Areas We Cover

Categories hhhh

image - 2025-02-03T092338.004

Tours

  • Theater Review: THE LAST SHIP (National Tour)

    By Tony Frankel | January 24, 2020
    in , ,

    A SHIP THAT REMAINS DOCKED Sting’s musical The Last Ship has been in a shakedown cruise since it opened in Chicago six years ago. Based on last night’s star-studded opening night at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles, this retooled version sadly remains docked. Sure, it’s got a decent new book that jettisons jetsam from the…

  • Theater Review: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND (Nat’l Tour)

    By Lawrence Bommer | January 23, 2020
    in , ,

    A TREE GROWS IN THE ANTILLES In 1990, eight years before he wrote  Ragtime, Stephen Flaherty composed an eclectically exotic score for this one-act fairy tale. It’s the forthright story of a French Antilles peasant girl and the rich boy whom she adores to the unreciprocated end. Well-cooked in Lynn Aherns’ supple lyrics, Flaherty’s warm “Margaritaville”…

  • Theater Review: VOLTA (Cirque du Soleil)

    By Tony Frankel | January 22, 2020
    in , ,

    PLENTY OF WATTAGE, EVEN WITH AN OBSCURE STORY Cirque du Soleil is back with its latest touring show, which opened last night, January 21, at Dodger Stadium. At its best, Volta provides all the pleasures of a Cirque production — knockout acts of grace, athleticism, skill, creativity, and danger. The show does have difficulties associated…

  • Concert Preview: LILLIAS WHITE (Samueli Theater at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa)

    By Frank Arthur | January 16, 2020
    in , ,

    MY WHITE NIGHT I first saw Lillias White when she made her Broadway debut in Barnum in 1981; I’ve been watching her work for almost four decades since, and I promise you she never fails to blow the roof off the joint (happy are those who saw her “Effie” in the 1987 revival of Dreamgirls)….

  • Theater Review: IRVING BERLIN’S WHITE CHRISTMAS (National Tour)

    By Lawrence Bommer | December 11, 2019
    in , ,

    LET THEM SING AND WE’RE HAPPY Given the daylight deprivation that comes with December, music works like light to dispel the darkness. This musical couldn’t be brighter:    White Christmas, of course, salutes the similarly named 1954 film that itself builds on the 1944 delight  Holiday Inn, the film that in the middle of a war premiered the…

  • Theater Review: FROZEN (National Tour)

    By Marc Wheeler | December 8, 2019
    in , ,

    CAN FROZEN MELT YOUR HEART? Direct from Broadway, Disney’s Frozen officially kicks off its national tour at the Hollywood Pantages after a tryout in Schenectady, NY, and it’s the hygge snowblast we need. Based on the 2013 Academy Award-winning animation (currently the 15th highest-grossing film of all time), this stage musical adaptation — directed with…

  • Theater Review: ‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE (Cirque du Soleil in Chicago and New York)

    By Lawrence Bommer | November 29, 2019
    in , , ,

    CHRISTMAS AS A CIRCUS There’s a beloved poem behind these multiple circus acts in one act: Clement Moore was never that fond of his famous 1837 poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas (better known as ’Twas the Night Before Christmas). Written in a jog-trotting anapestic tetrameter, the now-treasured verse was for its author a mere…

  • Theater Review: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

    By Tony Frankel | October 30, 2019
    in , ,

    50 YEARS SINCE ITS BIRTH AND JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR FINALLY RISES AGAIN Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar is given the rock concert treatment for its 50th Anniversary Tour, and that’s precisely what it needs to soar. It’s a mash-up of stadium staging with lead actors holding microphones and stands, music video,…

  • Theater Review: MIKE BIRBIGLIA’S THE NEW ONE (Tour at The Ahmanson in Los Angeles)

    By Marc Wheeler | October 27, 2019
    in , ,

    TOSSING OUT THE BABY BUT KEEPING THE BATHWATER Reluctance takes center stage in Center Theater Group’s production of Mike Birbiglia’s theatrical child The New One. In his 2018 one-man show, the comedian confesses to cold feet at his wife’s suggestion of having a child. That aversion to risk unfortunately finds its way to Birbiglia’s script,…

  • Dance Review: LA BAYADÈRE (Mariinsky Ballet at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa)

    By Tony Frankel | October 20, 2019
    in , , ,

    A TEMPLE FOR BALLET Segerstrom Hall is now filled with the gorgeous melodies of a late-blooming classical ballet from 1877. With an infectious score by Ludwig Minkus, La Bayadère premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1877 at the Imperial Russian Ballet, choreographed by the great Marius Petipa (who would go on to greater glory with…

  • Dance Preview: GEORGE BALANCHINE’S JEWELS (Mariinsky Ballet at the Music Center)

    By Tony Frankel | October 18, 2019
    in , ,

    STILL PRICELESS, BRIGHT AND SHINY The astounding Mariinsky Ballet from St. Petersberg is coming to the Southland for two engagements. The first at Segerstrom Center for the Arts this weekend will feature Petipa’s great Russian classic La Bayadère. Next weekend, October 24-27, The Music Center hosts the company — truly, one of the best globally…

  • Review: 217 BOXES OF DR. HENRY ANONYMOUS (Freud Playhouse at UCLA)

    By Tony Frankel | October 15, 2019
    in ,

    UNMASKING A GAY HERO There is a method of political activism called a “zap.” Basically, zaps are militant but non-violent face-to-face confrontations with persons in positions of authority, but when used in tandem with a media alert, they can be powerful weapons when furthering a cause. Since gay activists in the late 1960s and early…

  • Theater Review: ANASTASIA (National Tour)

    By Tony Frankel | October 14, 2019
    in , ,

    ON ANASTASIA, AMNESIA, AND ANESTHESIA First came the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, who was murdered in 1918 just after the Bolshevik Revolution, most likely by Vladimir Lenin’s secret police. Then came the rumors that she was still alive. Then came the imposters, keeping alive one of…

  • Concert Review: BARRY MANILOW (Hollywood Bowl)

    By Tony Frankel | September 10, 2019
    in , ,

    BARRY ME BACK TO THE SEVENTIES You know when glowsticks have been placed on each seat of the Hollywood Bowl prior to Barry Manilow’s extremely well-sold concert that there would be heart-wrenching numbers ahead. And there obviously were. Easy-listening, high-charting, orchestral pop tunes “Even Now,” “Weekend in New England,” and “Mandy” among them, backed up…

  • Theater Review: LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS (Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles)

    By Tony Frankel | September 9, 2019
    in , ,

    MORON THAT NOW One-man stage phenom John Leguizamo, who has popularized the stories of his Columbian/Puerto Rican/Bronx Ghetto peeps and their culture in semi-autobiographical shows Mambo Mouth,  Freak,  Spic-O-Rama, and Ghetto Klown, returns with lefty, sobering, highly entertaining monologue that brings home the tragic 3000-year history of Latino Americans. While the show is titled Latin History for…

  • Review: COME FROM AWAY (North American Tour)

    By Lawrence Bommer | August 1, 2019
    in ,

    THE OTHER SIDE OF TERROR Maybe because we need them so much, miracles are hard to take but crucial to believe.  Come from Away is a miracle musical in every way. Just as Lanford Wilson wrote  The Fifth of July  to reckon with the aftermath of a too-hopeful holiday, this Canadian wonderwork  confronts — and redeems — the horrors…

  • Theater Review: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG (National Tour)

    By Tony Frankel and Lawrence Bommer | July 14, 2019
    in , ,

    THE PLAY ABOUT THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG GOES WRONG The title of this play is brutally honest ’” and you can’t say you weren’t warned. In the style of Monty Python and Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off  (an infinitely cleverer romp),  The Play That Goes Wrong,  a 2015 London hit written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and…

  • Dance Review: MAYERLING (The Royal Ballet)

    By Tony Frankel | July 6, 2019
    in , ,

    THE ROYAL BALLET TAKES ON ROYAL INTRIGUE Considering we couldn’t tell most characters from each other at last night’s opening of Royal Opera Ballet’s Mayerling, a good time was had by all. With Kenneth McMillan’s inventive and daring 1978 choreography, Koen Kessels’ live orchestra’s thrilling rendition of Liszt’s exquisite music (arranged and orchestrated by John…

  • Las Vegas Theater Review: SHOTSPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET (Planet Hollywood)

    By Jason Rohrer | June 12, 2019
    in ,

    THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS Shotspeare  is a comedy punch mulled from liquor, a few conservatory-trained actors and Ringling Brothers clowns, and the brutalization of one of the best plays ever written. There’s a Wheel of Soliloquy to determine punishments for actors unlucky enough to give speeches; there’s a case of beer and a bottle of hard stuff…

  • Theater Review: FALSETTOS (National Tour in Chicago)

    By Lawrence Bommer | May 30, 2019
    in , ,

    WHAT MORE CAN THEY SING? By  its riveting end  Falsettos, a fusion of  March of the Falsettos (1981) and Falsettoland (1990), has jolted us with its heartbreak and won us with its wit. This very grown-up musical by composer/lyricist William Finn and bookwriter James Lapine still delivers a daring plot: Marvin leaves wife Trina and son Jason for…

[my_pagination]

Search Articles

Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!