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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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Theater Review: LIZARD BOY (SpeakEasy Stage)
GREEN SCALES AND SHAM I generally count on SpeakEasy Stage for stellar productions of innovative and ground-breaking plays and musicals. But that history, along with fine performances and charming musicianship from Keiji Ishiguri as Lizard Boy Trevor, Peter DiMaggio as his friend Cary, and Chelsie Nectow as Siren are not enough to rescue this production…
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Highly Recommended Event: THE 2025 3ARTS AWARDS CELEBRATION (Harris Theater)
CELEBRATING THE INDESPENSIBILITY OF CHICAGO’S CREATIVES Glowing cultural vibrancy and great world cities are so often intertwined they are effectively one. Scan the globe and nearly every city that enjoys high international prestige harbors a rich, and often dazzling, arts community. Whether it’s Paris, Cape Town, Mexico City, Lisbon, London or Hanoi, the arts explode…
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Theater Review: THE WILD DUCK (Shakespeare Theater Company in D.C.)
FOWL PLAY: WHEN THE TRUTH TAKES AIM IN THE WILD DUCK Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, now at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre (in a co-production with Theatre for a New Audience), is an excellent, superbly acted rendering of one of his rarely produced tragedies — a work as cynical and heavy-handed as it is…
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Broadway Review: LIBERATION (James Earl Jones Theatre)
A TIME WARP TO THE 1970s WOMEN’S MOVEMENT, REFRACTED THROUGH 2025 EYES STILL SQUINTING TOWARDS EQUALITY “Why does it feel somehow like it’s all slipping away? And how do we get it back?” Susannah Flood That’s one of the questions posed about the condition of gender equality in 2025 America at the start of Liberation,…
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Opera Review: EURIDICE (Haymarket Opera and The Newberry Consort in Chicago)
THE FIRST OPERA GETS NEW LIFE FROM HAYMARKET AND NEWBERRY CONSORT The origins of opera are somewhat obscure and not well-known. Haymarket Opera and The Newberry Consort, two of Chicago’s finest early music ensembles, aim to change that with this delightful concert performance of the first surviving opera. Written and performed for the marriage of…
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Theater Review: HELLO, DOLLY! (Musical Theatre West in Long Beach)
SWEET, CHARMING, AND BRIMMING WITH LIFE, HELLO, DOLLY! IS MUSICAL COMEDY HEAVEN It’s always extraordinary to hear a live orchestra in a musical these days — a rare and exhilarating luxury that immediately elevates the experience. Under the crisp and buoyant baton of Dennis Castellano, Musical Theatre West’s Hello, Dolly! fills the Carpenter Performing Arts…
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Theater Review: EVIL DEAD THE MUSICAL (Revolution Stage Company in Palm Springs)
BLOOD AND GORE HAVE NEVER BEEN SO MUCH FUN – OR TUNEFUL This Halloween season has seemed to be unusually focused on horror movies so it came as a welcome relief for Revolution Stages to produce Evil Dead The Musical, a side-splitting parody of the Evil Dead movie franchise. Five college students – Ash (Julian…
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Theater Review: JEKYLL & HYDE (Kokandy Productions)
TOWERING TALENT ELEVATES A MUSICAL AS SCHIZOPHRENIC AS JEKYLL & HYDE THEMSELVES Next up for Halloween, and my second gothic horror in as many days, is Kokandy Productions’ presentation of the musical, Jekyll & Hyde, first produced in 1990 with music by Frank Wildhorn, book by Leslie Bricusse, and lyrics by Wildhorn, Bricusse, and Steve…
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