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Los Angeles
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San Diego Theater Preview: LAST OF THE RED HOT LOVERS (North Coast Rep in Solana Beach)
HE WHO LAUGHS AT LAST LAUGHS BEST Barney Cashman is a neurotic, shlubby, well-intentioned if somewhat misguided seafood restaurateur who feels his life and marriage have become too predictable, and attempts to spice both up with some hot action on the side. He sets up a makeshift bachelor pad at his ma’s place while she’s…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts)
IN HARLEM’S WAY “One never knows, do one?” That’s the favorite catchphrase of Fats Waller (1904-1943), an irrepressible master of music. The 285-pound, cherubic-cheeked jokester genius is the powerhouse presence and driving dreamer behind Ain’t Misbehavin’, the still irresistible 1978 tribute revue from Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby Jr. In this happy case, well, one do…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: CARMINA BURANA & CHICHESTER PSALMS (Los Angeles Master Chorale on September 23 & 24, 2017, at Disney Hall)
WHERE DO YOU GET ORFF..? There are some entertainments that bear repeating: Los Angeles Master Chorale has visited Carl Orff’s pagan-fest, Carmina Burana, under each of their music directors, but the splendid, massive, exultant and squeaky-clean rendering four years ago under Grant Gershon made me want to toss off my clothes and march triumphantly towards my smoke-filled sky of destiny,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: RHINOCEROS (Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice)
LIFE IS AN ABSURD BUSINESS It’s an absurdist masterwork, yet it is rarely produced in the States. A disquieting parable which warns against herd mentality, Eugène Ionesco’s three-act play is a boiling-hot indictment of fascism, written in 1959 on the heels of WWII and the McCarthy hearings. The denizens of a French town transform one-by-one…
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Los Angeles Dance Review: EMOTIONS (Blind Dance Company)
THE BLIND DANCE COMPANY’S EMOTIONAL VISION Hydeia Muhammad’s Blind Dance Company premiered its first show, Emotions, in the Los Angeles Fashion District to a well-deserved roar of applause. Performed at a building called The Lazarus Experience, the company’s production proved that an all-blind ensemble was no miracle, but rather came to life from CRE Outreach…
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Los Angeles Dance Review: LA FATE IN ITALIA and DANCES FROM LAKMÉ (World Premiere Ballets from American Contemporary Ballet)
ACB’S MODERN THROWBACK American Contemporary Ballet’s final production of the season reworks an old favorite and breathes life into once forgotten characters from another well-known ballet. The combination of singing and dancing was an innovative conclusion to a trilogy’s worth of education in the classics. Aside from a few logistical problems, the show was very…
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Theater Interview: CLINTON LEUPP (MISS COCO PERU: THE TAMING OF THE TENSION)
SHE WHO CAN’T BE TAMED Clinton Leupp may not aspire to self-help guru status, but his upcoming appearance as Miss Coco Peru in The Taming of the Tension is driven by a definite sense of mission. “I want to unify people,†he says. “We can’t truly get together as human beings until we understand how…
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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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