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Theater Review: JULIA MASLI: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA (Pasadena Playhouse)
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA OFFERS UNITY THROUGH AN ABSURDIST GROUP THERAPY SESSION I had no idea what I was walking into when I drove out to the Pasadena Playhouse (more than an hour’s drive during traffic) to see absurdist clown Julia Masli entertain the crowd at a 70-minute absurdist clown’s group therapy…
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Dance Review: FRANKENSTEIN (San Francisco Ballet at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa)
When creation becomes choreography in Frankenstein, the laboratory turns into a stage of desire Mary Shelley’s creation continues to haunt not only literature but the stage, where movement and music conspire to make visible the tremors of his unnatural birth. The late choreographer Liam Scarlett’s Frankenstein, brought vividly to life by San Francisco Ballet, joins…
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Theater Review: SUFFS (National Tour)
A GREAT MUSICAL, SUFFS REMINDS US THAT DEMOCRACY ONLY MOVES FORWARD WHEN WOMEN DO While much of what we love in musicals is pure fiction, history has had an undeniable flair for the dramatic — and Broadway has always noticed. From Hamilton to 1776 to Evita, political legends have inspired some of the stage’s most…
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Theater Review: HAMILTON (National Tour in Boston)
STILL SCRAPPY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS It has been more than ten years since Hamilton’s Off-Broadway premiere. Alexander Hamilton may have declared himself—like his country—“young, scrappy, and hungry,” with scrappy meaning feisty, resourceful, and unwilling to back down. The musical that bears his name is no longer young, nor is it hungry—according to a 2020…
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Theater Review: LES MISÉRABLES (National Tour in San Diego)
A FAR CRY FROM MISERABLE (UNLESS YOU’RE ONE OF THE CHARACTERS) There’s a lot to gripe about in the world in 2025, but you know what? Spend a little time in 1815 France and you’re going to feel a lot better about your week. Victor Hugo’s novel takes us in deep, and the musical version…
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Theater Review: PARADE (Tour at Kennedy Center, D.C.)
A stark and haunting Parade marches into the Kennedy Center, the final stop of this Broadway tour, confronting history with stripped-down staging and searing urgency The national tour of Parade, now at the Kennedy Center, arrives with an intensity that refuses to let its audience settle. Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s 1998 musical has always…
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Theater Review: SHUCKED (National Tour in Hollywood)
A FIELD OF PUNS IN FULL BLOOM Corn puns are like tequila shots. A few will make you smile and loosen you up, but by the time you are ten or twelve deep you start to wonder how you got here and whether you should call a cab. The national tour of Shucked, now playing…
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Theater Review: & JULIET (National Tour in Los Angeles)
SHAKESPEARE, INTERRUPTED About five minutes into & Juliet, Juliet belts “…Baby One More Time” with such raw confusion you half-believe Britney’s lyrics might hold the secrets of the universe. It should collapse under its own absurdity, yet it lands. That is the show in miniature: ridiculous on purpose and, against the odds, brilliant. Rachel Simone…
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Theater Review: THE WIZ (North American Tour at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre)
A BEWITCHING WIZ Director Schele Williams’s touring adaptation of The Wiz touches down in Boston like a technicolor cyclone and lifts its audience up with a storm of funk, gospel, and unapologetic Black joy. Amber Ruffin’s updated book recasts Dorothy (Dana Cimone) as a recently orphaned girl from an urban background who has come to…
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Theater Review: SHUCKED (National Tour at San Diego Civic)
CORN-FED HUMOR LEAVES A SWEET TASTE I entered the Civic Theatre braced for a two-hour version of Hee Haw (not a compliment) and wondered if I’d be checking my watch by halfway through Act I as puns about corn wore thin. Instead, in little time, I was thoroughly absorbed in the goofy, tiny-town farm world…
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Theater Review: PARADE (National Tour, CIBC Theatre Chicago)
DON’T LET THIS PARADE PASS YOU BY In 1913, in Atlanta, Georgia, the body of Mary Phagan, a thirteen-year-old factory laborer, was found in the basement of a pencil factory. On the flimsiest of cases, a Brooklyn transplant, Leo Frank was arrested and charged with the crime. His ensuing trial, conviction, commutation, and grisly lynching…
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Theater Review: SOME LIKE IT HOT (National Tour, Hollywood)
EVERYONE WILL LIKE IT HOT It wouldn’t be a valid review to simply write, “I loved it!” a hundred times and ship it off to my editor. However, if you’re looking for a bottom line or a simple recommendation, that’s exactly what this review will come down to. Leandra Ellis-Gaston and the company Evoking the…
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Theater Review: JUST TO BE CLOSE TO YOU (Broadwater Stage)
DÉJÀ LOUCHE Just to Be Close to You opens with an immaculately coiffed and mustachioed Cam Poter stepping before the packed audience at the Broadwater Studio as his alter ego, the renowned lounge singer, Carl Poteraychke, and immediately announcing, “For my last song – ” And we are off to the races. Poter is a…
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Theater Review: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Kick-Off of the 2025 North American Tour at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre)
THE BUSINESS OF NOSTALGIA: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST ALL DRESSED UP WITH NOWHERE TO GO Last Thursday night, a rainy July 10th, ensconced in the stunningly beautiful Cadillac Palace Theatre, I finally took in a Disney stage musical. Fittingly, it was the very first one they’d produced in 1994, Beauty and the Beast. While a…
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Theater Review: ONE MAN POE (Stephen Smith on Tour)
A MONODRAMA OF SHADOWS AND SHATTERED SANITY Stephen Smith’s One Man Poe at the Broadwater Studio comes in two one-hour servings, with each serving offering two of the author’s most macabre and disturbing pieces. The first part consists of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” The second part comprises “The Black Cat”…
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Dance Review: PILOBOLUS: OTHER WORLDS COLLECTION (Tour at The Joyce Theater, NYC)
DEFYING GRAVITY… AND CONVENTION Since its founding in 1971, Pilobolus has made a name for itself by celebrating the expressive potential of the human body—its weight, balance, connectivity, and vulnerability. Now, 54 years later, their mission continues to resonate with vitality, humor, and heart. Currently in residence at The Joyce Theater (June 24–July 13), the…
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Theater Review: ONE MAN POE (Stephen Smith on Tour)
MADNESS MADE FLESH I’ve seen several performances of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and short stories over the years, but none compare to the artistry, intensity, and total immersion Stephen Smith brings to Poe’s descent-into-madness characters in One Man Poe at the 2025 Hollywood Fringe Festival. The production is divided into two one-hour shows, each featuring…
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Theater Review: MOULIN ROUGE (2025 Touring Production)
CAN THIS SHOW LIVE UP TO THE MOVIE? YES, IT CAN CAN! The 2001 film Moulin Rouge told its La Bohème-like story with tremendous use of cinematography and computer animation, pulling off an other-worldliness while also portraying turn-of-last-century France. Without those skills to fall back on, musical playwright John Logan had his hands full in…
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Theater Review: A LETTER TO LYNDON B. JOHNSON OR GOD: WHOEVER READS THIS FIRST (SoHo Playhouse & Edinburgh Fringe)
WAR IS FOR CLOWNS Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland join the thrilling ranks of clown-trained performers (Julia Masli is another) reshaping the boundaries of theatrical storytelling. A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First is an electrifying 65-minute performance that plays only through June 29 at the Soho Playhouse (formerly the…
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Dance Review: SWAN LAKE (Miami City Ballet)
NO MIST, NO MERCY, JUST SWAN LAKE Forget what you think Swan Lake is. Forget the gauzy tragedy, the white tutus, the endless fluttering. At Segerstrom Hall tonight, Miami City Ballet, under Alexei Ratmansky‘s choreography, has cracked open the windows. Something sharper moves through the air now. The story’s cruelty remains intact. It is a…
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