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Los Angeles
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Theater Review: SCRAPS (Matrix Theatre Company)
GIVE US A SECOND ACT WE DESERVE; ALL WE END UP WITH IS SCRAPS The angry young man syndrome is nothing new — think Protestant reformer Martin Luther! — but it sure found a home in the theater when British playwright John Osborne wrote the seminal Look Back in Anger in 1956. Jimmy, the uptight,…
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Theater Review: WEST SIDE STORY (5-Star Theatricals in Thousand Oaks)
A RESONATING STORY It rarely happens. “The Broadway Chill” I call it. That moment when an already amazing show is given the perfect and unexpected staging which heightens emotion, inducing moist eyes and gooseflesh as only can happen in the theater. Having seen West Side Story staged many times, I can say that rare is…
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Theater Review: STRAIGHT (Loud Fridge Theatre Group in San Diego)
WALKING THE STRAIGHT LINE 1982’s groundbreaking film Making Love gave us our first cinematic look at a man torn between the woman he loves and the man who fulfills his needs. Since then, we have been many such stories in the arts about one who genuinely cares about an opposite-gender partner while feeling incomplete because…
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Theater Review: INTO THE WOODS (Hollywood Bowl)
THRIVING WOODS Somewhere between “Once Upon a Time” and “Happily Ever After” there is a very adult world of tests, losses, disappointments, and grief. Despite this, we assert our agency; or as a baker’s wife sings in Into the Woods, “If you know what you want, then you go and you find it, and you get…
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Theater Review: ANOTHER ROLL OF THE DICE (North Coast Rep in San Diego)
LESSER LOESSER Well, here’s a jukebox musical just bursting at the seams with promise. And North Coast Rep’s production of Another Roll of the Dice is definitely kinda cute, a far cry from the overblown, disappointing jukeboxers we’re forced to endure. It may get a life at regional theaters with subscription audiences who thrive on…
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Theater Preview: RAGTIME (Chance Theater)
CHANCE THEATER’S RAGTIME EXTENDS TO AUGUST 11 This critically-acclaimed intimate reimagining of the epic musical will be adding ten performances over the course of a two-week extension. Chance Theater, Orange County’s best small theater oufit, will be extending its sold-out run of Ragtime: The Musical. Based on the novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow, the…
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Theater Review: MISS SAIGON (National Tour)
IT USED TO BE A MISS; NOW, THE HEAT IS ON IN SAIGON Infinitely stronger than the original Broadway outing, this national tour of Miss Saigon overcomes a still strangely muddled plot, some awkward sophomoric lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Alain Boublil, and a few scenes and songs that could be cut with no…
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Theater Review: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX (The Old Globe in San Diego)
DESPEREAUX TIMES CALL FOR DESPEREAUX MEASURES More precious than profound, this new family musical is pure children’s theater with multilayered storytelling and plenty of songs that aid in exposition. The world premiere at The Old Globe is delightful, even if there are some flaws in the arc that keep the show from building in suspense….
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Theater Feature: DEATH OF A SALESMAN (Ruskin Theatre Group in Santa Monica)
MORE LIFE FOR DEATH Rob Morrow’s completely compelling interpretation of Willie Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman has made the show so popular that an extension has been announced. Slated to close on August 4, 2019, the exciting event will play until August 25 (dark August 12 -15). The miracle of Death of…
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Theater Review: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG (National Tour)
THE PLAY ABOUT THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG GOES WRONG The title of this play is brutally honest ’” and you can’t say you weren’t warned. In the style of Monty Python and Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off (an infinitely cleverer romp), The Play That Goes Wrong, a 2015 London hit written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and…
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Dance Preview: THE ROYAL BALLET & COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR (World Premieres in Los Angeles)
ROYAL DANCE PREMIERES Do you hear the buzz? One of the biggest events of the year with some of the biggest arts organizations in the world involved, The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion will host the dance world premiere of the 45-minute Inferno which will be a part of the full-length evening The Dante Project…
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Music Review: CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS (Sean Hayes, Katia and Marielle Labí¨que & The LA Phil)
BEAUTY AND HUMOR I wonder what French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) would have thought had he known his Carnival of the Animals (Le Carnaval des Animaux) would become one of his most well-known and perhaps best-loved works. Written in 1886, it was meant to be a divertissement for his pupils to play, so the…
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Theater Review: ROCK OF AGES (Cygnet Theatre Company in San Diego)
SOLID AS AN 80s ROCK Big hair, short shorts, and tons of Madonnawannabees. It’s hard not to love the spirit of the 80s. A huge part of that was the high-spirited music of the decade. Moving past the 70s folk ballad/disco era but not yet into the angst-y 90s, the 80s were loaded with feel…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: WE SHOULD HANG OUT SOMETIME (Santa Monica Playhouse)
A GUY WITH ONE LEG WALKS INTO A THEATER: This show-in-residence at the Santa Monica Playhouse (it plays most Friday nights) is a funny, exhilarating dive into comedian, best-selling author, Paralympic champion, and YouTube star Josh Sundquist’s sometimes bizarre, always engrossing experiences as a guy who, although he had plenty of friends and a great…
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Dance Review: MAYERLING (The Royal Ballet)
THE ROYAL BALLET TAKES ON ROYAL INTRIGUE Considering we couldn’t tell most characters from each other at last night’s opening of Royal Opera Ballet’s Mayerling, a good time was had by all. With Kenneth McMillan’s inventive and daring 1978 choreography, Koen Kessels’ live orchestra’s thrilling rendition of Liszt’s exquisite music (arranged and orchestrated by John…
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Theater Review: MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES (Geffen Playhouse in Westwood)
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK As with Good Boys playing across town, Mysterious Circumstances doesn’t quite give us an ending the material deserves, but hoo-boy what a ride this is. Directed by Matt Shakman with a magical meta-theatrical flourish that makes life worth living, our fever dream is based on the still-unsolved true-life death of a Sir…
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Theater Review: DEATH OF A SALESMAN (Ruskin Theatre Group in Santa Monica)
DEATH LIVES Arthur Miller makes Willie Loman, the tragic figure in his Death of a Salesman, 63 years old. So I was more than a little skeptical as to whether or not Rob Morrow (of Northern Exposure fame) could pull it off. At Ruskin Theatre Group, Morrow, with his boyish good looks, appears much younger…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: DAMES AT SEA (Sierra Madre Playhouse)
THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A DAMES When Dames at Sea opened in 1966 at the Caffe Cino, a small coffee house and performance space in New York City’s Greenwich Village that was at the heart of the early off-off Broadway movement, the show was a trifle — a campy lark into the backstage musicals of…
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Theater Review: GOOD BOYS (Pasadena Playhouse)
A GOOD GOOD BOYS COULD’VE BEEN GREAT Gay playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (contributor to Glee and Big Love) gets a revival of his drama Good Boys and True that premiered at Steppenwolf ten years ago. There is some solid stagecraft in his story about a privileged prep-school teen caught up in a sex scandal, but it’s shocking that while…
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Theater Review: THE PRODUCERS (Celebration Theatre in Los Angeles)
I WANNA SEE THE PRODUCERS Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. The Celebration production of The Producers is as far away from the Borscht Belt as a New York musical comedy — whose central characters are named Bialystock and Bloom — can get. On the other hand, this is the kind…
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