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Theater Review: MY LIFE AS A COWBOY (North American Premiere at Open Space Arts)
“A teasin’ squeezin’ pleasin’ kinda time.” — Shania Twain As drama goes, you can’t get more low stakes than the driving event of Hugo Timbrell’s My Life as A Cowboy, now playing at the tiny Open Space Arts theater in Uptown, and extended to March. Conor, a seventeen-year-old gay man in Croydon, a dreary suburb…
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Theater Review: MY SON THE PLAYWRIGHT (Rogue Machine)
TWO MONOLOGUES IN SEARCH OF A DIALOGUE Justin Tanner has spent decades making chaos look easy. Those early Cast Theatre productions like Pot Mom and Zombie Attack trafficked in a particular brand of Los Angeles mayhem — high energy and unruly and knowing. With My Son the Playwright, now receiving its world premiere at Rogue…
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Theater Review: CAMP MORNING WOOD (Prism Theater in Palm Springs)
PALM SPRINGS DISPATCH FROM HEADAH HOPPER Your faithful correspondent in the desert My dear reader, If you are planning a visit to Palm Springs and think your evenings will be limited to early dinners, tasteful cocktails, and discussions of real estate values, allow me — helpfully, lovingly — to redirect you. You are going to…
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Theater Review: THE IRISH … AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY (Porchlight Music Theatre)
This oral history of the Irish-American journey soars when it sings A history lesson masquerading as a jukebox musical, The Irish … and How They Got That Way is the creation of Pulitzer winner Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes) who wrote the book, and wove in a selection of standards spanning centuries old folk music from…
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Theater Review: CONFEDERATES (Redtwist Theatre)
HISTORY IN DIALOGUE WITH ITSELF Dominique Morisseau’s time-splitting drama refuses easy parallels On paper, Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates might read as high concept: two Black women in different eras confront institutionalized racism. It’s tempting to see the stories as straightforward parallels, especially since the same actors play supporting roles in both narratives, but this fiercely intelligent…
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Theater Review: DESCRIBE THE NIGHT (Austin Playhouse West Campus)
HISTORY, POWER, AND WHO GETS TO DECIDE Rajiv Joseph’s epic drama offers no comfort—only urgent questions For those seeking entertainment as a refuge from the nightmare of our current political moment, Describe the Night offers no such sanctuary. Spanning ninety years and shifting between 1920, 1937, 1940, 1989, and 2010, playwright Rajiv Joseph traverses Poland,…
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Chicago Opera Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE (Lyric Opera)
COSÌ FANTASTIC This was my third time seeing Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte. The second was Lyric’s 2018 production. While I was concerned about the three-and-a-half-hour runtime on a Sunday afternoon, I need not have worried. I had an absolute blast! The cast was outstanding, both as to their gorgeous singing and their laugh out loud…
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Theater Review: RISING WATER (Theatre L’Acadie)
RISING WATER CAN’T FIND ITS CURRENT A powerful premise sinks under miscasting and flat pacing John Biguenet’s Rising Water, a Pulitzer-nominated drama set in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, unfolds over a single night as a long-married New Orleans couple watches floodwater swallow their home. It’s an intimate survival story designed to ratchet tension…
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Theater Review: HOW SHAKESPEARE SAVED MY LIFE (Berkeley Repertory Theatre)
SHAKESPEARE AS LIFELINE Jacob Ming-Trent turns the Bard into a blazing solo tour de force at Berkeley Rep We are all on our personal journeys of living and being in the world. Everyone encounters setbacks, roadblocks, and moments of doubt. How does one persevere when life feels uncertain? In the 21st century, we have become…
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Theater Review: STEREOPHONIC (National Tour, CIBC Theatre Chicago)
THEATER IN STEREOPHONIC A terrific docudrama about artistic temperament and the torment of creation David Adjmi’s Stereophonic, now playing at the CIBC, is an unusual piece of theater. It’s not about learning any life lessons, or coming to terms with things, and with one notable exception, none of the characters have a growth arc; further,…
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Off-Broadway Review: ULYSSES (Elevator Repair Service at The Public Theater)
JOYCE’S ODYSSEY ON STAGE Elevator Repair Service turns the impossible into a joyous theatrical sprint Beloved, despised, or abandoned halfway through by most readers, Joyce’s Ulysses is one of those books you know or have heard of. Published after the carnage of World War I, when the world felt confusing and utterly broken, this novel…
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Theater Review: PUNISH ME: A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER (Hudson Backstage Theatre)
A SELF-INFLICTED WOUND POSING AS THEATER. SAFE WORD: CURTAIN An erotic psychological thriller script without the erotic, psychology, thrill, or script Dear Gay Theater-makers, I am writing today to encourage you to see the terrible new play Punish Me, by triple-threat writer-producer-actor Michael Dukakis, currently renting space at the Hudson Backstage Theatre. Do I recommend…
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Theater Preview: CREATIVE STAGE SPECTACULAR 2026 (Creative Stage Collective, Symphony Space)
AN INTERGENERATIONAL, SENSATIONAL THEATRE GROUP Creative Stage Collective’s annual revue proves that age is irrelevant when imagination leads To get to their Sunday rehearsals, the many members of Creative Stage Collective are real troopers, traipsing and trudging through snow falling—and lingering—in unpleasant temperatures dipping below freezing and staying there. After all, these dedicated kids, teens,…
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Theater Review: SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (La Mirada Theatre)
SWEENEY TODD SLICES DEEP — EVEN WITH A FEW MISSTEPS Jason Alexander’s ambitious concept does not blunt the impact of a blisteringly performed revival McCoy Rigby Entertainment has been doing solid work for decades, but they have outdone themselves with their new production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, now playing in…
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Theater Review: LAUGHTER ON THE 23RD FLOOR (Desert Theatreworks in Indio)
COMEDY UNDER PRESSURE A writers’ room in early television on deadline, and a production that hits every punchline Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor fictionalizes the writers’ room behind Your Show of Shows, the groundbreaking live television comedy that starred Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca and ran on NBC in the early 1950s. At…
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Theater Review: AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (Zach Theater)
A FAMOUS TRAIN, A FROZEN LANDSCAPE, AND A CASE OF MURDER: A NIFTY CHRISTIE MYSTERY A stylish, fast-moving production that entertains but skirts Christie’s moral depth Is it an ill omen that my first two reviews for Stage and Cinema concern Hercule Poirot? Have I found my niche as a murder-mystery critic? It’s an intriguing…
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Theater Review: POETRY FOR THE PEOPLE: THE JUNE JORDAN EXPERIENCE (Fountain Theatre)
POETRY AS ACTIVISM, MEMORY, AND INVITATION A moving, participatory tribute to June Jordan that insists poetry still matters June Jordan was a seminal feminist poet and essayist who—beyond gender—tackled issues of race, sexual identity, and political activism. She believed that the truest means of understanding the challenges these forces posed to American society, and of…
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Theater Review: JOB (SpeakEasy Stage Company)
A PRESSURE COOKER OF A PRODUCTION A thriller that examines the effects of social media Josephine Moshiri Elwood (Jane) and Dennis Trainor Jr. (Loyd) pull out all the stops in Job, an 80-minute intermission-free exploration of the effects of social media on those who produce it and those who consume it. Jane has been sent…
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Theater Review: AGAINST ALL ODDS: COINCIDENCE, CHAOS, AND EVERYDAY MIRACLES (Stephanie Feury)
MY WINNER WITH LAWRENCE As part of the 30 Minutes or Less Festival presented by Matthew V. Quinn and Bertha Rodriguez at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre in Hollywood, writer-performer Lawrence Meyers manages to fill every nanosecond on stage with his Against All Odds: Coincidence, Chaos, and Everyday Miracles. Clever and witty to a fault,…
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Theater Review: GILDED SPINDLE (Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre)
ZANDER RAPHAEL SPINS PUPPETRY INTO GOLD Gilded Spindle offers Shannon L. Reagan’s retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin tale with a slight #MeToo twist. While the talents and artistry of Reagan, the Wyndwolf Players and Wyndwolf Puppets are present on the stage of the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre, the roughness of the production itself is unable to…
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