Los Angeles

HERE’S A PLACE FOR US When I first heard West Side Story, it was the original Broadway cast recording on my parents’ mono Magnavox console. Without the Jerome Robbins’ direction and choreography, without the sets and costumes, and without the dialogue, I was transfixed over and over by the 1957 trailblazing musical, an updating of…

YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET I have seen  Michael Feinstein perform many times, but he was never better than last year when he celebrated Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday with the Pasadena POPS at the Los Angeles County Arboretum. Indeed, The Sinatra Project was one of my favorite concerts ever, and not just because of the wonderful  songs…

A FIRE SPARKLING IN HOLLYWOOD Opening a play or musical is always a risk. Plenty of hard work (and sometimes a lot of money) goes into a show, and producers just have to keep their fingers crossed hoping the public will attend. But opening a new theater, especially one which is designed for immersive productions,…

A MORE CASUAL CRUELTY Richard III, the final play of eight of Shakespeare’s histories, has also been an ever-popular play. It offers one of the most coldblooded characters in all of literature, and is told with such compelling, exciting drama that its length can go virtually unnoticed (in Shakespeare’s canon, only Hamlet is longer). The…

FORLANDO The Wallis and the Los Angeles LGBT Center will be presenting a one-time only concert in memory and support of the victims of the recent tragedy at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The tribute takes place on Saturday, July 16, 2016 at The Wallis in Beverly Hills. FORlando includes musical performances by the Gay Men’s…

ABT’S  FIREBIRD  SWOOPS INTO  THE CHANDLER Making a rare visit to Southern California, American Ballet Theatre returns after a three-year  absence  to Los Angeles’s Music Center — but just for one weekend beginning Thursday July 7, 2016. For this  engagement, the estimable company arrives  bearing the great gifts of Alexei Ratmansky, whose production of Firebird centerpieces  an all-Ratmansky program. The  classic 1910 Igor Stravinsky…

IT’S YOUR DREAM NIGHT, GIRLS After  nearly two years of renovations, I caught an early glimpse of the historic John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, one of Los Angeles’s top entertainment venues. With a new eatery, landscaping, soundwall (which blocks the 101 Freeway and Hollywood Bowl noise), and  amenities for both artist and audience,  the gorgeous performing venue  under the stars…

BEE THERE The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee has charmed audiences across the country with its effortless wit and humor. Featuring a fast-paced wildly funny and touching book by Rachel Sheinkin (Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Book) and a truly fresh and vibrant score by William Finn (Falsettos), this bee is one…

HOLY DIONYSUS, GREENSPAN! Five-time Obie Award winner David Greenspan’s unique brand of gentle wit and exquisite lyricism will be on display when Odyssey Theatre Ensemble presents the West Coast premiere of his meta-theatrical comic romance, Go Back to Where You Are, beginning July 9 and running through September 4, 2016. In Greenspan’s tender comedy, which…

ANYTHING BUT DISGRACEFUL Sometimes plays that win the Pulitzer Prize do so less for their content and more for the ideas they embody and the zeitgeist of their time. It’s just an added bonus when the work turns out to be a good play as well as a snapshot of a certain era or time…

GOING UNDERGROUND A Critics’ Pick by both The New York Times and Backstage, the passionate docudrama Home/Sick explores how idealism turns to radicalism, as a handful of leaders from the ’60s-era Students for a Democratic Society take over the once-peaceful protest organization and turn it into the ’70s-era radical group known as the Weather Underground,…

THE LITTLE MERMAID THAT COULD It is surprising that the stage adaptation of The Little Mermaid took until 2008 to hit  Broadway.  The 1989 film on which it’s based  marked the beginning of a major comeback for the Walt Disney company as a purveyor of animated movie musicals. The movie studio responsible for Bambi and Dumbo had gone…

SCREWBALL MUSICAL HEAVEN When it opened on Broadway in 1978, On the Twentieth Century achieved the impossible. Cy Coleman’s clever score’”a beautiful pastiche of turn-of-the-century operetta and silent film scores with some added jazz and musical comedy bounce’”collided on the tracks with Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s delectably chewy lyrics and screwball script, resulting in…

THE CITY COMES ALIVE The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is about to begin a new era under the leadership of its new Artistic Director Paul Crewes. Right out of the gate is a production of  novelist, essayist and playwright Anthony Giardina’s The City of Conversation, which premiered at Lincoln Center last year. While…

HONKY IF YOU LIKE RACISM It’s such a weird time in America. From talk shows to a speech from President Obama, it’s clear that the racism remains a topical subject. But we don’t actually  talk about it. Can a white person get a simple answer if they ask a black person, “Why can you say ‘nigger’…