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Theater
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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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Broadway Review: STRANGER THINGS: THE FIRST SHADOW (Marquis Theatre)
SPECTACULAR. COMPLICATED. FUN. OVERLONG. DESTINIED TO BE A CULT CLASSIC. STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED. Having never seen the enormously popular Netflix series Stranger Things, I no doubt missed many references to the source material in the new Broadway prequel, Stranger Things: The First Shadow. But even if I had been a Stranger Things aficionado, the show would have…
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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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Theater Review: TWO TRAINS RUNNING (The Acting Company at American Conservatory Theater)
August Wilson’s Two Trains Running takes place in 1969 in the working-class Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Now on at American Conservatory Theater, it’s part of Wilson’s famous “Pittsburgh Cycle,” his series of ten plays that depict African-American life across different decades. His best-known work, Fences, portrayed the 1950s and premiered on stage in 1985…
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Theater Review: I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE (Sonoma Arts Live)
LOVE AND CHANGE, SONOMA STYLE Dating and mating get fully examined and fully skewered in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change at Sonoma Arts Live in downtown Sonoma, through May 4. Ably helmed by North Bay veteran Carl Jordan in Andrews Hall at the Sonoma Community Center, the production is a series of musical…
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Theater Review: THE BOOK OF GRACE (Steppenwolf Theatre)
JUDGING THE BOOK OF GRACE BY ITS (VERY IMPRESSIVE) COVER The Chicago Premiere of The Book of Grace at Steppenwolf Theatre is an expertly executed production of an underwhelming family drama. I’m a long-time fan of Steppenwolf, and every aspect of this production demonstrated the artistic excellence that I’ve come to expect, but the play…
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Theater Review: ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (Palm Canyon Theatre)
THE INMATES ARE EASY TO LIKE IN PALM CANYON’S CUCKOO’S NEST Upon entering Palm Canyon Theatre, one first sees the onstage set for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Designer J. W. Layne has created a very naturalistic dayroom of a mental hospital. Especially effective are ceiling beams which extend almost to the front row…
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Theater Review: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (Nocturne Theatre)
HORRORS IN THE ROUND Little Shop of Horrors, based on the 1960 science-fiction film by Roger Corman, opened off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre in Manhattan’s East Village on July 27, 1982. The production, directed by lyricist Howard Ashman, was so popular that David Geffen and team swooped in to buy the rights. The music, composed by…
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Theater Review: PERIL IN THE ALPS (Agatha Christie World Premiere by Steven Dietz at North Coast Rep)
SWEETLY PLAYFUL TREATMENT OF A COMPLICATED PLOT The prolific author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was the creator of 66 novels, 14 volumes of short stories and 20 plays, ten of which have been published. Half of her novels involved a quirky, fussy little Belgian private detective named Hercule Poirot solving mysteries of murder. Ironically, Christie hated…
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Theater Review: IT’S TRUE, IT’S TRUE, IT’S TRUE (Marin Theatre in Mill Valley)
FALSE WITNESS HAS NOT CHANGED An ear-splitting blast from a punk-rock band opens this thought-provoking glimpse into an ancient event. Playwrights Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett pieced together actual court manuscripts from a 1612 Roman trial of rape, adding contemporary dialogue and raucous music to intensify the content. Maggie Mason, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro, Alicia M….
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