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Theater Review: HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD (National Tour at Hollywood Pantages Theatre)
WE’RE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARDS (AGAIN) The line between fan fiction and canon can be a blurry one. In a world where Twilight fan fiction inspired the best-selling book of the last decade and a Wizard of Oz flip became one of last year’s most prolific movies, it’s clear that capitalizing on existing IP…
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Theater Review: THE PROM (San Diego Musical Theatre
MUSICAL ROM-COM PROM IS DA BOMB! Oh, the high school prom! Has any event, short of one’s wedding perhaps, ever been given more stress-inducing over-attention? Who to bring, what to wear, how to get there, corsages, after-parties, and more—it’s amazing it ever goes well. So, what a great setting for a play where the main…
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Theater Review: JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING (SpeakEasy Stage Company at Calderwood Pavilion in Boston)
BRAIDED LIVES Director Summer L. Williams brings a uplifting and inspiring production of up-and-coming playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s Tony-nominated Jaja’s African Hair Braiding to the SpeakEasy Stage. An ensemble cast of ten portrays seventeen roles, with the five women who work in the hair braiding salon at the center of the action. Dru Sky Berrian, MarHadoo…
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Theater Review: TASTY LITTLE RABBIT (Moving Arts)
THE TRUTH IS RARELY PURE, AND NEVER SAFE, IN TASTY LITTLE RABBIT There is a tender brutality in the way Robert Mammana shatters a glass plate negative under his heel in Moving Arts’ aching new production of Tom Jacobson’s Tasty Little Rabbit. It happens early. The crack is too small to be mythic, too large to ignore….
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Theater Review: THE SHARK IS BROKEN (North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA)
THREE MEN IN A BOAT Playwrights Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon provide a gratifying change from the too-frequent, obviously profit-driven movie-to-musical adaptations that litter so many stages today with this clever portrayal of the behind-the-scenes experiences of the three principals in Jaws, one of the biggest commercial successes in film-making history and a source of…
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Theater Review: CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY (Aurora Theatre in Berkeley)
The pleasure lies not in the cookies, but in the pattern the crumbs make when the cookies crumble. ~ Michael Korda Playwright Lynn Nottage is a national treasure—a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for drama, and among the very best storytellers in mining nuance from ordinary circumstances and historical facts. Her heart-rending Intimate Apparel and Sweat…
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Theater Review: SHAMELESS HUSSY (Marsh San Francisco)
SHAMELESS AND SUBLIME: ANAÏS NIN COMES ALIVE AT THE MARSH Anaïs Nin (1903–1977), the French-Cuban-American diarist, is best known as one of the original female writers of erotica. Starting at age 11, when she and her mother immigrated to the United States from Cuba, Nin began chronicling her life in her new country. Her diaries…
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Theater Review: SIMPLE MEXICAN PLEASURES (New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco)
New Conservatory Theatre is premiering Eric Reyes Loo’s family dramedy about life, breakups and soul searching: Simple Mexican Pleasures. The show opens with Eric (Alex Rodriguez) reeling from a break up with his boyfriend that he didn’t see coming. Eric is of Latino heritage and lives in Los Angeles. He decides the time is right…
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Theater Review: MEAN GIRLS (National Tour in Boston)
PREDATORS IN PINK Tina Fey (book), Jeff Richmond (music), and Nell Benjamin (lyrics) hit all the standard Broadway musical marks with Mean Girls, now in Boston as part of a national tour. It offers an impressive mix of dazzling choreography (Casey Nicholaw) and soaring voices from a young cast bursting with entertainment talent. Ironically, however,…
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Theater Review: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA)
Upon entering the Ark Theater, one is immediately transported to a grungy, offbeat club where Hedwig and her band, The Angry Inch, are about to take the stage. Richie Ouellette’s set design leans into the grit and rawness of the story — with dismembered mannequin body parts strewn about, it evokes a world held together…
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Theater Review: KAIROS (Red Theater in Chicago)
Red Theater’s Kairos Makes Us Look at Time and Life from an Unexpected Perspective Chance encounters rarely end this interestingly. In Lisa Sanaye Dring’s new play Kairos—premiering now at The Edge Off Broadway by Red Theater—a run-of-the -mill fender bender leads to love and the opportunity to attain immortality. The latter prospect raises a myriad…
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Theater Reviews: OTHER DESERT CITIES (Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond and Lucky Penny in Napa)
A TALE OF TWO CITIES Theater is all about storytelling, and stories don’t come any better crafted than Jon Robin Baitz’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated Other Desert Cities. The SF Bay Area is enjoying two simultaneous presentations of this compelling family drama—one directed by Dana Nelson-Isaacs at Napa’s Lucky Penny Productions through May 4, and the other…
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Theater Review: BAD BOOKS (Round House Theatre)
BAD BOOKS IS GOOD NEWS Nothing beats the thrill of watching great performers bring a playscript to life, moment to moment, right before your eyes, sharing their space as they breathe the same air you are breathing into their lines. The good news is that Bad Books at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, MD, is fueled…
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Theater Review: LEGALLY BLONDE THE MUSICAL (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts)
REASONABLE DOUBT? NOT ABOUT LEGALLY BLONDE‘S PINK POWER Let’s get one thing straight. Legally Blonde: The Musical is not highbrow theater. It is not Sweeney Todd with meat pies and too-close shaves. It is not The Light in the Piazza with yearning strings and emotionally repressed tourists. This show is pink, peppy, and rides a…
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Theater Review: FOSTERED (Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice)
PILLOW FIGHTS, PLOT TWISTS AND PARENTAL PANIC If you like your family comedies with a hearty dose of mayhem, secrets, slapstick humor, and the occasional gymnastic leap off a sofa, Fostered at Pacific Resident Theatre delivers the goods. Written by Chaya Doswell and directed by Andrew D. Weyman, Fostered is a lively world premiere that plays…
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Theater Review: THE SPITFIRE GRILL (Umbrella Stage Company in Concord, MA)
SOMETHING TASTY AT UMBRELLA STAGE Leo Tolstoy said there were only two stories in the world—either someone goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. The Umbrella Stage Company’s musical Spitfire Grill, a celebration of community, redemption, and Americana by James Valcq and Fred Alley, is very much the latter. It’s a production…
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Theater Review: FURLOUGH’S PARADISE (Geffen Playhouse)
When There’s A Second Knock On The Door: Love and Lockup in Furlough’s Paradise In Furlough’s Paradise, a. k. payne has crafted something that moves like a whisper but hits like a reckoning. Now in its West Coast premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, this 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winning one-act plants two women in a…
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Theater Review: THE EMPLOYEES (A Performance-Installation by Łukasz Twarkowski at NYU Skirball)
HUMANS, BEST BE ON YOUR AVANT-GARDE The Employees, originally produced at Studio Teatrgaleria in Warsaw, is a visionary performance and installation work by Polish-born artist, writer and director Łukasz Twarkowski, who masterfully blends theater, visual art, and cinema. Tonight’s North American premiere, playing through Saturday at NYU Skirball—unfolds across the vast expanse of the stage,…
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Theater Review: OTHER DESERT CITIES (CV Rep)
A Stunning Dissection of Family, Politics, and the Conservative Mythos CV Rep’s Other Desert Cities is nothing short of revelatory. John Robin Baitz’s lacerating family drama, set in a chic Palm Springs home but echoing across decades of American political history, finds fresh fire in this masterful production directed by Philip Wm McKinley. Gorgeously acted…
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Theater Review: SUGAR (Fresh Ink at Boston Center for the Arts)
A BITTER TRUTH WRAPPED IN A SWEET TITLE Fresh Ink’s absorbing production of Sugar, by playwright Tara Moses, is anything but saccharine. Under the sure direction of Audrey Seraphin, Sugar is deeply satisfying. At the center is Brooke (a forceful Tiffany Santiago), a woman juggling three jobs and still unable to pay her bills or…
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