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Theater Review: ALWAYS, PATSY CLINE (Center Rep at Lesher Center in Walnut Creek)
A CLOSER WALK WITH PATSY Patsy Cline couldn’t be more fondly or accurately recalled than by Cayman Ilika in Karen Lund’s sweet production of Always:Patsy Cline, the oft-produced 1990 paean to the once and future crossover country icon who made audiences “fall to pieces.” Written and originally directed by Ted Swindley, this tribute — equal…
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Theater Review: ANNABELLA IN JULY (North Coast Repertory in San Diego)
SKI RESORT SKETCH SKILLFULLY SKIPS ALONG AND SKYROCKETS INTO OUR HEARTS Saturday Night Live has been notorious over the years for coming up with some bits that are funny enough to fill an entire seven-minute sketch while other skits have the joke run thin two minutes in with five minutes remaining. One can almost imaging…
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Theater Review: KINKY BOOTS (Ray of Light Theatre)
THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR FUN Kinky Boots: The Musical is back in San Francisco, again at the Victoria Theater for a month-long run. Based on the same-titled 2005 film written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth, the hit Broadway musical with songs by Cyndi Lauper and book by Harvey Fierstein tells the story of…
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Theater Review: GODDESS (World Premiere Musical at Berkeley Rep)
ONE TOUCH OF GODDESS Goddess, the exciting new musical at Berkeley Rep with its sights set for Broadway, re-imagines the African myth of Marimba: the goddess of music. In order to experience real love, the goddess has come down from the heavens as Nadira (Amber Iman, who raises the roof with every note) to live…
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Theater Review: MACBETH (Independent Shakespeare Co. at Griffith Park in Los Angeles)
THE HEAVEN’S BREATH SMELLS WOOINGLY HERE It seems odd to say that I was enchanted and beguiled with Independent Shakespeare Co.’s (ISC’s) production of Macbeth, which opened this past weekend at the Dell in Griffith Park (site of L.A.’s old zoo). You would think perhaps horrified. After all, this is a tale of treachery, malice,…
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Theater Review: CABARET (Cygnet Theatre Company in San Diego)
COME SEE THIS CABARET, MY FRIEND One of the wonderful things about period pieces, including musicals, is that they rarely feel dated because the book writer (Joe Masteroff, in this case) starts with the premise that the show isn’t happening now. What’s marvelous, and sometimes chilling, about this fifty-six year old book is that it’s…
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Theater Review: THE PROM (North American Tour)
PROM-COM Dust off the Mylar balloons and wrist corsages and head over to The Ahmanson Theatre, where The Prom just landed as part of its national tour. Forget smelly gymnasiums or dated themes, as this prom is full of high-energy dance numbers, colorful characters, theatrical in-jokes and a litany of Broadway-style tunes that divert even as…
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Theater Review: HADESTOWN (North American Tour)
GO TO TOWN I am convinced that me colleague Marc Wheeler nailed the many reasons in his review of Hadestown why you must see this national tour. One of the most original musicals to come out in years, Hadestown still sells out on Broadway even as a National Tour is on the road. Indeed, some…
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Theater Review: THE METROMANIACS (Theatre 40, Beverly Hills)
THE ANACHRONISMIACS Poetry is all the rage in the madcap comedy, The Metromaniacs, David Ives’ 2015 English “translaptation” of La Métromanie (1738), an obscure French farce by Alexis Piron. While La Métromanie jocularly reflected the “poetry craze” of its era, Ives’ remake offers a modern lens in which to lovingly jeer that same 18th-century phenomenon….
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Theater Review: AMERICAN IDIOT (Chance Theater, Anaheim)
IDIOT IS AS IDIOT DOES Inspired by a 2004 rock album by the American pop-punk rock band Green Day, American Idiot has received its share of positive reviews since its premiere in Berkeley, California in 2009 and subsequent runs on Broadway, on tour, at colleges, and regional and community theaters. When I saw the tour…
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Theater Review: THE REMARKABLE MISTER HOLMES (North Coast Repertory in Solano Beach)
THIS MUSICAL IS RIGHT AT HOLMES When we think of Sherlock Holmes in the dank, foggy streets of London, investigating death and deception, probably the next thought we have isn’t, “This would really work as a musical comedy.” Fortunately director/playwright David Ellenstein and lyricist/co-playwright Omri Schein don’t think like us; they saw the funny in…
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Theater Review: KING LIZ (Geffen Playhouse)
A PLAY OFF A rich, black, ball-busting pro-sports super-agent who has worked her way up from poverty to making partner at a major firm. The white male head of that agency who wants his protégé of 22 years to take over the company as he nears retirement. The agent’s put-upon ambitious Latina assistant of five…
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Theater Review: SPRING AWAKENING (Wildsong Productions in Ocean Beach, San Diego)
QUITE THE AWAKENING Watching Spring Awakening in 2008 at the Balboa Theatre and again in 2022 at the OB Playhouse, it is interesting how different the play struck me. Not because of the quality of either production, but because of how different our world is in the fourteen years from a just-elected Barack Obama nation to a…
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Theater Review: THE EMPIRE STRIPS BACK (Great Star Theater)
MAY THE TORSO BE WITH YOU Forget about Broadway or the latest Marvel Comic movie. The fun, hip and cool burlesque Star Wars parody — which isn’t just for fans of the franchise — is the show to see this summer live onstage in San Francisco. No stranger to SF, Burlesque started in the nineteenth…
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Theater Review: FOLLIES (SF Playhouse)
FANTASTIC FOLLIES AT SF PLAYHOUSE After over 2 years of all of us being confined at home watching endless hours of shows on Netflix sitting in our sweatpants, we’re all chomping at the bit to get dressed up and see live theater. Yet because of COVID, San Francisco’s first onstage adaptation of the musical Follies had a…
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Theater Review: CHOPIN IN PARIS (The Wallis)
CLASS ACT Nestled comfortably inside the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Hershey Felder: Chopin in Paris is an enchanting “play with music” on the life of the renowned pianist and composer, Fryderyk Chopin. In the title role of this one-man show is Hershey Felder. Known for his biographical works on…
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Theater Review: JEKYLL & HYDE (Wildsong Productions)
WILD ABOUT WILDSONG A relatively new theatre company (and totally new to this reviewer) taking on a musical with a huge cast, intricate costuming, a stage smaller than you find in most elementary schools, and, most significantly, a book with musicality about as complex as Les Miserable. Sigh. Suck it up, put on a smile,…
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Theater Review: MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL (North American Tour)
MOULIN “ROGUE”! It wasn’t just the powerhouse romance between Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman. With its frenetic theatrics and killer soundtrack (virgin ballads locking lips with re-imagined pop hits), Baz Luhrmann’s epic, high-octane love story, Moulin Rouge! (2001), was always destined for the stage. But Broadway, it appears, is the Duke in disguise here, promising…
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Theater Review: ROE (Fountain Theatre)
On a beautiful breezy Sunday evening, my husband and I sat down in the parking lot of the Fountain Theater embracing ourselves to an emotional night. In this LA premiere hyper-staged reading of the play Roe, a gregarious and eager audience congregated at the theater. This is a timely piece of art that I think…
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Theater Review: BROADWAY BY THE YEAR: “FROM ZIEGFELD TO MOULIN ROUGE!” (The Town Hall)
Scott Siegal’s latest installment in his ongoing homage to commercial Broadway, appropriately titled Broadway By The Year, is an entertaining and enjoyable production that starts down memory lane but thrillingly winds its way back to our Broadway present. Featuring solid and familiar Broadway performers, a chorus of synchronized Rockettes and a stunning eighteen-year-old newcomer, Mr….
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