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Theater Tour Review: PIAF! THE SHOW (global tour at the Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago)
THE ULTIMATE FRENCH KISS It was a one-off last night at the Athenaeum Theatre. But a long run on the road continues to beckon to Awesome Company’s bravura showcase Piaf! The Show (which will return to Chicago April 10, 2018). Embarked on a 400-performance world tour, with over half a million tickets sold in more than 30…
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Dance Tour Preview: MARIINSKY BALLET AND ORCHESTRA (All-Fokine program at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa)
THE MIGHTY MARIINSKY AND FABULOUS FOKINE For more than two centuries, the Mariinsky Ballet, formerly known as the Kirov, has created classical dance at its best, a tradition that continues to this day. This incredible company is coming to Segerstrom Center for the Arts for one weekend only, October 12-15, 2017, where they’ll pay tribute to…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: STATE OF SIEGE (Théâtre de la Ville at Royce Hall)
FANTASTIC, FRIGHTENING, FIERCE, FRENCH: THÉTRE DE LA VILLE’S STATE OF SIEGE AT UCLA Presented by CAP UCLA, Paris’s Théâtre de la Ville returns to Royce Hall with a new production of Albert Camus’ harrowing political allegory, State of Siege, on Thursday October 26 and Friday October 27, 2017. This incredible company premiered the astounding production…
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Theatre Review: THE TOAD KNEW (James Thiérrée’s La Compagnie du Hanneton at Chicago Shakespeare)
MORE PLAYS ON THE PIER Tuesday night’s “consecration of the house,” attended by Chicago’s Mayor Emmanuel, was a celebration that this care-ridden city badly needed. The big news is the grand opening of The Yard, Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s state-of-the-arts third theater on Navy Pier. (Its magnificent make-believe replaces the underused, open-air Skyline Stage where Cirque Shanghai…
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Chicago Theater Review: A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE (Goodman Theatre)
UNSTOPPABLE AND UNSPARING This week Goodman Theater’s season-opener, a landmark drama from 1955, exploded into relevance. A rarity worth a return, Arthur Miller’s original 120-minute, one-act Broadway version of an inevitable domestic tragedy focuses more on the family than the neighborhood (and shortchanges Beatrice’s anguish over her husband’s self-destructive passion for his niece). But the…
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Theater Interview: CLINTON LEUPP (MISS COCO PERU: THE TAMING OF THE TENSION)
SHE WHO CAN’T BE TAMED Clinton Leupp may not aspire to self-help guru status, but his upcoming appearance as Miss Coco Peru in The Taming of the Tension is driven by a definite sense of mission. “I want to unify people,†he says. “We can’t truly get together as human beings until we understand how…
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Theater Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME (North American Tour)
DETECTING LOVE A 15-year-old math whiz, Christopher is an only child with Asperger’s Syndrome. The anomaly is enough to push adolescence way beyond awkward. His autism manifests in manic multi-tasking, an inability to focus (or to lie), attention deficits, a maddening literal-mindedness, and a disarming directness that both shames and irritates adults with secrets. Afraid…
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Theater Review: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (National Tour reviewed in Chicago)
PARIS AS A PAS DE DEUX The opening image’”a baby grand piano under the Arc de Triomphe’”suggests the rest. The hopeful harbinger of a new normality, the beloved 1951 film An American in Paris employed George and Ira Gershwin’s gorgeous songs and supple lyrics to celebrate a postwar romance that healed, well, whatever wounds musicals can fix….
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Tour Review: LUZIA (Cirque du Soleil)
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. Ignoring the United States (a favorite activity of many nowadays), 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…
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Dance Preview: THE RED SHOES (National Tour of Matthew Bourne’s Production)
MATTHEW BOURNE’S THE RED SHOES: U.S. TOUR BEGINS IN L.A. SEPTEMBER 15 Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s beloved fairy tale and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s legendary 1948 film The Red Shoes, Matthew Bourne and company (New Adventures) adapted the breathtaking story and created a theatrical ballet which took the U.K. by storm last year. After winding up its tour across…
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Theater Review: SOMETHING ROTTEN! (National Tour reviewed in Chicago)
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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Los Angeles Concert Review: PENTATONIX FOURTH OF JULY WITH FIREWORKS (The Hollywood Bowl)
A TONIX FOR WHAT AILS YOU The fireworks went off both on and above the Hollywood Bowl stage last weekend. After five short selections by American composers performed by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West, the entrancing and loquacious conductor Thomas Wilkins took a back seat after…
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Dance Review: TCHAIKOVSKY (Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg at the Music Center)
UNDERSTANDING TCHAIKOVSKY Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg’s production of Tchaikovsky. PRO et CONTRA explores duality, loneliness and the price of fame in an emotional and technically brilliant production that takes storytelling to new heights. Artistic director Boris Eifman’s portrayal of the composer’s life through first person perspective and a doppelganger that is at his side at…
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Tour Preview: DAVID SEDARIS (Royce Hall at UCLA)
FINDING DAVID SEDARIS For those unfamiliar with David Sedaris’ work, he is a prolific writer, mostly of satire and non-fiction. Many of his stories revolve around his personal life and family, though–as with any great writer, and by his own admission–he does tend to embellish. His latest book, however, is a departure from his collections of…
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Theater Review: THE BOOK OF MORMON (National Tour reviewed at Hollywood Pantages Theatre)
FAITH IN FANTASY One of the best and certainly funniest shows of this century has returned. Beginning its latest national tour at the Hollywood Pantages last night, The Book of Mormon remains a perfectly packaged fusion of the satire our world desperately needs and a sassy musical comedy. From the wizards who concocted the all-offending South Park…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: BATTLEFIELD (Peter Brook’s production at The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
SNOB HIT Well, that was boring. Of all the people on the planet who should understand the difference between theater and an underwhelming fringe entry (low cost and well-meaning with no set, minimal costume, and small cast), you would think it would be the great innovator and influencer Peter Brook. He may not be a household…
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Dance Review: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Scottish Ballet)
A STREETCAR TO HEAVEN Thankfully not just a review of record. Still, you only have two more chances to catch what is surely the most phenomenal storytelling I have ever seen in a narrative ballet. The highest compliment I can offer director Nancy Meckler, choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and composer Peter Salem is that you don’t…
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Theater Review: JERSEY BOYS (2017-18 National Tour)
JERSEY CASH COW Jersey Boys, the terrific 2004 jukebox musical inspired by the story of pop sensation Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, is one of the greatest triumphs in Broadway history, spawning a spate of companies around the globe and a slew of national tours. So what’s a producer to do since the Broadway…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: INGING (Jeanine Durning at Automata in Chinatown)
GERUNDING Multiple monitors flash images of choreographer and performer Jeanine Durning’s face as she filters through emotions of delight, amusement and pensiveness in the small, private Automata Theater in L.A.’s Chinatown. After pacing endlessly around the studio, Durning’”maneuvering through narrow gaps between the audience’s scattered folding chairs’”starts talking about the building’s exit and entrance. After this…
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Chicago Theater Review: DYLAN BRODY’S DRIVING HOLLYWOOD (Apollo Theater)
LACERATING LA-LA LAND It’s a crash course in one man’s life-long damage control: Up close, personal, and, therapeutically playful, Dylan Brody’s Driving Hollywood is a liberal-minded California humorist’s cri de coeur. Forthrightly and plaintively, Dylan Brody contemplates “a history of disappointment in self-expression.” Now playing Chicago’s Apollo Theater studio, his free-form, 80-minute confessional is rich…
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