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Los Angeles
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Los Angeles Theater Review: HONKY TONK LAUNDRY (Hudson Mainstage Theatre in Hollywood)
THE HARDEST WORKING GALS IN SHOW BUSINESS One thing is clear: If Bets Malone and Misty Cotton ever choose to sell themselves as an actual country music recording duo, they will be a smash. The intensity and quality of the singing is wonderful. Their blend is perfect, haunting and smooth, most notably on “Heaven, Heartache,…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: PINK MARTINI WITH CHINA FORBES & STORM LARGE, AND CHARO (Hollywood Bowl)
PINK MARTINI—I SAY “YES”! The last time I saw Pink Martini play the Hollywood Bowl, I was already wired after hearing them brilliantly execute an extended song list covering at least a dozen styles of music sung in eight different languages. But then this everlasting gobstopper of music turned the Hollywood Bowl into a festive…
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San Diego Theater Review: EVITA (San Diego Rep)
DON’T CRY, BUT SEE ARGENTINA The crime of being a legend is to be simultaneously loved and hated, while the truth will always be a matter of perspective and interpretation. Eva Duarte, later Eva Perón, was just such a figure. Both adored and reviled, the life of the grandiose first lady of 1940s’ Argentina makes…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV & RACHMANINOFF’S THIRD CONCERTO (LA Phil, Krzysztof Urbański conductor, 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 Tuesday August 15, 2017, so prepare yourself for one of the world’s greatest pianists. In fact, the in-demand, rightfully popular 26-year-old Uzbek pianist, who was born in Tashkent in 1990 just before the collapse of…
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Los Angeles Dance Review: FANTASM–”ODYSSEY OF DREAMS (Bellydance Evolution at The Ford Theatres)
FANTASM’S FANTASTIC FORAY INTO BELLYDANCING Bellydance Evolution’s Fantasm’”Odyssey of Dreams is a well-interpreted and abridged re-telling of One Thousand and One Nights, the Arabian tale that combines the legend of Queen Scheherazade with her stories about fictional celebrated sailor Sinbad. Portrayed by a multi-cultural cast assembled by choreographer Jillina Carlano, the ensemble successfully brings the story-telling aspects of bellydancing…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES (Sierra Madre Playhouse)
IT WONDERS ME It’s uncanny that ever since Roger Bean wrote and directed this asinine jukebox musical in 1999, it’s lightweight nostalgia factor and updated arrangements of 50s and 60s tunes keeps packing them in from coast to coast. Since The Marvelous Wonderettes was clearly designed to appeal to an older crowd seeking sentimentalism (a…
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San Diego Theater Review: PUMP UP THE VOLUME: A 90S PALOOZA (San Diego Musical Theatre)
THE 90s ARE BACK AND SOUNDING SWEET While the nineties might not sound that long ago to an older crowd, when was the last time you thought about Lorena Bobbitt? Or tamagotchis? Or wondered who was paging you? Yep, the 90s are already ripe for nostalgia and San Diego Musical Theatre is on target for…
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Theater Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME (North American Tour)
DETECTING LOVE A 15-year-old math whiz, Christopher is an only child with Asperger’s Syndrome. The anomaly is enough to push adolescence way beyond awkward. His autism manifests in manic multi-tasking, an inability to focus (or to lie), attention deficits, a maddening literal-mindedness, and a disarming directness that both shames and irritates adults with secrets. Afraid…
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San Diego Theater Preview: KEN LUDWIG’S ROBIN HOOD! (The Old Globe)
THE GLOBE GOES BACK INTO THE WOODS Ken Ludwig is arguably the leading comic dramatist in the American theater, and with Robin Hood! he has fashioned an extraordinary new take on the legend, commissioned by The Old Globe in San Diesgo. The story remains popular because at its core its a moving tale of a young man’s…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: AS YOU LIKE IT (Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale)
AS YOU MAY OR MAY NOT LIKE IT At its new home in Glendale, Antaeus Theatre’s second play, As You Like It, is an odd duck of a production. As is its norm, Antaeus “partner-casts” each production, so patrons may go twice to see a completely different cast, both of which rehearsed at the same…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: SHOUT SISTER SHOUT! (Pasadena Playhouse)
THE ORIGINAL SISTER ACT This new bio-musical of the legendary gospel/rock crossover star Sister Rosetta Tharpe is at its best when focusing on its three powerhouse female stars. Tracy Nicole Chapman as Tharpe, and Yvette Cason and Angela Teek Hitchman, both in multiple roles, are veteran performers with awe-inspiring voices that take a song and…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: MAMMA MIA! (Hollywood Bowl)
SUPER TROUPERS BURN BRIGHTLY UNDER THE STARS I’ve always thought Benny Andersson and Björn Kristian Ulvaeus of ABBA, along with Mamma Mia! book writer Catherine Johnson, were incredibly smart to fashion a narrative around characters the same age as the people who likely most fondly remember ABBA: Baby Boomers and Older Gen-Xers. The young woman…
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Los Angeles Dance Review: BALLETNOW (The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
BALLETNOW AND FOREVER New York City Ballet (NYCB) principal dancer Tiler Peck’s curation of BalletNOW was an elegant and enticing mash-up of well-known excerpts that would satisfy both first-timers and connoisseurs expecting excellence from ballet’s best performers. Three days of shows at L.A.’s Music Center featured a varied repertoire of fast- and slow–paced dances with…
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San Diego Theater Preview: PIPPIN (San Diego Junior Theatre at the Casa del Prado Theatre)
DON’T BE SKIPPIN’ PIPPIN Here’s a can’t-miss opportunity: San Diego Junior Theatre is presenting the perky but dark 1972 musical, Pippin. Don’t be fooled by the moniker “Junior Theatre,” for these shows are just as slick as one with adult performers. For a small ticket price, head over to the beautiful Casa del Prado Theatre…
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Theater Review: PARADE (Chance Theater)
SEE IT BEFORE THIS PARADE PASSES YOU BY The emotionally pile-driving Parade by bookwriter Alfred Uhry and composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown reprises an ugly and evergreen tragedy. Their driven musical chronicles the reflexive racism that, a century ago, doomed a suspect stranger, Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-born Jew in 1914 Atlanta. Here the bigotry is anti-Semitism, a xenophobia…
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Los Angeles Theater/Music Review: SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM (Hollywood Bowl)
A GOOD THING GOING; GOING, GOING… Sondheim on Sondheim, which had a short run on Broadway in 2010, offers both songs and personal musings from one of Broadway’s greatest composer/lyricists. Roundabout Theater Company’s inside look is rich with the stories behind the songs, new arrangements for old favorites, a few medleys, and some obscure tunes….
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San Diego Theater Review: AVENUE Q (OB Playhouse)
IT MAY SUCK TO LIVE ON AVENUE Q, BUT NOT TO SEE IT In the right setting, irreverence is so jovial. Our era of thought-police and political correctness has made it delicious to pervert that which seems simple and pure solely for the sake of entertainment (The Producers and The Book of Mormon are still…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: THE BRIAN SETZER ORCHESTRA – 25th ANNIVERSARY SHOW! (Hollywood Bowl)
SWINGIN’ AND ROCKIN’ THE BLUES AWAY AT THE BOWL Wait a minute. Hold on. If the Brian Setzer Orchestra’”which pumps joy into the blood of both rabid fans and newcomers thirsty for a good time’”is celebrating its 25th anniversary at the Hollywood Bowl next week (August 2, 2017 at 8), then that means Setzer has…
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Tour Review: LUZIA (Cirque du Soleil)
MEMORIES OF MEXICO, LUZIA UNLEASHES A RAIN OF JOY The Cirque du Soleil just made a run for the border’”and not the Canadian one. Ignoring the United States (a favorite activity of many nowadays), the Montreal-based human circus lavishes its unstoppable imagination on our neighbor to the south. Luzia, the latest (ad)venture under the redesigned white-and-gold Grand…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: A STEADY RAIN (John Kirby Studio)
A STEADY PLAY What police personnel go through day-by-day isn’t really fully understood by civilians: the life-and-death tensions that alternate with the inevitable boredom and the public’s political vacillation between Protect Our Cops and Protect Our Citizens From Those Cops tends to get politicized and therefore ignored by all the oppositions. Keith Huff’s amazing play A Steady…
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