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Highly Recommended Event: PALM SPRINGS PLAZA THEATRE COMMUNITY OPEN HOUSE
RAISING THE CURTAIN AGAIN Palm Springs Plaza Theatre celebrates its grand reopening with a free community open house After a two-year, multimillion-dollar restoration, the historic Palm Springs Plaza Theatre will reopen its doors with a free community open house and block party on Saturday, November 22, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Visitors can…
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Off-Broadway Review: MESSY WHITE GAYS (The Duke)
THE ONLY THING STRAIGHT IN THIS ROOM IS THE LINE TO THE CREDENZA Messy White Gays—which opened November 2 at Off-Broadway’s Duke on 42nd Street—is a contemporary drawing-room comedy, a modern spin on the comedy of manners, built on witty exchanges, social commentary, and the absurdities of its characters. Classic models include Oscar Wilde’s The…
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Theater Review: BESIDE MYSELF (Laguna Playhouse)
A GREAT PREMISE GETS LOBOTOMIZED Laguna Playhouse offers a dazzling wall of doors and not much behind them Paul Slade Smith’s new play Beside Myself arrives with a knockout premise: Gemma, a therapist, is so consumed by anxiety that she undergoes an experimental “minimally invasive” brain surgery to excise her worry. But near the end…
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Theater Review: THE BEAUTIFUL LAND I SEEK (LA LINDA TIERRA QUE BUSCO YO) (Teatro Chelsea)
GUNNING FOR PUERTO RICO Stephen Sondheim chose an unlikely topic for his 1990 Assassins, a musical that portrays assassinating or attempting to assassinate a president is as American as popular music. I can’t say whether or not playwright Matthew Barbot was inspired by Sondheim’s musical, but Barbot certainly fills a hole in Sondheim’s line-up of…
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Theater Review: THE HEART SELLERS (South Coast Rep)
THE QUIET COST OF BELONGING Suh’s Thanksgiving duet is lovely and lived-in, but leaves one wishing for deeper stakes The Heart Sellers at South Coast Rep offers a focused, uninterrupted glimpse into the lives of two strangers on Thanksgiving Day, 1973, near the end of Richard Nixon’s reign. The story begins with Luna (Nicole Javier),…
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Opera Review: HILDEGARD (World Premiere, LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects at The Wallis)
BEST BE ON YOUR HILDEGARD WATCHING THIS THING When approaching a work based on history, it’s expected that there will be some degree of fictionalization. Even though it won’t be completely true, the broad strokes will be, and you’ll leave having learned a tiny bit of something new. However, Hildegard, the dull new opera by…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE BURNING CAULDRON OF FIERY FIRE (Vineyard Theatre and The Civilians)
A SPELLBINDING CAULDRON BOILS OVER, SUMMONING THEATER’S WILD GODS Suffice it to say, there’s nothing else in New York quite like Anne Washburn’s new play The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire, now at the Vineyard Theatre in collaboration with The Civilians. For anyone bored by the constraints of realism and naturalism—and instead drawn to theater…
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Theater Review: THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND (Invictus Theatre Company)
THIS HOUSE STANDS ON FAITH AND FURY Invictus Theatre’s The House That Will Not Stand blazes with wit, grief, and grace Following the smashing success of its production of Angels in America, Invictus Theatre Co. notches up another triumph with Marcus Gardley’s Obie-winner, The House That Will Not Stand. In this (very) loose adaptation of…
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Theater Review: THE HILLS OF CALIFORNIA (Berkeley Repertory Theatre)
A FAMILY EPIC THAT EARNS ITS MILEAGE, SPRAWL AND ALL Family dynamics are always great fodder for drama. And when there are several children coming of age together in a household, it’s hard not to grow up with unspoken competitions for approval, success and love. More often than not at least one family member has…
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Off-Broadway Review: 44 – THE MUSICAL (Daryl Roth)
A LOVE LETTER TO THE OBAMAS THAT BRINGS THE WHITE HOUSE DOWN The biggest surprise of the season for me has been 44 – The Musical, which opened last night at the Daryl Roth Theatre. Billed as a satirical look at the rise and presidency of Barack Obama—and the eccentric characters he met along the…
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Theater Review: PINOCCHIO (The Conservatory at Coachella Valley Repertory in Cathedral City)
WOOD YOU BELIEVE IT? CV REP’S PINOCCHIO CARVES OUT A WINNER The Conservatory program at Coachella Valley Repertory opens its arms wide to the next generation of theatre lovers with Pinocchio, Greg Banks’s zippy retelling of the wooden boy who just wants to be real. Director Howard Shangraw packs Banks’s fast-paced adaptation with physical comedy,…
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Off-Broadway Review: REUNIONS (New York City Center)
NOSTALGIA IN THE SPOTLIGHT, MODERNITY IN THE WINGS At a time when most new musicals chase novelty, Reunions looks lovingly backward. Conceived as a pair of one-act chamber pieces performed back-to-back without intermission, the evening runs about an hour and forty minutes and draws its stories from early-20th-century plays. Both feel distinctly old-fashioned (but, in…
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Theater / Restaurant Review: POP UP DINNER THEATER (Barlume Downstairs)
POP-UP, FLOP-DOWN: WHEN DINNER UPSTAGES THE THEATER The foundational idea of Suite 524’s Pop Up Dinner Theater at Barlume Downstairs is solid — four courses from Barlume’s excellent kitchen matched with four one-act plays created for this venue, directed by Michael Domitrovich. The first play is set in the bar, where hors d’oeuvres are served, and…
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Theater Review: PETER PAN GOES WRONG (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts)
SECOND STAR TO THE RIGHT—AND STRAIGHT INTO HILARIOUS DISASTER The La Mirada Theatre’s Broadway Series takes a gleeful nosedive into chaos with Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Mischief Theatre’s follow-up to The Play That Goes Wrong. Directed with buoyant precision by Eric Petersen, this meta-farce turns every technical blunder and mistimed cue into artful slapstick that…
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Theater Review: THE PILON (Red Theater in Chicago)
PLAYING THE CARDS YOU’RE DEALT: THE PILON SHUFFLES LOVE, VALUE, AND IDENTITY Sometimes theater takes you places you never expected — or even wanted — to find yourself. For some, Red Theater’s latest production, The Pilon, might fall somewhere along that spectrum. Set in a contemporary Seattle shop that sells sports cards, nothing about it…
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Theater Review: PAPER WALLS (Broadwater Mainstage)
HONORING A FAMILY STUCK IN A HOLOCAUST NIGHTMARE Four actors, four moving walls, a wooden table and chairs, and historical projections combine into an extraordinary theatrical experience in the hands of director Darin Anthony, set and production designer Justin Huen, and projection designer Ben Rock who enhance the emotional impact of Paper Walls by Elliot…
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Opera Review: HANSEL AND GRETEL (Coachella Valley Classical Voices at Palm Canyon Theatre)
SHRINKING THE SCALE, NOT THE MAGIC Coachella Valley Classical Voices’ recent production of Hansel and Gretel, the beloved 1893 opera by Engelbert Humperdinck, ran this past weekend at Palm Canyon Theatre, which provided the space. The result was a fresh, intimate twist on the classic tale, a charming evening of music and storytelling, featuring a…
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Theater Review: TICK, TICK … BOOM! (Umbrella Stage Company in Concord, MA)
THINGS THAT GO BOOM AND JUST RIGHT It’s impossible to see a production of Jonathan Larson’s Tick, Tick … Boom! without seeing it as a precursor to his Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent. All the elements are there—aspiring creatives living in lower Manhattan squalor, the lethal creep of AIDS, anxiety about “selling out” and abandoning dreams….
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Off-Broadway Review: CIRQUE LE SWING (Immersive Supper Club Experience at Swing 46)
SWING ON IN! If you want to have the time of your life, you can’t do better than get a ticket for Cirque Le Swing, an immersive supper-club experience that combines a three-course dinner, jazz standards and acrobatics for an evening of sizzling entertainment. The audience arrives early for a Happy Hour at the bar….
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Off-Broadway Review: BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL (Encores! at New York City Center)
THIS BAT COMES OUT SWINGING Back in the nineties when tabloids ruled the world, there was one especially erroneous publication: Weekly World News. Presenting stories so outrageously false yet purported to be true, this particular rag was always good for a laugh. One such story that flew from their front page into a bemused pop…
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