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Regional
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Theater Review: K-I-S-S-I-N-G (Huntington Theatre Company in Boston)
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G Poet, screenwriter, and performer Lenelle Moïse (pronounced Len-EL Moy-EEZ) is a playwright for this co-production from The Front Porch Arts Collective and The Huntington, the latter of which is staging the charming and engaging K-I-S-S-I-N-G, a romantic comedy chockablock with originality. Drawing on Moïse’s experiences of growing up in Cambridge, the play opens with…
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Theater Review: ONCE (Laguna Playhouse)
ONCE UPON AN AMAZING TIME Good theater allows audiences to see the world from the eyes of the creators. In this triumphant production of Once, which opened last night March 12 at Laguna Playhouse, we are invited into the world of a downtrodden buttery-voiced Irish man and a struggling single immigrant mother. A whirlwind of…
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Theater Review: UNDER A BASEBALL SKY (Old Globe)
¡JUGAR A LA PELOTA! Under A Baseball Sky is a likable new play by José Cruz González now nearing the end of a five-week run at the Old Globe Theatre. It’s tight work, running about 90 minutes without an intermission. The comparative brevity still allows the playwright to touch a number of themes, several of them of the…
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Theater Review: BOULEVARD OF BOLD DREAMS (Greater Boston Stage Company in Stoneham, MA)
HATTIE, MAMMY AND OSCAR Playwright LaDarrion Williams has mined a moment in history to explore the human cost of being the first to achieve a milestone in this moving and ultimately affirming exploration of the ambivalence surrounding the first Black person to receive an Academy Award. As many know, Hattie McDaniel, who played Scarlett O’Hara’s…
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Regional Review: THE WIFE OF WILLESDEN (American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, MA)
WHAT DO WOMEN WANT? A ROLLICKING NIGHT OUT WITH THE WIFE OF WILLESDEN After a sold-out run at London’s Kiln Theatre, The Wife of Willesden has arrived in North America. Let me begin by saying that from now on, whenever I see the name Clare Perkins (Alvita, the Wife of Willesden) on a cast list,…
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Theater Review: THE GREAT LEAP (Lyric Stage Company of Boston)
A SLAM DUNK! The Great Leap opens with hearty humor and carries its audience along in an absorbing story until a profound poignancy begins to permeate the senses. Tyler Simahk plays Manford “the most feared [basketball] player in Chinatown” as a brash and determined 17 year old who opens the action by trying to talk…
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Theater Review: SEVEN GUITARS (Actors Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall, Boston)
SEVEN CHEERS FOR SEVEN GUITARS The Actors Shakespeare Company’s production of Seven Guitars deserves at least seven cheers for this powerful production of August Wilson’s Pulitzer-nominated portrayal of the life and death of a promising blues guitarist. First cheer: Jon Savage‘s scenic design and Abe Joyner-Meyers‘ sound design: Entering Hibernian Hall in Boston’s Nubian…
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Theater Review: MAGIC PEARL (Pinwheel at the Puppet Showplace Theater in Brookline, MA)
A MAGIC AFTERNOON Beautiful music (Christopher Vu, composer; Bo Jones (Lee) flute; Thomas Barth, cello, and Michael Weinfeld-Zell, percussion) and richly colored projected visuals gave a sold-out and extremely intergenerational audience a magical experience. Pinwheel, an ensemble of classically trained musicians and puppet artists, presented Magic Pearl, an adaptation by Veronica Barron, Max Gaylord, and Jones…
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Extras / Theater: FIVE DAYS OF BROADWAY CAMP (Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa)
BROADWAY SUMMER CAMP IS COMING June 19–23 | Students ages 11–13June 26–30 | Students ages 14–19 As a participant in Segerstrom Center for the Arts’ Five Days of Broadway camp, students of all experience levels from ages 11-19 are coached in musical…
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Theater Review: BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA (Moxie Theatre in San Diego)
ANOTHER FEATHER IN MOXIE’S CAP Playwright Anna Ouyang Moench uses the setting of a wooded area — beautifully designed at MOXIE Theatre by Robin Sanford Roberts — as the backdrop of this beautiful family drama. The father, John (Mike Sears), is just about equally bound to his liberal and earth-loving principles, his love of bird-watching,…
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Theater Review: RIDE THE CYCLONE (Chance Theater)
WHAT A RIDE! NOTHING GOES OFF THE RAILS IN THIS CALIFORNIA PREMIERE Ride the Cyclone is a 2008 musical by Canadians Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell. Originally written as a song cycle for the Atomic Vaudeville Theatre Company, it was retooled for its 2015 critically lauded US premiere at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Since then, the…
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Theater Review: EL HURACíN (Cygnet in San Diego)
A STORM IS BREWING IN THIS FAMILY Perhaps the two most chilling words that can be uttered in a family are “Alzheimer’s” and “dementia.” Physical pain, as horrible as it may be, is something we can relate to and try to bear together, but slowly losing one’s memories, faculties, and function is hell and heartbreaking…
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Highly Recommended Music: CAMERATA PACIFICA (Feb. 12-17, Ventura, Pasadena, DTLA & Santa Barbara)
Camerata Pacifica is far and away the most programmatically original chamber outfit I know. In addition, the quality of the players is stunning (see my review of a program earlier this season). Based in Santa Barbara, CP performs a monthly series of concerts in Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Marino (at the Huntington), and DTLA’s Zipper…
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Highly Recommended Theater: MEAN GIRLS (National Tour at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, March 7-19)
Direct from Broadway, MEAN GIRLS is the hilarious hit musical from book writer TINA FEY (30 Rock), composer JEFF RICHMOND (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), lyricist NELL BENJAMIN (Legally Blonde) and director CASEY NICHOLAW (The Book of Mormon). The story of a naïve newbie who falls prey to a trio of lionized frenemies is a “thoroughly enjoyable musical, as…
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Theater Review: BLUES IN THE NIGHT (North Coast Rep in Solana Beach / San Diego)
NO ONE’S WEEPING ABOUT THESE GREAT BLUES Everything comes out in blues music: joy , pain , struggle. Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance. – Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis The blues is a style of music, created in the early 1900s in the deep South. Not surprisingly, The origins of the blues are poorly documented. According…
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Theater Review: THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE (Wildsong at OB Playhouse)
SPELL “DELIGHTFUL” “D-E-L-I-G-H-T-F-U-L” — DELIGHTFUL! OB Playhouse used to do all of their own productions, but nowadays it is primarily a rental space. When I saw that The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was going to play there, I wondered if it would be from OBP’s most frequent renter, Wildsong Productions. After all, Wildsong…
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Theater Review: THE ART OF BURNING (Huntington Theatre, Boston)
THE ART OF BURNING WITH RAGE Fast-paced and gripping, laced at times with humor, The Art of Burning opens with an ominous threat: “Sometimes you have to kill the things you love to save them,” Patricia (Adrianne Krstansky) announces, putting the audience on alert. The ominous implications of this statement build when we hear Patricia…
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Pre-Broadway: A WONDERFUL WORLD, THE LIFE AND LOVES OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG / A New Musical (New Orleans & Chicago)
LOUIS ARMSTRONG MUSICAL HEADED FOR BROADWAY AFTER NEW ORLEANS & CHICAGO It has been announced that A Wonderful World, A New Musical about the Life and Loves of Louis Armstrong will play a pre-Broadway engagement in New Orleans and Chicago this fall with James Monroe Iglehart (Aladdin) starring as Armstrong. Mirroring Armstrong’s own musical path from New Orleans…
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Theater Review: GREASE (La Mirada Theatre)
GET READY TO BE GREASED UP The year is 1959, when rock and roll was giving birth to the Sexual Revolution and the turbulent 1960s were about to burst on the scene. Record companies were releasing over a hundred singles every week and the country was about to radically change. In its original raunchy incarnation,…
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Theater Review: HEAR HER SING FOR FREEDOM (Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge, MA)
THIS FREEDOM RINGS In a weekend of numerous uplifting events celebrating the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Hear Her Sing for Freedom stood out for bringing forward the life and role of Coretta Scott King, who married Dr. King in 1953. Coretta Scott was a serious vocalist and political…
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