Areas We Cover
Categories
Los Angeles
-
Theater Review: SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM (Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles)
EMOTIONAL TURMOIL AND MUSICAL BLISS One of the pleasures of the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble’s production of Side by Side by Sondheim is the experience of hearing voices without amplification. I have never been to a Broadway musical without a sound system and have often wondered what it was like. Did it always take an Ethel…
-
Dance Preview: MOVES AFTER DARK (Disney Hall)
GET YOUR MOVES ON It had to happen one day: L.A. is truly becoming a metropolis, with incredible events difficult to find anywhere else. To wit, the dance world is springing to new heights, and while site-specific dance has been going on for years, The Music Center goes a step further by selecting three L.A.-based…
-
Music Review: SEAL and CORINNE BAILEY RAE (Hollywood Bowl)
HIS STANDARDS SEAL THE DEAL I was stunned at how many Bowl patrons were arriving during Corinne Bailey Rae’s set at the Hollywood Bowl last Wednesday. I get that Seal was the main attraction, but this soulstress — with her enchanting and seductive vocal whirls — has proved herself to be one of the most…
-
Theater Review: CRY IT OUT (Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles)
WE NEVER STOP CRYING IT OUT The term “cry it out” refers to the practice of letting babies bawl until their fit subsides without parents coddling and mollifying them; assumedly this causes the child to become more self-sufficient later in life. In Molly Smith Metzler’s persuasive west coast premiere, three adult women find themselves in…
-
Theater Preview: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (5-Star Theatricals in Thousand Oaks)
SHE’S STILL A BEAUTY It is sheer luck that I’ve been able to see Broadway Baby Susan Egan in over 10 shows since the mid-1980s. From intimate stages (Babes at the Matrix; Hello, Again at the Blank) to national tours (Bye Bye Birdie as Kim) to Broadway (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Triumph of Love), she has always glowed with professionalism…
-
Event Preview: MOVIE NIGHTS AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL (Great Films Live in Concert)
MOVIES AND FILM SCORES THAT WILL BOWL YOU OVER You want something out of this world? Something you can really chomp on? Something that will sound even better on another inspection? Something that’s completely magic? Well, grease up your lederhosen, because here comes Movie Nights at the Hollywood Bowl, 2018. Because of his indelible film…
-
Music Review: VíKINGUR ÒLAFSSON (Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto with Thomas Adí¨s and the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl)
BOWL OVER BEETHOVEN Last night at the Hollywood Bowl started off with a bang. British composer and guest conducter  Thomas Adès began an evening of “Beethoven Masterpieces” — with Iceland’s VÃÂkingur Ólafsson offering the Second Piano Concerto — with a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that was decidedly awesome: more rhythmic and decisive than any I…
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: THREE DAYS IN THE COUNTRY (Antaeus Theatre in Glendale)
THE TRAGIC COMEDY OF LOVE Antaeus Theatre closes its season with a terrific production of Three Days in the Country, Patrick Marber’s adaptation of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country. Turgenev was said to be Chekov’s inspiration to become a playwright, yet my affection for the latter has never extended to the former. Chekov feels…
-
Theater Review: BIG FISH (Chance Theater)
FRIED, STEWED OR BROILED, THIS FISH WILL NEVER TASTE GOOD So here’s what baffles me: A show which is middling at best is suddenly showing up at regional, community and high school theaters with alarming regularity around the country. Well, maybe not so alarming. The show was, after all, on Broadway. Musical Theatre West in…
-
Theater Review: ON YOUR FEET (National Tour)
DANCE DELIRIUM As jukebox musicals go, the rags-to-riches bio On Your Feet! definitely earns its exclamation point. No question, the upbeat tunes, with their irresistible Cuban-fusion street beat, would justify this 2015 tribute to the flashdance fervor of Gloria and Emilio Estefan and their Miami Sound Machine. But their lives warrant a work too: Alexander Dinelaris’s predictable and…
-
Los Angeles Music Preview: THE SUMMER OF LOVE (Michael Feinstein Sings the Hits of the ’60s with the Pasadena POPS at the Arboretum)
FEINSTEIN & THE SUMMER OF LOVE: COME ON BABY, LIGHT MY FIRE Of all the Michael Feinstein Pasadena POPS concerts so far, my favorites were his solo presentations of both Gershwin and the two Frank Sinatra concerts, celebrating Ol’ Blue Eyes’ 100th birthday. That’s because Feinstein handed over the conductor’s baton to Larry Blank, who…
-
Music Preview: BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV (Rachmoninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl)
DO NOT MISS BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL THIS WEEK Pianist Behzod Abduraimov is coming to the Hollywood Bowl this Thursday, July 12, 2018, so prepare yourself for one of the world’s greatest pianists. In fact, the in-demand, rightfully popular 27-year-old Uzbek pianist, who was born in Tashkent in 1990 just before the collapse…
-
San Diego Theater Review: SPAMALOT (Cygnet Theatre)
THE HOLY GRAIL OF SILLY MUSICALS The tales of King Arthur and his knights of the round table stand as icons of literature, leaving them ripe for outrageous parody in Monty Python’s 1975 cult classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Spamalot walks the line of being a musical version of Holy Grail and being (as…
-
Opera Review: LA GAZETTA (Pacific Opera Project)
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! — Unearthed Rossini opera about newspaper ad hits L.A. after sitting around doing practically nothing for 200 years. Los Angeles — Detectives are trying to determine why one of the greatest opera composers of all time seemingly tossed his delightful but very very silly work La Gazzetta to the back…
-
Los Angeles Film Review: THE 2018 MONTALBíN SUMMER MOVIE SERIES (The Montalbán Theatre)
THE MONTALBíN MIXES MOVIES, MINGLING AND MERRY MASTICATING Always fun, outdoor cinema hits the summer ether like the smell of fresh cut grass and smoked meat (or is that fresh cut meat and smoked grass?). There’s nothing quite like a balmy evening under the stars to experience that collective joy of watching a movie. And…
-
Theater Review: TAR (Playwrights’ Arena at Atwater Village Theatre)
TARANTINO IN THE STICKY SWAMPS OF SADNESS Tom Jacobson’s Tar is from his The Ballad of Bimini Baths, a triad of works playing concurrently in Los Angeles. For half a century (1902-1951), the hot springs resort actually existed here in L.A., and Jacobson means to examine how far society has, or hasn’t, come by setting…
-
San Diego Theater Review: ROMEO, ROMEO & JULIET (The Roustabouts Theatre Co. at Moxie Theatre)
PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW AFTER A PLAY THIS GOOD “What’s in a name?” Juliet famously asks. A lot, if the name is Ruff Yeager. Yeager, co-founder of The Roustabouts Theatre Co., has been a long-time staple of fine directing and powerful acting in San Diego, particularly chilling as the central character in Roustabouts’ debut…
-
Theater Review: SWEET CHARITY (Reprise 2.0)
SWEETER THE SECOND TIME AROUND It’s like kicking a puppy dog to dislike Charity Hope Valentine. Charity is the heroine of the 1966 musical Sweet Charity — a strange amalgam of high hopes and low blows. The show once made famous by Gwen Verdon’s slinkiness and Bob Fosse’s choreography is pocked with terrific tunes by…
-
Theater/Dance Preview: THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY PROJECT (The Big Show Co. at the Ford Amphitheatre)
“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” Author Lois Lowry On June 28 & 29, Ford Theatres, in association with choreographer/director Arianne MacBean and The Big Show Co., will present the world premiere of The Collective Memory Project — an original dance-theatre piece inspired by…
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: THE HUMANS (National Tour at the Ahmanson Theatre)
ALL TOO HUMAN Stephen Karam’s remarkable Tony-winning play The Humans — which is winding up its national tour at the Ahmanson with members of the Broadway production — begins with Erik Blake (the excellent Reed Birney, reprising his Tony-winning performance) standing on the upper level of a shabby, half-dark basement/ground-floor tenement duplex, holding two bags of groceries,…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
