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Los Angeles
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Dance Review: MOZART DANCES (Mark Morris Dance Group at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica)
MO’ MOZART DANCES, PLEASE What a tough day I had last Thursday. No details necessary, but I was so spent it was with worry when I attended Mark Morris’s Mozart Dances at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica that I thought sleep and ennui would be my only partners. Set to three exquisite Mozart piano…
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Theater Review: UNCLE VANYA (Pasadena Playhouse)
SAY “UNCLE!” Far be it from me to criticize Anton Chekhov. The long-deceased Russian playwright and short story writer is regarded as one of “The Greats” in all of literature; who am I to throw a dart at that great sky? It’s because of his prestige that I was actually looking forward to seeing a…
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Theater Review: INTERSTATE (East West Players)
INTERPLAY In the age of A Strange Loop, the hit Broadway musical about a “Big Black Queer” it seems the time is ripe for more musicals about the gay experience, but one with transgender characters as leads? Lesbian singer-songwriter Melissa Li and transgender spoken-word artist Kit Yan formed a band named Good Asian Drivers, which…
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Music Review: Ted Hearne’s PLACE (Power to the People! Festival with the LA PHIL at Disney Hall)
FINDING A PLACE AT DISNEY HALL Reviewing the contemporary theatrical oratorio Place a few years ago, Opera News Magazine suggested that Ted Hearne’s many–genred musical rumination on urban gentrification and its baleful underpinnings “seemed to arrive both at the right cultural moment and entirely too late.” As if to affirm this impression, the LA Philharmonic’s…
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Theater Review: KING JAMES (Mark Taper Forum)
BASKETBALL BROMANCE Center Theatre Group’s winning new dramady King James — a co-production with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Company — is a must see for more than just rabid sports fans. Nobody writes a tale of two straight boys in a bromance better than Rajiv Joseph (Guards at the Taj). And his two-hander, which opened last night…
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Theater Review: STOMP (National Tour)
STILL BANGING FOR THE BUCKS The incredibly basic concept behind Stomp, a phenom now in its third decade, remains: “Make a rhythm out of anything we can get our hands on that makes a sound.” (Luke Cresswell, co-founder/director). The result: four global productions, including permanent venues in New York and London’”and the rousing tour now playing…
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Los Angeles Theatre: PERRA DE NADIE [NOBODY’S BITCH] (LATC)
Latino Theater Company presents Spanish dancer, choreographer and performance artist Marta Carrasco in Perra de Nadie (“Nobody’s Bitch”). In the deepest part of everyone, where the underworld of vulnerability, madness, tenderness and fragility exist, lives Lili and her night watchmen, and her endearing vastness blooms. Marta Carrasco’s highly original creations, influenced by artists such as Mary Wigman, Martha Graham and…
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Theater Review: GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica)
GUESS WHAT PLAY WORKS Based on the screenplay of the same name, writer Todd Kreidler has updated for the stage Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Stanley Kramer’s smash-hit 1967 movie by William Rose, writer of the classic Ealing black comedy The Ladykillers (1955) and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1966). A most satisfactory…
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Theater Review: BELOVED (Road Theatre in NoHo)
BELOVED THEATER At first, we think that Beloved is about the tragic state of the internet, that a high school boy at the prestigious St. Albans in Montreal, Canada, would never be in the mess he’s in had he not been able to find child porn online, let alone steal the password on the school’s…
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Theater Review: MAN OF GOD (Geffen Playhouse)
GODDAMNED MEN Four Korean teen missionaries from Los Angeles — Kyung-Hwa (Ji-Young Yoo), Samantha (Shirley Chen), Jen (Emma Galbraith), and Mimi (Erin Rae Li) — have arrived in Bangkok with their pastor to save the souls of red light district tourists … you know, the Germans who come to piddle with little boys dressed as…
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Review: COME FROM AWAY (North American Tour)
A NEWFOUND(LAND) WAY OF LOOKING AT MUSICAL THEATER This intimate ensemble piece seems to get better and better, yet it’s practically the same show I saw when it first opened at La Jolla Playhouse and then on Broadway (where it remains a hit). The National Tour, which is merely breezing through L.A. for two weeks…
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Dance: SEVEN NEW FREE CLASSES (The Movement in Los Angeles)
THE MOVEMENT INTRODUCES SEVEN NEW FREE CLASSES IN LOS ANGELES INCLUDING HIP HOP, ZUMBA AND CONTEMPORARY The Movement, a nonprofit organization committed to making dance free and accessible to all, is pleased to announce their latest expansion, bringing seven new FREE dance classes to Los Angeles, CA. The Movement launched in 2021 in Miami by tech startup…
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Music Review: DUDAMEL CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN’S NINTH (Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall))
LA PHIL’S PRIDE WITH “JOY” Wow, I do believe tonight’s house at Disney Hall was the most packed for a classical concert that I’ve seen since before that stupid COVID rat showed up. And it’s a sure bet that patrons were here for the massive showing of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Why, with the greatest chorus…
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Theater Review: HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (Musical Theatre Guild)
MUSICAL THEATRE GUILD KNOWS HOW TO SUCCEED Reams can and have been written about the glories of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock & Willie Gilbert, the 1961 musical satire that landed virtually unanimous raves would go on to run…
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Theater Review: OUR TOWN (South Coast Rep)
OUR CELEBRATION This year marks the 125th anniversary of Thornton Wilder’s birth. As part of the Wilder125 celebration, about 150 productions of the esteemed writer’s plays are being staged worldwide, including a revival of The Skin of Our Teeth on Broadway. This week, I had the privilege of seeing what’s arguably Wilder’s most famous work – Our Town – at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California. It was…
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Commentary and Los Angeles Theater Review: TAMBO & BONES (Kirk Douglas Theatre)
N-WORD, PLEASE! In six words, Samuel Beckett devours the human experience: “Birth was the death of him.” This line permeates not just A Piece of Monologue (1979), but all of the master’s works. In a world teeming with greed, terrorism, and unrest, Beckett knew that tragedy is common to all of us. We are born….
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Theater Review: TIGER STYLE! (South Coast Rep)
THIS TIGER IS KING Tiger Style! at South Coast Rep is refreshing for many reasons. First, it’s really funny. Playwright Mike Lew crafts his script like a super-smart teenager, mixing insights about the Asian community with cutting humor, f-bombs, “dude,” “bro” and some other words one would only find on Urban Dictionary. It’s a style…
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Recommended Music Event: JOURNEY OUT OF DARKNESS (Numi Opera at The Broad Stage)
JOURNEY OUT OF DARKNESS Breathing new life into works by composers who suffered oppression Numi Opera Theatre is back live after the Covid shutdown and will present Journey Out of Darkness, on Sunday May 29, 2022, at 7:00pm at the Broad Stage 1310 11th Street in Santa Monica. The concert features a collection of works by…
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Theater Review: KING LEAR (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
DID EVERYONE AT THE WALLIS NOT REALIZE THAT THE PLAY’S THE THING? One of the greatest travesties in L.A. theater history arrived at The Wallis last weekend, and I still have the emotional scars to prove it. A showcase for Joe Morton, who starred as Dick Gregory in The Wallis’s production of Turn Me Loose,…
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Theater Review: METAMORPHOSES (A Noise Within)
I NEVER MET A METAMORPHOSES I DIDN’T LIKE, BUT THIS ONE IS GREAT Critics often speak of “universal themes” — these are topics to which people in any place and at any time can relate. One of the main reasons that Greek literature, Aesop’s Fables, Shakespeare, and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, to name a few, retain…
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