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Theater Review: THE GOODBYE GIRL (Musical Theatre Guild at the Alex Theatre in Glendale)
HELLO TO GOODBYE The Musical Theatre Guild should be proud of this fine, coherent, splendidly cast reading of The Goodbye Girl, with principals Wendy Rosoff and Will Collyer charismatically suited to their characters, in great voice, and as a couple, exuding all the essential romantic chemistry. After a mere twenty-five hours rehearsal, and with only…
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Theater Review: EIGHT NIGHTS (Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale)
OY VEY A barrage of human suffering — anti-Semitism, racism, anti-Muslim hostility, misogyny, LGBT closets, slavery, Japanese-American internment camps, miscarriages, PTSD, death, and a literal onstage kitchen sink — are given the holiday treatment in Jennifer Maisel’s Hanukkah-inspired Eight Nights. Highlighting eight not-so-festive nights over eight decades in the life of Holocaust survivor Rebecca Blum,…
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Theater Review: PACKING (About Face Theatre at Theater Wit in Chicago)
PICKED, PECKED, AND PACKED Some solo shows can be valued simply for their superb simulations of someone else’s story. Others succeed because we pay extra special attention when the chronicler actually experienced what they’re sharing. Packing, an About Face Theatre world premiere by and from Chicago theater artist Scott Bradley, has the best of both…
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Theater Review: MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET: A LIVE MUSICAL RADIO PLAY (Actors Co-op in Hollywood)
MIRACLE ON NORTH GOWER STREET If you’re in need of a miracle, look no further than the Los Angeles premiere of Lance Arthur Smith‘s new adaptation of Miracle on 34th Street: A Live Musical Radio Play presented by Actors Co-op at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. Based on the Lux Radio Theatre broadcast and…
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Theater Review: BIG RIVER: THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (Rubicon Theatre in Ventura)
THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI JUST GOT MIGHTIER Do whatever you can. Take a raft, pretend you’re a duke, toss pig blood around your lean-to so everyone thinks you’re dead, but get to Rubicon Theatre in Ventura for what is easily the most satisfying and uplifting musical experience in recent memory. In Big River, adapted from the…
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Theater Review: HOODOO LOVE (Raven Theatre in Chicago)
A SHOW THAT CASTS A SPELL Whether it really works or it’s just self-fulfilling wishful thinking, magic can misfire. Detailing a downhome tragedy set in Memphis during the Depression, Hoodoo Love, Katori Hall’s 2007 musical drama tells a sad and simple story of thwarted and twisted passion so strong it needs the blues to chronicle…
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Theater Review: THE LAST FIVE YEARS (Cygnet Theatre Company in San Diego)
TWO WAY STREET INTERSECTS AT TOUCHING PERSONAL DRAMA The Last Five Years shares the joys, trials, and failures of two people, Jamie (Michael Louis Cusimano) and Cathy (Racquel Williams), in their deeply-loving relationship. At first, it might seem like they are in two different relationships, almost schizophrenically so, because the songs they sing (and virtually…
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Theater Review: THE OTHER CINDERELLA (Black Ensemble Theater in Chicago)
IT WOULD BE A CIN TO MISS THIS Forty-three years ago, the Black Ensemble Theater produced their first and most definitive musical, a promissory note that’s been richly redeemed over five decades. Just as The Wiz opened up a childhood classic to even more make-believe, in 1976 –and now–The Other Cinderella represented playful revisionism in action. Created, composed…
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Theater Review: THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP (Actors Co-op in Hollywood)
A PENNY DREADFUL SAVED ISN’T ALWAYS EARNED Back in the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in merry ole England. The working class was becoming more educated and printing was becoming more affordable. To quench the thirst of the masses for every day diversions, “penny dreadfuls” hit the scene. These serialized fictional publications,…
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Theater Review: LA VIE EN ROSE (Julia Migenes at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles)
A LIVING ROSE If you have even a modest love of French songs, or just the art of performance, of hearing and seeing a singer bring a lyric to vibrant life, do yourself a favor and go see this consummate artist in a sweet, masterful evening of Chanson. Julia Migenes is one of those rare…
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Theater Review: IN TROUSERS (Lounge Theatre)
GETTING IN TROUSERS William Finn’s musical masterpiece Falsettos is a melding of two one-acts: March of the Falsettos ’” debatably one of the best scores of the 1980s ’” which opened Off-Broadway in 1981, and Falsettoland, which opened in 1990 at the Lucille Lortel, where unprepared audience members like myself needed boxes of tissues to survive the…
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Theater Review: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
50 YEARS SINCE ITS BIRTH AND JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR FINALLY RISES AGAIN Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar is given the rock concert treatment for its 50th Anniversary Tour, and that’s precisely what it needs to soar. It’s a mash-up of stadium staging with lead actors holding microphones and stands, music video,…
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Theater Review: N (Greenhouse Theatre Center & GLP Productions in Chicago)
THE HURT OF HATE Dirty laundry demands an airing. Given the disunion afflicting our republic, a play like N (short for the “N word”) has healing to share. A provocative world premiere by Chicago writer David Alex at the Greenhouse Theater Center, this 100-minute character piece stirs up the sometimes static tale of an evolving relationship between…
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Theater Review: MIKE BIRBIGLIA’S THE NEW ONE (Tour at The Ahmanson in Los Angeles)
TOSSING OUT THE BABY BUT KEEPING THE BATHWATER Reluctance takes center stage in Center Theater Group’s production of Mike Birbiglia’s theatrical child The New One. In his 2018 one-man show, the comedian confesses to cold feet at his wife’s suggestion of having a child. That aversion to risk unfortunately finds its way to Birbiglia’s script,…
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Theater Review: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (Invictus Theatre Co. in Chicago)
HATE CRIMES ROCK A SUBVERSIVE COMEDY This show can never be nice: Along with The Taming of the Shrew, a comedy built squarely on misogyny, The Merchant of Venice, a tragicomedy festering with anti-Semitism, remains the Bard’s most problematic play. But Shakespeare wrote it. Felt from all sides, there’s humanity to spare. Truth overcomes prejudice as an…
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Theater Review ONCE (3-D Theatricals in Cerritos)
ONCE AGAIN, PLEASE Ironically, the real-life love affair between collaborators Glen Hasard, an Irish singer-songwriter, and Markéta Irglová, a Czech songwriter, fizzled after John Carney’s 2007 film became a success (well, it’s not called Once for nothing). But the Tony-triumphant 2011 stage musical, now offered in 3-D Theatrical’s soaring, enchanting, and bittersweet yet uplifting production,…
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Theater Review: THE MUSIC MAN (5-Star Theatricals in Thousand Oaks)
IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER In 1994, 5-Star Theatricals (formerly Cabrillo Music Theatre) produced its first show: Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, which opened on Broadway in 1957 and became an instant hit. Now on their 25th anniversary, the show has returned to the Fred Kavli Theatre in Thousand Oaks and lightning has struck twice…
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Theater Review: THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (LA Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
PIAZZA EXPLODES LIKE TUSCAN SUNLIGHT From London’s Royal Festival Hall to L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion comes a rapturous new production of the Tony Award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza. Presented by LA Opera under the helm of Olivier Award-winning director Daniel Evans and conductor Kimberly Grigsby, Piazza is an exciting return to of one…
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Theater Review: SUNSET BOULEVARD (Porchlight Music Theatre at Ruth Page Center for the Arts)
UP CLOSE, SHE’S BIGGER THAN EVEN PEANUT BUTTER From the start it seemed strange that anyone would make a musical out of a movie that embodies its medium so completely. Yes, the film All About Eve deserved to become the musical Applause. Both were obsessed with the theater. But Billy Wilder’s consummately cinematic 1950 masterpiece was a cautionary…
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Theater Review: ANASTASIA (National Tour)
ON ANASTASIA, AMNESIA, AND ANESTHESIA First came the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, who was murdered in 1918 just after the Bolshevik Revolution, most likely by Vladimir Lenin’s secret police. Then came the rumors that she was still alive. Then came the imposters, keeping alive one of…
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