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Theater Review: COME FROM AWAY (La Mirada Theatre)
A Town, a Tragedy, and the Triumph of Kindness The musical Come From Away — with book, music and lyrics by married couple Irene Sankoff and David Hein — tells the remarkable true story of the small town of Gander (population 9,000) in Newfoundland, Canada, about 1,500 miles from New York City. Nearly 25 years ago, in 2001,…
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Theater Review: A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE & MURDER (Laguna Playhouse)
MURDER NEVER SOUNDED SO SWEET The gentleman killer returns to Southern California with a smile that could polish the silver. In a joint run between Laguna Playhouse and North Coast Repertory, this A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder arrives in Laguna looking eager to please and blessedly well cast, though the gilding runs somewhat…
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Concert Review: RACHMANINOFF & SIBELIUS (Pacific Symphony | Ludovic Morlot, conductor | Alessio Bax, pianist)
PACIFIC SYMPHONY OPENS ITS 48TH SEASON WITH RUSSIAN SOUL AND FINNISH SPIRIT Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is one of the most beloved works in the piano repertoire. Composed between 1900 and 1901, it marked a turning point in Rachmaninoff’s career, emerging from a period of deep personal and creative…
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Concert Review: CANDLELIGHT: THE BEST OF JOE HISAISHI (Richard Nixon Library & Museum, Yorba Linda)
THE MINIATURIZATION OF MAGIC At the Candlelight concert in The Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, devoted to Joe Hisaishi‘s Studio Ghibli scores, I found myself contemplating the curious alchemy by which music transforms, or fails to transform, when moved from one context to another. The evening, presented by Fever in a ballroom (replicating the…
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Theater Review: GUYS AND DOLLS (Ogunquit Playhouse, Maine)
A WINNING ROLL OF THE DICE The musical theater classic Guys and Dolls has been produced so many times and in so many ways you might think it couldn’t get much better, but don’t bet on it. The odds are in the Ogunquit Playhouse’s favor, thanks to tight direction and eye-popping choreography from Al Blackstone….
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Dance Review: SWAN LAKE (Miami City Ballet)
NO MIST, NO MERCY, JUST SWAN LAKE Forget what you think Swan Lake is. Forget the gauzy tragedy, the white tutus, the endless fluttering. At Segerstrom Hall tonight, Miami City Ballet, under Alexei Ratmansky‘s choreography, has cracked open the windows. Something sharper moves through the air now. The story’s cruelty remains intact. It is a…
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Music Announcement and Commentary: ALEXANDER SHELLEY (Incoming Music Director of Pacific Symphony in Costa Mesa)
Alexander Shelley and the Turn No One Saw Coming at the Pacific Symphony When Carl St.Clair steps down, after thirty-four years of quietly shaping the Pacific Symphony, will most people notice? That’s not a dig. It’s just the reality of classical music in Southern California — always slightly off to the side, just out of…
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Concert Review: VERDI’S REQUIEM (Pacific Symphony)
St. Clair’s Swan Song: Pacific Symphony’s Volcanic Verdi’s Requiem Last night, the walls of the Segerstrom Concert Hall didn’t merely vibrate. They braced. Verdi’s Requiem opened not with reverence but with rupture. What followed wasn’t a farewell so much as a reckoning. Carl St. Clair’s final appearance as Pacific Symphony’s Music Director arrived wrapped in…
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Theater Review: LIFE OF PI (National Tour at Segerstrom Hall)
TIGERS, TRAUMA, AND THEATRICAL MAGIC: LIFE OF PI ROARS TO THE STAGE Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel’s story has found enormous commercial success — first in Yann Martel’s Booker Prize–winning novel, and then in Ang Lee’s visually stunning film adaptation. Now, in its national tour, Life of Pi makes an ambitious leap to the stage at…
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Theater Review: THE CHINESE LADY (Chance Theater)
Fractured Reflection: The Chinese Lady and the Cost of Being Seen She doesn’t enter. She appears—still as a painting, but alive, watching. In Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Lady, now haunting the Chance Theater with a whisper that lingers long after curtain, Afong Moy isn’t introduced. She’s arranged. Composed. A presence to be consumed. A figure…
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Theater Review: THE STAIRCASE (South Coast Rep)
MEMORY LOOPS AND ECHOES IN GARDNER’S THE STAIRCASE Rain doesn’t fall in The Staircase. It lingers, heavy and waiting. Like a secret no one asked to hear. Like a mother halfway between a lullaby and a memory she can’t put down. In the hands of Noa Gardner, this first-time playwright turns weather into something far…
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Theater Review: YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE END OF THE WORLD! (South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa)
END-OF-WORLD TRAGICOMEDY CRACKS, BLEEDS AND THRIVES The end arrives not with a sob, but with a drag queen in a glittering black pantsuit, standing in a celestial spotlight, grinning like they’re about to host the universe’s weirdest game show. Keiko Green’s You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! doesn’t so much begin…
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Dance Review: THE WINTER’S TALE (ABT at Segerstrom)
EXIT, PURSUED BY MOVEMENT THAT CUTS DEEP Jealousy doesn’t sneak in. It bursts. You can see it take hold of Leontes the second doubt flickers behind his eyes. His body folds in. Hands clutch at air. His spine locks. His stare slices across the room, scanning for proof that isn’t there. This isn’t some vague…
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Concert Review: ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA (Lahav Shani, conductor, at Segerstrom Concert Hall)
COMING HOME TO THE ISRAEL PHIL The Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) lives in my blood. Not metaphorically. This sentiment springs from actual circumstance—a birth story twined around orchestral strings like umbilical cord. On December 6, 1966—that annus mirabilis—my mother was in her 8th month with me in Tel Aviv’s main concert hall while the Israel…
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Concert Review: VIENNA PHILHARMONIC (Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Yefim Bronfman, pianist; Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa)
The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt. — Karl Kraus Of the world’s major orchestras, few are more traditional than the Vienna Philharmonic, which performed its first concert in 1842. It has had no music director for many years, another of its distinguishing features. The outcome is…
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Highly Recommended Concerts: VIENNA PHILHARMONIC (Carnegie Hall, Segerstrom and Zellerbach Hall)
WANT TO HEAR ONE OF THE GREATEST ORCHESTRAS THAT HAS EVER EXISTED? VIENNA PHILHARMONIC MAKES ONLY THREE U.S. APPEARANCES: COSTA MESA, BERKELEY & NEW YORK For California classical music lovers, a delight is in store. Vienna Philharmonic, one of the most renowned orchestras in the world, comes to Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley March 5-7, followed…
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Theater Review: ANNIE (2024/2025 NationalTour)
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE THE SUN DOESN’T COME OUT, SEE THIS NATIONAL TOUR OF ANNIE If the sun will come out tomorrow, somebody better tell this production. The national tour of Annie, playing at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts through February 23, is a two-and-a-half-hour exercise in endurance, proving that while…
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Dance Review: ALONZO KING LINES BALLET (“Mother Goose” and “Tribute to Alice Coltrane” at Segerstrom Hall)
Alonzo King LINES Ballet’s Double Bill of Ravel’s Mother Goose and King’s Tribute to Alice Coltrane presented a fascinating study of how two musical worlds—one rooted in French impressionism and the other in American jazz spirituality—can be bound together through movement. King’s choreography bridged these contrasting styles, creating an immersive experience of transformation. The evening…
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Theater Opening: BAD DOG (World Premiere, Miami New Drama)
A Bold & Hilarious New Play Exploring Art, Identity, and Power Miami New Drama in Miami Beach is presenting the world premiere of Bad Dog, a wildly entertaining and provocative play written by Harley Elias and directed by Miami New Drama’s Artistic Director, Michel Hausmann. The production will open at the historic Colony Theatre on…
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Theater Review: SHUCKED (National Tour)
A SHUCKING DELIGHT The Broadway tour of Shucked by Robert Horn will be cracking up audiences in Chicago’s CIBC Theatre through January 19th before it continues on its national tour. If you look too closely this corny little musical starts to wilt with an aimless protagonist and too many ballads for a lighthearted comedy, but…
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