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Los Angeles
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Dance Review: SOFT GOODS (Karen Sherman)
SOFT GOODS’ SMOOTH SELL Karen Sherman’s Soft Goods presents the audience with a new perspective on dance by focusing on what happens behind the curtain. The show is set up like a play that explores the stagehands’ job, the dancers’ rehearsals and the less-than-pleasant interactions between the two groups as they come together to create a…
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Los Angeles Music Review: TCHAIKOVSKY’S FIRST PIANO CONCERTO (Sergio Tiempo, Xian Zhang and the Los Angeles Philharmonic)
TIEMPO’S TANTALIZINGLY TEMPESTUOUS TEMPO Sergio Tiempo is the real deal. When a pianist can take a work as familiar as Tchaikovsky’s 1874 First Piano Concerto and turn it into an exciting Olympic event, I’m more than sold. Appearing at a packed Disney Hall this morning (in a program that runs through Sunday), the very cool…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: THE NUTCRACKER SUITE (American Contemporary Ballet)
BUSTING A NUTCRACKER Before you grumble and run screaming, “Not another Nutcracker Suite!” — trust me when I tell you that American Contemporary Ballet has something up its red-fur, white-trimmed sleeve with an all-new imagining that presents new choreography while putting you directly inside the Land of the Sweets. When I was told patrons will…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE HEART OF ROBIN HOOD (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
WE GET EVERYTHING BUT THE HEART Certainly one of the most gorgeous lavish sets ever seen at the Wallis, with gorgeous sumptuous costumes, and gorgeous talented athletic actors. With all of the boisterous shenanigans, you won’t be bored; there’s undeniable entertainment value. But what happens when you throw everything into a show to make sure…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: PACIFIC OVERTURES (Chromolume Theatre)
PLEASE HELLO! Remarkably, one of the most difficult things about Pacific Overtures is that Harold Prince directed the original production utilizing the ancient Japanese theater-form, Kabuki, which isn’t necessary to elucidate John Weidman’s book (can you imagine if every production of Merrily We Roll Along used a teenage cast, as Prince’s original production did?). The…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: CAUGHT (Think Tank Art Gallery in the Fashion District, DTLA)
CAUGHT IN ITS SPELL An onion-skin experience, Christopher Chen’s magnificent Caught is indeed scripted, but you won’t know that when you’re watching it. Part immersive theater, part performance art, part installation, part thrust theater, part food and drinks, and pure play, this exhilarating look into politics, propaganda, and perception is pocked with paradox. It begins…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: DECK THE HALL HOLIDAY CONCERTS (Disney Hall)
The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Deck the Hall Holiday Concerts at Disney Hall are just around the corner, and the variety this year is unmatched. I may be enchanted by the ever-popular Holiday Sing-Along (Dec. 16); I may be enraptured by jazz great Dianne Reeves’ Christmas Time Is Here (Dec. 20); I may be excited about the beat-boxing a…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: GEORGE BALANCHINE’S THE NUTCRACKER (Miami City Ballet World Premiere at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
CRACK AWAY Miami City Ballet’s new redesign of the magical George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker will feature enchanting new costumes and sets by the Cuban-American artist/designer power couple Isabel and Ruben Toledo, Balanchine’s glorious choreography, and Tchaikovsky’s beloved timeless score. The production, co-commissioned by The Music Center, will have its world premiere in Los Angeles on…
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Los Angeles Music Review: WEST SIDE STORY: FILM WITH LIVE ORCHESTRA (LA Phil’s BERNSTEIN 100)
THE MUSIC PLAYING IS, INDEED, ALMOST LIKE PRAYING As is becoming increasingly popular, films with astounding soundtracks are being shown with just dialogue and sound effects while an orchestra plays the score live; it’s cost-effective for the presenting organization and offers the spectator the chance to hear live music while waxing nostalgic over a great…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: HOLIDAY CANDLELIGHT (Pasadena Symphony)
IT’S BETTER BY CANDLELIGHT I always waited until too late to procure tickets to Pasadena Symphony’s enormously popular extravaganza, Holiday Candlelight. Consistently a sell-out in the past, they started to add an extra performance a few years ago, which allowed me to finally see what all the Ho-Ho-Ho-hoopla was about. The gorgeous concert actually exceeded…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: MALPASO DANCE COMPANY (part of CUBA: ANTES, AHORA / THEN, NOW at The Music Center)
THE RYHTHM OF CUBA COMES TO THE MUSIC CENTER FOR ONE DAY ONLY Cuba: Antes, Ahora / Then, Now is a celebration of the art of Cuba, and Angelinos will get the chance to experience the country’s dynamic arts from November 30-December 2, 2017. Among the more than 48 world-class Cuban musicians, dancers and visual…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: BLED FOR THE HOUSEHOLD TRUTH (Rogue Machine)
WHAT WON’T YOU DO FOR A CHELSEA SUBLET? Ambiguity and nuance are qualities in a play to be greatly desired and lauded – and yet, if you do not go “ick” at least four times while watching playwright Ruth Folwer’s increasingly disturbing drama, I’m not sure what can be done with you. This is a play…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: CHRISTMAS CHORAL CONCERTS (Los Angeles Master Chorale at Disney Hall)
OUR MASTER CHORALE’S CHRISTMAS CHORAL CONCERTS AND CAROLS With the indefatigable Energizer Bunny of conducting, Grant Gershon, at the helm, Los Angeles Master Chorale (LAMC) can easily be labeled one of the best choirs on earth, and you have a chance to see four separate holiday programs at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Naturally, you can…
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Los Angeles Concert Preview: A MICHAEL FEINSTEIN HOLIDAY CELEBRATION (Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge)
IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE FEINSTEIN Charismatic, appealing, boyish, excited, and eager to please, Michael Feinstein will bring his off-the-cuff, friendly, intimate style to the gorgeous Valley Performing Arts Center on Friday, December 8, 2017. For this one night only, the man who has single-handedly reinvigorated the American Songbook for the 21st century, will celebrate the…
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Theater Review: SOMETHING ROTTEN! (National Tour reviewed in Los Angeles)
SOMETHING SILLY; NOT QUITE ROTTEN BUT HARDLY FRESH What is it about William Shakespeare that inspires lesser authors (namely, everyone else) to try to take him down? George Bernard Shaw spent his life seeking to supplant or at least discount that other playwright. In Shakespeare in Love, Tom Stoppard imagines the world’s greatest writer as an opportunist who…
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Los Angeles Dance Review: INFERNO (World Premiere Ballet from American Contemporary Ballet)
ACB’S JOURNEY INTO HELL: THE ONE TIME YOU MIGHT WISH THE TRIP WERE LONGER Inferno, American Contemporary Ballet (ACB)’s season opener was a musical blast from the past with a twist. Just in time for Halloween, Artistic Director Lincoln Jones’ latest ballet—set to music from Charles Wuorinen’s seven-part opus The Mission of Virgil—was one for…
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Tour Music Review: IN MY MIND: MONK AT TOWN HALL 1959 (Jason Moran and The Big Bandwagon)
A CONCERT THAT WILL STAY IN MY MIND There are certain experiences involving the arts that stay with you forever. A seamless meld of spiritual and artistic experience, Jason Moran’s tribute piece to Theolonius Monk’s legendary 1959 concert at Town Hall achieved something I rarely witness in the arts: As with a séance, Moran’s octet—rivaling…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN (Musical Theatre Guild)
A CONCERT ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN Given the Madrid setting, Hispano characters, and Latin-inspired score, it’s possible that the musicalized version of Pedro Almodóvar’s film will one day make the rounds in regional theaters and high schools. But for now, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown—a 2010 Broadway flop that…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: KING CHARLES III (Pasadena Playhouse)
WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY In Mike Bartlett’s play about the imagined aftermath of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, men hold inherited titles, but women, both living and dead, hold the keys to power. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, the ghost of Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, and a fictional female Tory Leader of the Opposition orchestrate the events…
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San Diego Opera Review: AS ONE (San Diego Opera)
CLASSIC SOUND; MODERN THEME Composer Laura Kaminsky and co-librettists Kimberly Reed and Mark Campbell’s 80-minute chamber opera, As One, is a tribute to the fact that art must keep growing with the times. We expect modern themes explored in painting, music, dance, and more, but encountering today’s issues in opera causes a little more head-cocking….
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