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Theater Review: UNPACKING IN P’TOWN (New Conservatory Theater Center)
UNPACKING PACKS IN TOO MUCH INFO WITHOUT PACKING ENOUGH PUNCH Set in the East Coast Summer gay mecca Provincetown in 1959, four old vaudeville friends reunite anxiously awaiting the promising 60s decade to come. “Handsome young Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy with his gorgeous wife Jackie will hopefully throw his hat in the ring to run…
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Theater Review: ELLIE (Desert Ensemble Theatre, Palm Springs)
NEW PLAY ELLIE SHOWS ITS UNDERBELLY Desert Ensemble Theater (DET) is one of the boldest and few Coachella Valley companies committed to creating new work and producing envelope-pushing plays. At the end of DET’s current season — it’s thirteenth — DET executive director Shawn Abramowitz and artistic director Jerome Elliott Moskowitz will have commendably produced fourteen world premieres….
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Theater Review: TARTUFFE (North Coast Rep)
NORTH COAST REP DOESN’T JUST HEIGHTEN TARTUFFE, IT LEVITATES IT Let’s not bandy words. The North Coast Repertory Theatre revival of Molière‘s comedy Tartuffe is a brilliant success. The production is one of those rare instances in which the greatness of the play unites with a faultless cast and masterful staging to produce a genuinely…
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Theater Review: KING HEDLEY II (Actors’ Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall, Boston)
KING HEDLEY II: A CROWNING PRODUCTION The Actors’ Shakespeare Project production of King Hedley II follows ASP’s acclaimed Seven Guitars of last season, once again bringing a work by August Wilson, sometimes known as America’s Shakespeare, to Boston audiences. Wonderfully directed by Summer L. Williams, the ninth play in Wilson’s American Century Cycle demands a…
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Theater Review: DIRTY WHITE TESLAS MAKE ME SAD (Magic Theatre World Premiere)
SURVIVING THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO Theatres took a big hit after COVID. Many lost a third of their audience. Now, regional theatres — those that haven’t shuttered — are turning to a new audience. One that represents the burgeoning diversity across racial and sexual lines. Whether you think that the “woke” conversation has gone…
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Theater Review: A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD (Dezart Performs in Palm Springs)
A CASE OF GREAT THEATER It is rare to see intimate, loving friendships between straight and gay men both in life and on stage. In A Case for the Existence of God, running at Dezart Performs through March 10, playwright Samuel D. Hunter masterfully crafts a narrative that defies stereotypes and societal norms, portraying a…
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Theater Review: MJ THE MUSICAL (First National Tour)
IF YOU WANNA BE STARTIN’ SOMETHIN’, COME FOR THE MUSIC AND DANCE The musical biography of Michael Jackson (tersely titled MJ) is playing a brief one-week run at the San Diego Civic Theatre as part of a national tour. The show is an exhilarating audience experience whenever the hugely talented large cast sings and dances….
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Theater Review: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY: A THEATRICAL CATASTROPHE (Henry Murray Stage at the Matrix Theatre)
LOOK AT WHAT THE CATASTROPHE DRAGGED IN He’s funny. He’s avuncular. He’s unpretentious. He’s loveable. He’s dry and urbane. And, he’s a decent person. But Nick Ullett is an actor by trade, so you may wonder if he’s that decent offstage (hint: he is). Upstairs at The Matrix Theatre, all you’ll want to do is…
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Theater Review: REDWOOD (La Jolla Playhouse World Premiere Starring Idina Menzel)
THE TALLEST LIVING THING ON EARTH INSPIRES A MUSICAL ACORN As one who has hiked many times deep in the ancient Redwood groves, those which have been relatively untouched for thousands of year, and it truly does steal your heart. And with names such as “Cathedral Grove Trail,” Redwoods are spiritual. There’s magic in them…
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Theater Review: FALSETTOS (42nd Street Moon, San Francisco)
WHAT MORE CAN I SAY? BRING YOUR KLEENEX The musical masterpiece Falsettos follows Marvin (William Giammona), an appealing, brainy, anxious, obsessive, wealthy Jewish gay man who struggles to create a tight-knit family out of his eclectic array of core relationships, including his ex-wife Trina (Ariela Morgenstern); his new, handsome, muscled and somewhat snarky young boyfriend…
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Theater Review: MY MOTHER HAD TWO FACES (The Rockwell in Somerville, MA; then touring)
HER MOTHER, HERSELF It’s a truism that many women fear “becoming their mother,” and that’s certainly the implied starting point of Karin Trachtenberg’s one-woman show, My Mother Had Two Faces. The performance opens with a recording of Marlene Dietrich singing “Mutter, Kannst Du Mich Vergeben” (“Mother, Can you Forgive Me”) — an interesting choice in…
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Theater Review: FIVE WOMEN WEARING THE SAME DRESS (Lamplighters Community Theater in San Diego)
ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID:SEVER THE BRIDE In 2000, screenwriter Alan Ball won an Oscar for his hit screenplay American Beauty, followed by his powerfully edgy HBO series Six Feet Under and the Emmy-winning series True Blood. To reach this apex, his storytelling career had to start somewhere and that initiation, in 1993, was the dramedy play…
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Theater Review: FATHERLAND (Fountain Theatre)
FATHER V. SON Over 2,000 people stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Within two years, more than 1,200 attackers would be charged. One such perpetrator, Guy Reffitt from Texas, was convicted and sentenced to seven years in federal prison. Who handed him over to the FBI? His 19-year-old son, Jackson. Patrick Keleher and…
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Theater Review: SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (A Noise Within in Pasadena)
ATTEND THIS TALE: IT’S MURDER When A Noise Within, one of LA’s best companies, which specializes in classical theater, announced its current season, what most excited me by far was their decision to do Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim and book writer Hugh Wheeler. Being able to see…
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Theater Review: THREE (Playwrights Arena and the Los Angeles LGBT Center at The Davidson/Valentini Theatre)
A FASCINATING DIVERSE UPDATE TO CHEKHOV’S THREE SISTERS In 1900, Anton Chekhov wrote the play Three Sisters, centering around siblings both very similar and remarkably different who grew up in Moscow but now reside out on a country while longing to return to the more exciting lives they led in the big city. Told over…
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Theater Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME (CCAE Theatricals in Escondido)
A FASCINATING JOURNEY INTO THE AUTISTIC MIND Mark Haddon’s novel is a first-person tale shared by the autistic main character: 15-year-old Christopher Boone, who lives in a small lower-class town in southwestern England. Playwright Simon Stephens (Heisenberg) frames Haddon’s tale as a play-within-a-play: Christopher (an astounding Daniel Patrick Russell) has journaled his experiences in a…
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Theater Review: ARROWHEAD (IAMA Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre)
THERE’S GOLD IN THE HILLS OF ARROWHEAD Move over, Bluefish Cove, you’ve had your last summer. Now, a modern-day retreat of lesbians is here, only this one isn’t by the ocean, it’s by a lake. Arrowhead, actually. But this is no summer retreat. It’s a gathering of two, maybe three, lesbians (what is the plural…
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Theater Review: BIG DATA (American Conservatory Theatre)
In the 21st century with the advancement of social media, anyone has the ability to be the star of their own reality show. Communicating with friends, expressing personal politics or even showing pictures of your dinner can be fodder for news or conversation. Several years into the advancement of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) reality can be…
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Theater Review: SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (Wildsong Productions in Ocean Beach)
BAKING UP SOMETHING GOOD AT WILDSONG Come on, Wildsong. You’re only two seasons old, in a tiny theater, have mostly young company players, and are on a ridiculously small budget. There’s no way that adds up to even considering doing one of Stephen Sondheim’s toughest musicals, Sweeney Todd, let alone doing it this brilliantly. Sondheim’s…
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Theater Review: RENT (Berkeley Playhouse)
SEASONS OF LOVE A PRODUCTION OF LOVE Founded in 2007, Berkeley Playhouse is known for its youth programs and summer theater camps for Bay Area youth. Classic family friendly shows such as Peter Pan, Cinderella & Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory are amongst their productions. Occasionally though they take on more “adult themed” classics….
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