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Theater Review: SAINT JOAN (Bedlam Theatre Company on tour at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica)
SAVING FAITH Even with a few blemishes, Bedlam’s revival of George Bernard Shaw’s 1923 masterpiece Saint Joan is an immersive and ultimately gratifying theatrical experience. The story, told in six scenes and an epilogue, concerns the last two years of Joan of Arc’s life (1429-31): arrival at court and the discovery of the dauphin; leadership of sieges…
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Dance Preview: ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET (on tour at The Soraya in Northridge)
NOW YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SANTA FE Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (ASFB) celebrates the third year of its four-year residency at The Soraya with a program of three works that celebrate the company’s commitment to creating new contemporary dance. The entire evening, which plays only once — this Saturday April 7, 2018 at 8…
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Theater Review: ON YOUR FEET (National Tour)
DANCE DELIRIUM As jukebox musicals go, On Your Feet! really earns its exclamation point. No question, the music alone, which won 26 Grammy Awards, would justify this 2015 tribute to the flashdance fervor of Gloria and Emilio Estefan and their Miami Sound Machine. Their irresistible Cuban-fusion street beat is more fun than we deserve. Two dozen numbers…
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Music Review: LAGRIME DI SAN PIETRO (TEARS OF ST. PETER) (Los Angeles Master Chorale)
FEARLESS “TEARS” ELEVATES MUSIC TO A MIND-BLOWING EXPERIENCE At a gala performance honoring Los Angeles Master Chorale donors, Peter Sellar’s critically acclaimed staging of Lagrime di San Pietro returned to Disney Hall with an encore of such luminous majesty and originality that it’s an honor to have this version of Orlando di Lasso’s last work continue on…
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Theater Interview: PAT KINEVANE (starring in three plays at The Odyssey Theatre)
THE LUCK OF THE IRISH AMBASSADOR Pat Kinevane, 51, is a native of rural Ireland — specifically County Cork — now living and working in Dublin, the capitol of Eire. A qualified spokesperson on Irish culture, he is on a month-long visit to Los Angeles with his three one-person shows which have garnered him a…
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Theater Review: LOVE NEVER DIES (National Tour at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago)
THE PHANTOM NEVER DIED, BUT SHOULD HAVE Gaston Leroux knew: The original author of The Phantom of the Opera concluded his horror romance with his disfigured serial-killer as dead as Lon Chaney, while Christine Daae, stalked and sexually harassed throughout the Paris Opera House, was safe in the arms of her trusting Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny. In…
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Concert Review: MEOW MEOW (with Pink Martini’s Thomas M. Lauderdale)
THE DIVINE MISS MM When you hear the words “performance art,” do you envision a motionless Marina Abramovic allowing a 10-foot boa constrictor to wrap itself around her head? And when you hear the term “cabaret,” do you think of tired patter, same-old showtunes, and folks who’re trying to jump-start their career? Well, prepare to…
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Music Preview: WELL-STRUNG (National Tour)
LOOKING GOOD FROM FRONT AND BACH The Los Angeles LGBT Center has announced a special one-night-only return of the internationally acclaimed singing string quartet Well-Strung. The four performers specialize in pairing universally recognized classical pieces while singing pop music hits by the likes of Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, and others. As part of their…
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Theater Review: SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS (National Tour at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica)
YOU LEAVE SEEKING PEACE AND A PLOT When a play comes along that is entirely different from any play that has preceded it, especially in our era of over-informative white noise and copycatting creativity, it deserves attention. Even Small Mouth Sounds — Bess Wohl’s 2016 work, now stopping at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica as…
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Theater Review: ALADDIN (National Tour)
A BROADWAY AMUSEMENT PARK THAT FLIES LIKE A CARPET “Open sesame” indeed. It’s “Abracadabra” times ten as the arrival of Aladdin in Hollywood feels as triumphant as Prince Ali’s magnificent entrance into Agrabah at the top of the second act. A theme park of a musical, Disney Theatrical Productions’ eye-popping transformation of the 1992 film…
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Theater Review: LUZIA (Cirque du Soleil on tour)
MEMORIES OF MEXICO, LUZIA UNLEASHES A RAIN OF JOY The Cirque du Soleil just made a run for the border ’” and not the Canadian one — as the Montreal-based human circus lavishes its unstoppable imagination on our neighbor to the south. Luzia, the latest (ad)venture under the redesigned white-and-gold Grand Chapiteau (its tent planted in the…
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Dance Review: SOFT GOODS (Karen Sherman)
SOFT GOODS’ SMOOTH SELL Karen Sherman’s Soft Goods presents the audience with a new perspective on dance by focusing on what happens behind the curtain. The show is set up like a play that explores the stagehands’ job, the dancers’ rehearsals and the less-than-pleasant interactions between the two groups as they come together to create a…
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Theater Review: BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL (National Tour)
MAKING YOUR MUSIC MATTER If notes make joy, these 150 minutes are the elixir of happiness. Spanning only 13 years of its creator’s career (1958-1971), Beautiful: The Carole King Musical balances life against art. Magnificently. Its wonderful songs both stand on their own and preserve the pain and pleasure that went into their making. Douglas McGrath’s…
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Theater Review: SOMETHING ROTTEN! (National Tour reviewed in Los Angeles)
SOMETHING SILLY; NOT QUITE ROTTEN BUT HARDLY FRESH What is it about William Shakespeare that inspires lesser authors (namely, everyone else) to try to take him down? George Bernard Shaw spent his life seeking to supplant or at least discount that other playwright. In Shakespeare in Love, Tom Stoppard imagines the world’s greatest writer as an opportunist who…
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Tour Music Review: IN MY MIND: MONK AT TOWN HALL 1959 (Jason Moran and The Big Bandwagon)
A CONCERT THAT WILL STAY IN MY MIND There are certain experiences involving the arts that stay with you forever. A seamless meld of spiritual and artistic experience, Jason Moran’s tribute piece to Theolonius Monk’s legendary 1959 concert at Town Hall achieved something I rarely witness in the arts: As with a séance, Moran’s octet—rivaling…
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Theater Review: SCHOOL OF ROCK THE MUSICAL (National Tour at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago)
WEBBER RETURNS TO HIS ROCKIN’ ROOTS “Out of the guitars of babes”: The 2003 film was a four-star charmer: Jack Black, a screen actor with the chops to be richly ordinary, depicted a slob who saves himself by freeing others. He was, indelibly, Dewey: This substitute teacher rose, unexpectedly and magnificently, to an unearned occasion, liberating privileged…
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Music Preview: MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA (North American tour with Valery Gergiev at Disney Hall)
THE TRIFECTA OF MARIINSKY, GERGIEV, AND MATSUEV AT DISNEY HALL Beginning tonight, October 29, Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra will undertake their greatest tour of the season, presenting sixteen concerts in cities in the USA and Canada though November 15. During the tour, the orchestra will be appearing alongside such stunning pianists of the present day as Behzod Abduraimov, Denis Matsuev, Daniil…
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Music Preview: ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA (North American tour with Zubin Mehta)
ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC; ZUBIN MEHTA; YEFIM BRONFMAN; AND A U.S. PREMIERE AT DISNEY HALL Beginning tonight in New York, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is beginning its six-city North American tour. This highly anticipated but very short tour—they’re only on the road for two weeks through November 9—includes Toronto, San Francisco, West Palm Beach, Miami, and, happily,…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: DORRANCE DANCE (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
TAPPING TROUBLES AWAY Michelle Dorrance, founder and artistic director of Dorrance Dance, is one of the most sought after tap dancers of her generation. Her imaginative work, which continually pushes the boundaries of this time-honored form, made her a MacArthur Fellow. Beginning tonight, her company is coming to the Wallis in Beverly Hills through October…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: BRAHMS SYMPHONIES No. 2 and 3 (Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Disney Hall)
MUTI AND THE CSO BRING BRAHMS SYMPHONIES TO DISNEY HALL Endlessly frustrating his admirers, Johannes Brahms was well-known for his reluctance to begin symphonic works. Once he began—with the arrival of his First Symphony in 1876—the floodgates swung open. The First took about 15-21 years to finish (depending on which scholar you ask), but the…
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