Regional

A SURE(GUN)FIRE HIT The team of Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow, the most famous robbing, murdering, loving couple in U.S. history, is as unlikely a subject for a musical as  Sweeney Todd. From their first meeting in West Texas through their tumultuous courtship and romance; from their brief, history-making crime spree to their fateful…

AN EARNEST HEART THAT SHAKES, THROBS, PALPITATES & FLATLINES For all of its sincere heart and driving rock ‘n’ roll, this new jukebox musical inspired by Huey Lewis and the News’s upbeat pop tunes — either original (“I Wanna New Drug”; “The Power of Love”) or covers (Curtis Mayfield’s “It’s Alright”) — remains earthbound. Surprisingly…

BETTER THAN BROADWAY SD Rep’s production of Fun Home is more intimate with more heart and fun Wise and warm, funny and tender, this 100-minute family memory-play musical charts the twisted courses of a self-shaming gay father’s suicide and the coming out of his self-affirming lesbian daughter. Based on Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic novel, this…

AND NOW, WITH FURTHER ADO… Not only is it one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, but  Much Ado About Nothing  contains a favorite character: Dogberry. This bumbling constable arrives much later in the play than the famous sparring couple Beatrice and Benedick, and adds an enormous amount of comic energy to a play that is already awash…

A STORY OF IMPORTANCE Unlike manipulative Broadway machines such as  Priscilla  and  Kinky Boots, which shove issues down our throats, the societal consequences for a homosexual in  A Man of No Importance  resonate more because the story follows a closeted man who compensates for his restrictive 1964 Dublin atmosphere by taking pride in other areas of his life — namely…

THE LEGEND THAT GOT AWAY No, this show isn’t how fans want to remember Judy Garland at the bittersweet end. End of the Rainbow, Peter Quilter’s sardonic salute to a star on the skids, is a sometimes-sadistic portrait of an imploding diva. A festering production at Laguna Playhouse, Quilter’s retro take on “Little Girl Blue”…

EVEN WHEN YOU’RE HAIR CAN’T HOLD UP, THIS MUSICAL CAN To say you like Hairspray really doesn’t cut it. Do you mean the 1988 John Waters film starring Devine and newcomer Ricki Lake? Or maybe you mean the 2003 Tony winner for “Best Musical,” which also yielded Harvey Fierstein a Tony for his role as…

THE GLOBE MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A WALK IN THE PARK Barefoot in the Park, Neil Simon’s second Broadway hit after Come Blow Your Horn, played a staggering 1,530 performances in its initial run, winning a Tony Award for director Mike Nichols. It’s somewhat inconceivable that a play this frothy, containing less pathos than Simon’s…

A FUNNY THING’S HAPPENING AT NORTH COAST REP Only in Ancient Rome! Pseudolus, the wise-cracking slave (Omri Schein), can earn his freedom if he can somehow get the pretty, bubble-headed virgin (Noelle Marion) staying next door to become the beloved of his twenty-something master, Hero (Chris M. Kauffmann). Alas, she is promised to uber-masculine Army…

FRIED, STEWED OR BROILED, THIS FISH WILL NEVER TASTE GOOD So here’s what baffles me: A show which is middling at best is suddenly showing up at regional, community and high school theaters with alarming regularity around the country. Well, maybe not so alarming. The show was, after all, on Broadway. Musical Theatre West in…

AN UPDATED BABY IS STILL CAPTIVATING THEATER For all its melodrama, Jane Anderson’s The Baby Dance has always been one of my favorite plays since I first saw it at Pasadena Playhouse in 1990. Revisiting the show again at Actors Co-op years later only cemented my sentiments. A poor couple living in a Louisiana trailer…