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Off-Broadway Review: GOTTA DANCE! (York Theatre)
GOTTA SEE THIS SHOW! ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ I’ve been a fan of American Dance Machine since I was a kid in the 1980s—a company devoted to restaging Broadway choreography with museum-level precision and theatrical verve. Part artifact, part history lesson, and wholly a celebratory toast to Broadway’s golden-age…
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Theater Obituary: TOM STOPPARD (1937–2025)
THE PLAYWRIGHT WHO CHOSE RADIO OVER JAWS Steven Spielberg had asked Tom Stoppard to write the screenplay for Jaws, and Tom said he couldn’t as he was writing a play for the BBC. Spielberg said, “I’m offering you a fortune to collaborate with me on a Hollywood blockbuster, and you turn me down to write…
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Theater Review: THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF THE NORTH POLE (Hell in a Handbag Productions)
A WIG-PULLING, EYE-SCRATCHING BAUBLE OF HOLIDAY CHEER ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ When The Real Housewives of Orange County premiered on Bravo in 2006, I doubt anyone could have predicted the “reality” television juggernaut it would become. Over the next nineteen years the franchise has launched ten series, and assorted…
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Theater Review: SWEENEY CLAUS: THE DEMON FATHER OF SLEET STREET (The Gold Dust Orphans)
MORE NAUGHTY THAN NICE, WITH PLENTY OF SPICE ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ As they have for the past thirty years, Ryan Landry’s Gold Dust Orphans honor the saturnalian origins of Christmas with a holiday burlesque. This time the target of the spoofing crew of shamelessly talented punsters, dancers, singers,…
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Theater Review: RAPORNZEL (Pride Arts)
COARSE, HAIRY FUN ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ The Christmas pantomime, or “panto”, as it is colloquially called, is a longstanding English holiday theatre entertainment that’s never made much inroads outside the Commonwealth, more’s the pity. Drawing on the commedia dell’arte tradition, they’re usually based on fairy tales and incorporate…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE SURGEON AND HER DAUGHTERS (Colt Coeur at Theatre 154)
A PLAY HELD TOGETHER BY BANDAGES: SCALPAL, PLEASE Colt Coeur’s world premiere of The Surgeon and Her Daughters, written by Chris Gabo, is a play of ideas—debates volleyed across generations, races, and cultures. Yet for all its verbal sparring, very little actually happens over the course of its two hours. It isn’t until the end…
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Theater Review: ANNIE (Palm Canyon Theatre)
SUNNY SIDE UP IN PALM SPRINGS A production that belts, dances, and tail-wags its way into the season ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Palm Canyon Theatre’s production of Annie delivers a sleigh-full of Christmas delights. All the elements of great musical theatre are here: talented performers, a terrific show and…
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Theater Review: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
MUCH ADO ABOUT ADO AND EVERY BIT WORTH THE FUSS ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Selina Cadell, is a reminder of what this company does best: Damn good Shakespeare that feels alive, precise, and joyously human. Deborah Hay as Beatrice Let’s…
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Theater Review: THE WAVERLY GALLERY (Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company in San Diego)
HER MIND, OUR MEMORY Kenneth Lonergan’s family fissures hit hard in Backyard Renaissance’s intimate staging What an incredibly robust month November has been for smaller theaters in San Diego: the fun of To My Girls at Diversionary; a gloriously intense one-woman performance in Beauty’s Daughter at OnWord; a delicious character study in Master Class at…
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Theater Review: HEISENBERG (Skylight Theatre)
A PRINCIPLED PRODUCTION Simon Stephens’ deceptively simple romance finally reveals its cosmic heart in close quarters at Skylight Theatre Director Cameron Watson delivers a remarkably authentic and poignant tale with his production of Heisenberg, a short play based on a rather unremarkable human relationship story. What is remarkable is that this intimate outing, which opened…
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Theater Review: EBENEZER SCROOGE’S BIG SAN DIEGO CHRISTMAS SHOW (The Old Globe)
SUN, SAND & SCROOGE, DICKENS IN THE GASLAMP The Old Globe is presenting Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, reshaping the classic short novel into a parody titled Ebenezer Scrooge’s BIG San Diego Christmas Show. The one-act play provides 80 minutes of jokes, wisecracks, quips, wit, and asides, dispensed at warp speed by a cast of…
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Off-Off-Broadway Review: DIRTY BOOKS (Bated Breath)
“TOWN OF NASTY” AND OTHER THINGS WE BLURT OUT FOR FREE SPEECH Immersive pulp fiction where the audience writes the filth The world premiere of Dirty Books is an immersive play written and directed by Mara Lieberman, which opened November 13 at Bated Breath Theater—a decidedly Off-Off-Broadway adventure. Part art installation, part scripted play, part…
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Theater Review: BEFORE I FORGET (World Premiere at The Marsh in San Francisco)
MISERY LOVES COMPANY — BUT WE DIDN’T BUY TICKETS FOR THAT A solo show so full of angst it forgets to entertain. I mean, there’s baring your soul… and then there’s burying the comedy Since 1989, The Marsh has hosted hundreds of performance artists launching their personal stories, usually through spoken word. The small stages…
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FROM THE ARCHIVES — Theater Review: JEWTOPIA (Greenway Court Theatre in West Hollywood)
DON’T JEW HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO? {From the Archives — Back in 2010, when Facebook was still fun and Broadway still flirted with stereotypes like they were going out of style (which they were), Stage and Cinema took a trip to Jewtopia. We survived to tell the tale — and we’re not even charging…
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Theater Review: SMOKEFALL (Wild Door Theater)
A FAMILY IN FLUX, A PLAY IN FREEFALL Wild Door’s debut digs deep into love and legacy, even when Haidle’s sprawling story gets in its own way Chicago’s robust theater community got even stronger several days ago when Wild Door Theater made its debut in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. By “embracing bold theatrical storytelling to…
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Theater Review: FUN HOME (The Huntington)
THE KEYS OF KNOWLEDGE What can I say about a show that offers one moment of delight after another while holding the anguish of parental narcissism, the joy of discovering one’s own identity, and the power of creative expression to transform grief? One thing I can say is this: anyone within commuting distance of downtown…
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Theater Review: BLOOD BROTHERS (Theater UnCorked, Boston Center for the Arts)
A TRAGEDY FORETOLD — AND STILL SHOCKING Blood Brothers exposes the cruel divide of class and destiny I walked into the BCA Plaza Theatre in the South End neighborhood of Boston — and left shaken. To start, the lights come up to reveal two bodies lying before me, so close I could reach out and…
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Theater Review: MOTHER OF EXILES (Berkeley Repertory)
MOTHER OF EXILES BAFFLES AT BERKELEY REP Jessica Huang’s world premiere Mother of Exiles has posted a closing date of December 21. The lengthy run may not be a blessing for a disjointed production said to have been in re-writes up to the night before the opener. Michele Selene Ang On a simple two-level set that takes advantage…
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Theater Review: PERIL IN THE ALPS (Austin Playhouse)
POIROT TRIES STANDUP — CAN HE FIND THE LAUGHS? Hercule Poirot, Belgium’s preeminent detective, makes a bold and comic appearance at Austin Playhouse in Steven Dietz’s Peril in the Alps, a follow-up to his Murder on the Links, both theatrical reimaginings drawn loosely from Poirot Investigates, Agatha Christie’s 1924 collection of short stories, and the…
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Theater Review: SPACEBRIDGE (ArtsEmerson)
A BRIDGE TO UNDERSTANDING There may have been, at some point in human history, an evolutionary advantage to sorting other people into “us” and “them.” But with modern weapons technology, whatever benefit that old reflex once offered has long vanished. Since the development of nuclear arms, in fact, that instinct to classify entire groups as…
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