NOTHING IS MORE REAL THAN NOTHING — Samuel Beckett Dramatist Will Eno doesn’t make it easy on the audience in his 2012 play The Realistic Joneses at the Laguna Playhouse. Viewers are asked to decide whether the play is primarily a comedy or a sober view of the human condition salted with bits of the…
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Theater Review: COLEMAN ’72 (South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa)
A LOVE LETTER TO AN IMMIGRANT FATHER Coleman ’72 is getting a fantastic world premiere production from South Coast Repertory. It is a melodrama about nostalgia, the immigrant experience, cross-generational trauma, and familial love. Told through the unreliable accounts of three siblings, this trip down memory lane brings up complicated family dynamics between each sibling…
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Theater Review: SCINTILLA (Road Theatre Company)
SCINTILLATING Every generation has its gap. Currently millennials are annoyed that baby boomers wrecked the planet and baby boomers are annoyed that millennials are, well, annoying. Add to the mix the annoying offspring who see their role as having to be the boss of an aging parent and you have the ingredients for the new…
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Concert Review: INVOCATIONS (Serj Tankian at The Soraya, Cal State Northridge)
A SURGE OF SERJ Serj Tankian, a world-class musician, peace activist, and frontman of Grammy-winning nu-metal band System of Down, had the mixed crowd — metal T-shirts, ripped jeans, and dress-up — buzzing with excitement. Tankian is also an alumnus of Cal State University, Northridge, the home of The Soraya. The homecoming last Saturday April…
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Recommended Theater: A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD (Morgan-Wixson Theatre Youth Production)
HOP INTO SPRING Friendship is among the hardest subjects to parse, but this musical based on Arnold Lobel’s “Frog and Toad” stories, considers friendship warts and all. Frog and Toad worry about each other over big things and small. They argue. They become angry. At times they fail to hear what the other is saying,…
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Theater Recommendation: WHITTIER BOULEVARD (Latino Theater Company at Los Angeles Theatre Center)
WITTIER AND WHITTIER “Let’s take a trip down Whittier Boulevard! ¡Arriba, Arriba!” sang Chicano surf-guitar band Thee Midniters in 1965. Inspired by a classic film named for a different famous boulevard, Latino Theater Company kicks off its 2023 Spring Season with an original, satirical comedy that takes its title from the 14-mile heart of East L.A….
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Theater Opening: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena)
After the roaring success of Pasadena Playhouse’s wonderful production of Sunday in the Park with George, now comes A Little Night Music, which officially opens May 1, 2023. This is the second mainstage production of the theater’s six-month-long celebration of the works and impact of Stephen Sondheim, the first major festival honoring his legacy since his passing in…
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Theater Review: 1776 (National Tour)
2023 COMES TO 1776 The founding of the United States of America has always been largely misunderstood, even by its own citizens. Fifty landowners got together in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and debated for two years on the efficacy of declaring a rationale for Independence; they needed sensible reasons for breaking away from the mother country, Great…
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Music Review: SIBELIUS AND BRAHMS (LA Phil: Osmo Vånskå, conductor; Inon Barnatan, piano)
STORMS, ROLLERCOASTERS, AND TURBULENCE It was a wild night with the LA Phil at Disney Hall last weekend. For Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, guest conductor Osmo Vänskä successfully immersed us in the young Brahms’s ominous soundscape. He let the music breathe naturally, holding out long rests unapologetically and often got down to the floor…
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Theater Review: COLONIALISM IS TERRIBLE, BUT PHỞ IS DELICIOUS (Chance Theater in Anaheim)
MANY PARTS ARE EDIBLE It’s fascinating to watch a new generation of Asian playwrights — Mike Lew, Qui Nguyen, Lauren Yee, Dipika Guha, Christopher Chen — writing about the quest for identity as it pertains to traditional upbringing, here or abroad, and current frustrations as modern Asians in America, often addressing race within a meta,…
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