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Los Angeles
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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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