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Los Angeles
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Theater Review: WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles)
A BIG BAD-ASS WOOLF When Covid hit, I curled up one night, script in hand, poring over Edward Albee’s 60-year-old play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Perhaps the daily death toll had me in need of comfort, and I knew good ol’ George and Martha could hold me in a doting embrace. If you’re familiar with…
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Tour Preview: DAVID SEDARIS (Royce Hall at UCLA)
A CARNIVAL OF SEDARIS AT UCLA For those unfamiliar with David Sedaris’s work, he is a prolific writer, mostly of satire and non-fiction. Many of his stories revolve around his personal life and family, though — as with any great writer, and by his own admission — he does tend to embellish. His latest book,…
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Theater Review: HADESTOWN (North American Tour)
PRAISE THE GODS! As soon as the plunger-muted trombone began to wail, and ache, and wail again; as trickled sweat watered ivories being tickled on an upright piano; as the hmmm’s of the chorus overlayed the chugga-chug sounds in this gin-soaked speakeasy where the train to hell was roarin’, I knew Hadestown was touched by…
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Music Review: JEFF GOLDBLUM & THE MILDRED SCHNITZER ORCHESTRA (Disney Hall)
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDBLUM CHARM Well, it’s my first time with Jeff Goldblum and his Mildred Schnitzer Orchestra, which played last night at Disney Hall. Here’s how it goes: Actor extraordinaire Goldblum plays kind of a compère, loosely introducing his friends in the house, or playing trivia between numbers. His incredible band evokes a…
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Theater Review: TOOTSIE (North American Tour)
SURRENDER (TO) DOROTHY Forty years ago, Dustin Hoffman lit up the silver screen as struggling actor Michael Dorsey in the gender-swapping, smash-hit comedy, Tootsie. Really, who can forget the VHS box art featuring Hoffman’s Michael Dorsey-turned “Dorothy Michaels” donning that iconic red sequin dress in front of an American flag? Obviously, a lot has changed…
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Theater Review: THE SOUND OF MUSIC (La Mirada Theatre)
YOUR HEART WILL BE BLESSED Maria, an Austrian novice nun in the late 1930s, has difficulty in dealing with the rigid lifestyle of her monastery in Salzburg. Her loving Mother Abbess sends her off to be a nanny to seven children of widower and celebrated navy captain Georg von Trapp, a tough military man. Through…
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Opera / Theater Review: FIDELIO (LA Phil, Deaf West Theatre, and LA Master Chorale)
FAIR FIDELIO Fidelio is the sole opera written by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Inspired by an apocryphal story from the French revolution, it concerns Leonore, whose husband Florestan has been secretly imprisoned by an evil politician named Don Pizzarro. In order to rescue him, Leonore dresses up in male garb and gets a job in the…
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Music Review: PEKKA KUUSISTO + ELLEN REID (LA Phil Green Umbrella Series at Disney Hall)
TYMPANIST JOSEPH PEREIRA SURE KNOWS HIS KRAFT Sometimes concerts in the LA Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella new music series are programmed around a singular thematic element. Sometimes they offer a range of works representing a particular school or mode of composition. Some showcase distinctive performance styles. If last Tuesday night’s long Green Umbrella program, curated by…
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First Look: WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Geffen)
ALBEE DAMNED Previews begin tonight at The Geffen Playhouse for Edward Albee’s most famous and most vicious masterpiece Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? George and Martha, the American theater’s most notoriously dysfunctional couple, have invited the young and naïve Nick and Honey over for drinks. What begins as harmless patter escalates to outright marital warfare, with the…
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Music Review: FOCUS ON ANDRIESSEN (LA Phil)
A TRIUMPHANT ANDRIESSEN Dutch-born composer Louis Andriessen worked in numerous styles of musical modernism over the course of a prolific career that began in the 1950s and continued until shortly before his death last summer. In recent years the Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned and premiered several Andriessen pieces and even issued recordings conducted by orchestra…
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Theater Review: BLUES FOR AN ALABAMA SKY (Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles)
DOWN IN HARLEM Following the quirky, audacious Slave Play (see review) — the first show of Center Theatre Group’s season at The Taper — the company has done a complete 180 with their production of Pearl Cleage’s 1995 Blues for an Alabama Sky, which opened last night. While Slave Play attempted to turn the conversation…
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Film Screening: SLEEPING BEAUTY (El Capitan and The Academy Museum in Hollywood)
EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL ON THE BIG SCREEN Disney animators Andreas Deja and Floyd Norman will participate in a live Q&A at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood before their Sleeping Beauty screening on April 15, 2022 at 7pm; Ted Thomas, the son of legendary Disney animator Frank Thomas will moderate the session. The film’s original prop…
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Dance Review: LAZARUS & REVELATIONS (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at The Chandler)
AILEY IS ALWAYS A REVELATION(S) Bringing with them three complete programs of dazzling dance, this 2022 edition showcases Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s (AAADT) vital verve, reminding audiences why they retain a love affair with this American institution. An unprecedented two-week, three-program showcase plays through April 10, 2022. Never, and I mean never, in all the…
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Theater Review: A PUBLIC READING OF AN UNPRODUCED SCREENPLAY ABOUT THE DEATH OF WALT DISNEY (Odyssey)
M-I-C-K-E-Y (WHY-OH-WHY-OH-WHY?!) When I saw Lucas Hnath’s name attached to A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney – a boldly-titled play now getting its West Coast Premiere at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles – I jumped at the chance to review it. The playwright’s been on my radar…
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Music Recommendation: MEHTA CONDUCTS BRUCKNER & BERG (LA Phil; April 7-10, 2022)
AN EXPERIENCE NOT TO BE MISSED On a website which attempts to list every Anton Bruckner orchestral recording offered to the public (www.abruckner.com), the discography collector and annotator John F. Berky states that the Austrian composer “expanded the concept of the symphonic form in ways that have never been witnessed before or since. When listening…
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Theater Review: CAN’T PAY? DON’T PAY! (The Actors’ Gang)
A PLAY THAT’S A RIOT WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO RIOT While loading items into my trunk after shopping at a Fortune 500 store recently, I realized that an item had gone unchecked by the cashier. My instinct, naturally, was to make a 360 and go back into the store. Then I halted. This item…
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Theater Review: THE GIN GAME (Starring JoBeth Williams and Joe Spano at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura)
DEADWOOD OR GIN? Fine actors of stage, television, and film, JoBeth Williams and Joe Spano unite their decades of work and talent to kick off a national tour of The Gin Game at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura. Yet even with such names filling the stage in this intimate two-hander, D. L. Coburn’s tragicomedy…
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Film Screenings: KINUYO TANAKA; PEDRO ALMODÒVAR; HAYAO MIYAZAKI & MORE (Spring, 2022, The Academy Museum)
WHAT A LINE-UP! In addition to The Academy Museum’s ongoing series ’” Available Space, Branch Selects, Family Matinees, and Oscar ® Sundays ’” you will find some awesome screenings this spring, including a series on French filmmaker Chris Marker; films by directors Pedro Almodóvar and Spike Lee; six films by Kinuyo Tanaka; and encore presentations of movies by Hayao Miyazaki. Films are shown in 35mm,…
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Dance Tour: LUXERíŽA (Barcelona Flamenco Ballet)
Suspense, intrigue, sex, scandal, love: Luxurí®a (“Lust”), the latest flamenco dance-theater sensation from Spain’s internationally renowned Barcelona Flamenco Ballet. As part of a global tour, one performance only is set for The Alex Theatre in Los Angeles (Glendale) on Saturday, April 16 at 8pm. David Gutiérrez — photo by unniks.com Award-winning Barcelona Flamenco Ballet artistic directors, choreographers and ballarines principals (principal dancers) David Gutiérrez and Paula…
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Music Review: HILARY HAHN and PAAVO Jí„RVI (LA Phil) RANDALL GOOSBY and RODERICK COX (LACO)
Randall Goosby with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Roderick Cox conducting Now, why isn’t Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto played more often? It’s ridiculously beautiful in the first two movements, and fiery in the last. In fact, this may be the best solo work with orchestra of the three that Barber wrote. And Hilary Hahn performing…
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