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Theater Review: BOYS IN THE BAND (The Bent at Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs)
A BAND TO BEAT THE BAND Coachella Valley’s new queer theater company The Bent — in partnership with the Palm Springs Cultural Center — closes its wildly successful inaugural season with Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band, running through May 7. Artistic Director Steve Rosenbaum and Managing Director Terry Ray moved quickly to fill…
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Theater Review: COLEMAN ’72 (South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa)
A LOVE LETTER TO AN IMMIGRANT FATHER Coleman ’72 is getting a fantastic world premiere production from South Coast Repertory. It is a melodrama about nostalgia, the immigrant experience, cross-generational trauma, and familial love. Told through the unreliable accounts of three siblings, this trip down memory lane brings up complicated family dynamics between each sibling…
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Cabaret Review: JASON ROBERT BROWN with MIKAL KILGORE (Samueli Hall at Segerstrom in Costa Mesa)
KING OF THE WORLD — AND MUSICAL SONGS Orange County audiences were treated to an all-too-rare occurrence — a cabaret appearance by Jason Robert Brown, one of today’s finest composer-lyricists. Since Jason Robert Brown no longer regularly performs due to his busy schedule, this was an opportunity to see a master of the musical theatre…
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Theater Review: MURDER ON THE LINKS (North Coast Repertory Theatre)
THIS SHOW IS MURDER The latest production at North Coast Rep is a stage adaption of Dame Agatha Christie’s 1923 detective novel Murder on the Links. Originally titled The Murder on the Links, it was the second novel to star the Belgian private detective Hercule Poirot. The eccentric Poirot became one of the most popular…
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Theater Review: FUTURE THINKING (Desert Ensemble Theater at the Palm Springs Cultural Center)
TRAGI-COMIC CON Desert Ensemble Theater’s (DET) current production, Eliza Clark’s Future Thinking, closing on April 23, is the final play in their season of “West Coast Originals.” The company dedicated the 12th season to new work by under-produced West Coast playwrights, which included two world premieres, one California premiere and the current play, which appears…
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Theater Review: HAIRSPRAY (National Tour)
THIS HEAVYWEIGHT TAKES THE PRIZE Can you ask for a more perfect pairing than a drag queen and the high camp of musical theater? In this national tour production of Hairspray, Tracy Turnblad and friends turn up the heat with their dance movies on the stage of Segerstrom Hall. The band is tight, the movements…
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Theater Review: EXOTIC DEADLY: OR THE MSG PLAY (World Premiere at The Old Globe in San Diego)
ANNA MIKAMI ALREADY WELL-SEASONED IN HER THEATRICAL DEBUT For theatergoers who have been waiting impatiently for a new play about monosodium glutamate, your wish has been answered. Check out the world premiere of Keiko Green’s new work at the Old Globe, called Exotic Deadly: Or The MSG Play. Anna Mikami as Ami and Eunice Bae…
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Theater Review: PRESENT LAUGHTER (Cygnet Theatre in San Diego)
VISITING THE PAST FOR PRESENT LAUGHTER If you’re looking to expose yourself to the plays of Noël Coward, this is where to start. Not only did he write Present Laughter (in six days!) to amuse himself AND create the main character based on himself, but he even chose to play Garry in the original London…
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Rancho Mirage Theater Review: JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT (Desert Theatricals at the Rancho Mirage Amphitheater)
DESERT MUSICAL IS AN OASIS IN THE DESERT I have often proclaimed that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s best work was in his pre-1980 collaborations with Tim Rice. If you need proof or simply want to take in some amazing theater, then head to Desert Theatricals‘ last production of the season, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,…
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Theater Review: JUST FOR US (Alex Edelman at the Calderwood Pavilion and Colonial Theatre in Boston)
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE WHITE SUPREMACIST MEETING If you’re looking for great night of humor about white supremacy and anti-Semitism (and who isn’t?), this is the show for you. Alex Edelman, Boston-born and -bred but now located in New York, brings his one-man show to the Calderwood Pavilion at the…
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Theater Review: COLONIALISM IS TERRIBLE, BUT PHỞ IS DELICIOUS (Chance Theater in Anaheim)
MANY PARTS ARE EDIBLE It’s fascinating to watch a new generation of Asian playwrights — Mike Lew, Qui Nguyen, Lauren Yee, Dipika Guha, Christopher Chen — writing about the quest for identity as it pertains to traditional upbringing, here or abroad, and current frustrations as modern Asians in America, often addressing race within a meta,…
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Theater Preview: TENNESSEE WILLIAMS ST. LOUIS (“Tennessee Williams: A World of Light and Shadow”)
TWSL Expands to Year-Round Programming with 8th Annual Festival Returning September 7-17 “We lived in a world of light and shadow . . . But the shadow was almost as luminous as the light.” Violet Venable, Suddenly Last Summer This year’s fall Festival will give center stage to Suddenly Last Summer, a drama by Pulitzer Prize-winning…
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Theater Review: CORIOLANUS (Actors’ Shakespeare Project in Boston)
MAMA’S BOY, FOR BETTER OR WORSE When I think of Shakespeare’s women, many names come to mind: Gertrude, Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, Beatrice, Portia, Helena, Titania, Rosalind, Juliet, Desdemona. Going forward, thanks to the powerful performance of Jennie Israel in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s modern verse translation by Sean San José of Coriolanus, I will always include Volumnia,…
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Theater Review: HAND TO GOD (Coachella Valley Rep)
TAKING HOLD OF EVIL Robert Askins’ 2011 two-act Hand to God is both an existential, insightful commentary on religious hypocrisy and a hysterical dramedy about Tyrone, a possessed sock puppet with a raunchy mouth, violent tendencies, and an overactive sex drive. Given the religious right’s current/ongoing tirade against art, books, sensible gun laws, women’s autonomy…
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Theater Review: CLYDE’S (Huntington Theatre, Boston)
A SATISFYING MEAL OF TASTY THEATER You might call Clyde’s the other piece of bread in Lynn Nottage’s sandwich about Reading, Pennsylvania, where the playwright spent two years conducting interviews with residents of what was then named the poorest town in America. The first result of those interviews was Sweat, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer…
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Announcement: LAUNCH OF MURNANE CASTING (Boutique Casting Office in NYC and Nationwide)
Casting director and creative professional Chad Eric Murnane has launched Murnane Casting. Based in New York City, this boutique casting office works on theatre, film, and television projects nationwide. The company specializes in Broadway productions, regional theatre, and developing new works with up-and-coming creators. Murnane has over a decade of experience in casting, having enjoyed…
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Theater Review: ROCK OF AGES (Wildsong Productions in Ocean Beach, San Diego)
WE BUILT THIS SILLY ON ROCK AND ROLL Most musicals start with a premise, develop a plot, and then write songs to fit the themes. Rock of Ages flips the process by starting with classic rock songs of the 1980s (Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Steve Perry, Poison, and more) and tying…
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Theater Review: JIMMY BUFFET’S ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE (Desert TheaterWorks in Indio)
ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE IN THE DESERT Entering the theater at Desert TheatreWorks in Indio (between Palm Springs and the Salton Sea), it sure didn’t feel like the desert. I was greeted by Jimmy Buffet’s Escape to Margaritaville cast members who placed a Hawaiian lei around my neck while at the same time I was awestruck…
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Theater Review: THE CHERRY ORCHARD (North Coast Rep in Solana Beach/San Diego)
THE BLOSSOMS DO EVENTUALLY BLOOM IN THIS ORCHARD Russian playwright Anton Chekhov believed his classic 1904 drama The Cherry Orchard was a comedy bordering on farce, but generations of audiences, scholars, and reviewers have leaned toward the play (as well Chekhov’s other major works for the stage) as melancholy pieces filled with frustrated characters enduring…
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Theater Review: INTO THE WOODS (National Tour at the Emerson Colonial Theater in Boston)
NO FAIRY TALE ENDINGS Last night, Boston became the third stop in the 2023 National Tour of the 2022 Broadway Revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s much-Tony’d and much-loved mash-up of some of the world’s most familiar fairy tales, ingeniously linked through plot and music. The touring company includes many cast members from the…
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