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Theater Review: A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE MUSICAL (Los Altos Stage Company at Bus Barn Theater)
NOSTALGIC, SAPPY FUN If you’re in the mood for a night of campy humor with a Christmas-y theme, head to Bus Barn Theatre in Los Altos for its production of A Christmas Story: The Musical. This old chestnut of a story is based on the motion picture of the same name that came out in…
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Theater Review: CAT KID COMIC CLUB (Tour at Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City)
EVERYONE BELONGS IN THIS CLUB Last year at this time, I saw the family-friendly and totally entertaining Dog Man: The Musical, in which comic book hero Dog Man, with the head of a dog and the body of a policeman, does his best to save the city from Flippy the cyborg fish. And now Flippy…
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Theater Review: WAITRESS (San Francisco Playhouse)
IF THE HEAT IN AMERICA’S KITCHEN IS GETTING YOU DOWN, HEAD TO WAITRESS AT SF PLAYHOUSE San Francisco Playhouse has delivered an incredible gift for the winter holiday season: Waitress, Jessie Nelson’s stage adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s popular 2007 film of the same name, with a compelling rock score by singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles. The show…
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Theater Review: JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING (Berkeley Repertory Theatre)
WEAVING TOGETHER THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE With our post election blues, and immigration becoming a hot button issue again, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding sends a message of love, hope and family of choice at Berkeley Rep. Debuting on Broadway last year, this traveling show is making its West coast debut. Original director Whitney White is still…
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Theater Review: FALSETTOS (Court Theatre & Timeline Theatre)
AN INCREDIBLE SCORE; A FINE PRODUCTION; A FUNNY AND POIGNANT FRACTURED FAMILY PORTRAIT; WHY, THEN, DOES THIS REVIVAL NOT EMOTIONALLY RESONATE? Court Theatre and Timeline Theatre‘s joint production of the sung-through musical Falsettos offers a technically superb exploration of a family in flux during the cusp of the AIDS crisis with exceptional vocal talent and…
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Theater Review: NOISES OFF (Lyric Stage Boston)
NOISES OFF, LAUGHS ON Just in time for the holiday season, Lyric Stage Company of Boston has something for audiences eager for some silly fun. Written by Michael Frayn the quintessential farce (within a farce) is a true ensemble piece about an amateur acting troupe presenting Nothing On, the name of the play within the…
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Theater Review: HENRY IV, PARTS 1 and 2 (The Porters of Hellsgate in North Hollywood)
THE PORTERS SHARE WITH US IN GLORY HENRY IV There is a danger of critical indulgence when considering a company like the Porters of Hellsgate; their ambition to produce all of Shakespeare’s canon (which they’ve nearly accomplished – four plays remain) is laudable and exceptional, such that there is a temptation to simply approve each…
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Theater Review: GALILEO’S DAUGHTER (Central Square Theater and WAM Theatre in Cambridge, MA
GALILEO’S THEORIES WOULD PROVE THAT THE SUN DOESN’T MOVE – GALILEO’S DAUGHTER ALSO DOESN’T MOVE It’s an intriguing notion: the ground-breaking scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, who defied the Catholic Inquisition to publish his observations regarding the movement of Earth around the sun, had a daughter who shared his intellectual curiosity. Dava Sobel’s 1999 biography…
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Theater Review: LITTLE WOMEN: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL (Moxie Theatre in San Diego)
LITTLE WOMEN WITH A BIG PRESENCE Allen Knee took on a daunting task in creating a play from Louise Mae Alcott’s hefty 1868–69 two-volume novel, but he also cuts back the narrative for the musical version of Little Women with Jason Howland’s music and Mindi Dickstein’s lyrics, which opened on Broadway with Sutton Foster in…
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Broadway Review: DEATH BECOMES HER (Lunt-Fontanne)
DEATH BECOMES HER BECOMES BROADWAY I had opposite opinions this week between the opening of the film version of Wicked and the new Broadway musical comedy Death Becomes Her. Wicked outsoared the Broadway version; the movie gave me more heart, warmth, and laughs than I ever got from the original (still running since October of…
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Theater Review: HEXEN: AN ANCESTRAL WITCH PLAY (Tour at El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood)
CONFRONTING THE CURSE It is a signal accomplishment to produce 70 minutes of solo theater which are all the things Hexen manages to be: solemn, playful, enchanting, insightful, and finally, deeply moving. I first encountered Dreya Weber, the sole performer of Hexen (“witches” in German) at the bar before the show. When an exceedingly quirky…
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Theater Review: SUMMER, 1976 (Studio Theatre in D.C.)
A POIGNANT LOOK AT FEMALE FRIENDSHIP What are the makings of female friendships? What holds them together and what causes them to shift off course? These are just two of the philosophical questions raised by David Auburn’s latest masterpiece and recent Broadway hit Summer, 1976, currently at Studio Theater. Known best for his heady play…
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Theater Review: LIFE & TIMES OF MICHAEL K (Handspring Puppet Company and Baxter Theatre at The Wallis)
A LIVING PORTRAIT Regular patrons of the theatre are accustomed to passively sitting back, letting the story flow off the stage and course through them. Life & Times Of Michael K is not traditional theatre. It’s not really a play. This beautiful and spellbinding stage adaptation of the award-winning 1983 novel by South African-born writer…
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Theater Review: THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD (Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills)
DEAD ON ARRIVAL The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, adapted for the stage by Mark Shanahan from Agatha Christie’s 1926 novel, premiered at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas in 2023. It’s no surprise that the West Coast premiere at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills is only the second production, as Shanahan’s script draws out the…
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Theater Review: OUR DEAR DEAD DRUG LORD (Moxie Theatre)
A PLAY THAT RAISES THE ESCOBAR Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and corrupt politician who founded and ran the deadly Medellín Cartel. Known as “the king of cocaine”, Escobar was one of the wealthiest criminals in history, reaching a net worth of close to thirty billion U.S. dollars by the time of…
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Theater Review: THE 39 STEPS (Masquers in Point Richmond)
MASQUERS KNOWS THE STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL, MAGICAL COMEDY Alfred Hitchcock gets a good-natured but thorough pummeling in The 39 Steps at Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond, through December 8. Sam Barksdale, Amy Stringer, Damion Clark A small theater in a quaint town at the eastern end of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, Masquers is known…
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Theater Reviews: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES; JOAN; FIRST DATE; CAROL COOKE DIED FOR MY SINS; BEING PIAF; RENT; A GOING AWAY PARTY PLAY (various theaters throughout L.A.)
WHAT’S YOUR STORY? In the “It’s Not the Story, It’s in How You Tell It” Department, an incredible number of shows I saw in the last month have incredible tales to tell, but falter in their context. Listen, storytelling is in our genes ever since cavemen told their friends how they caught a mammoth. From…
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Theater Review: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (Pasadena Playhouse)
LA CAGE: STRIPPED OF ITS FEATHERS In Sam Pinkleton‘s well-intentioned but ultimately discordant revival of La Cage aux Folles at the Pasadena Playhouse, that old showbiz maxim about the show must going on feels less like a triumph than a duty. This production of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s landmark 1983 musical about love, family,…
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Theater Review: HILLARY AND CLINTON (Dezart Performs in Palm Springs)
THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE OF POLITICS When you hear the name Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton there are three visceral reactions that may occur. The first is deep respect for a woman who gave her entire life to making American local and federal government better for everyone. The second is patriarchal hatred for a woman stepping out…
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Theater Review: LOOT (Desert Ensemble Theatre, Palm Springs)
LOOT IS A HOOT Loot is Joe Orton’s darkly comic masterpiece that eviscerates societal norms and exposes the hypocrisies of authority figures with razor-sharp wit. Two young men, Hal and Dennis, rob a bank next to a funeral parlor and attempt to stash their ill-gotten gains in the coffin of Hal’s recently deceased mother, Mrs….
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