Tours

CRY!BOYS AND INDIANS Let’s be honest:   Director Elizabeth LeCompte’s sometimes astonishing adaptation of Shakespeare’s Trolius and Cressida by the acclaimed Wooster Group of New York is indeed a bit of a misstep.   On the other hand, it is a simply brilliant failure.   The show crackles with ferociously presented and compelling ideas; gorgeously visual stagecraft; and…

THE LEGACY WILL HAVE YOU GEEKING OUT FOR GENE KELLY Gene Kelly’s widow, Patricia Ward Kelly, is touring with her retrospective multi-media presentation of Gene Kelly’s life and work, Gene Kelly: The Legacy, which plays through Sunday at the Pasadena Playhouse. Since meeting Kelly in the mid-1980s, Patricia has concurrently been his biographer, historian, and…

FUNK ME Director and choreographer Otis Sallid wants to illuminate how James Brown’s funky music and original dance styling has influenced contemporary culture. He engaged PHILADANCO (Philadelphia Dance Company) and then chose choreographers from around the world, letting each one choose from 33 of Brown’s songs and cultivate original works. The result is James Brown:…

JONESING FOR SOMETHING MORE It’s been 31 years since the creation of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, but since Zane’s death from AIDS in 1988, Jones’”his work and life partner’”has remained the sole artistic director. A touring 30th anniversary season includes two mixed programs, both of which are under the banner of “Play…

COLORATURA ME MINE If ever there was a case for live music, a renaissance vocal ensemble is a compelling one. There is something so pure about five voices interacting in perfect harmony, especially in an exquisitely beautiful room. Such was the case last Thursday at the Da Camera Society’s Mid-Wilshire Festival; as part of its…

FAR OUT The Los Angeles premiere of British choreographer Wayne McGregor’s FAR opened at Royce Hall last night, and you are advised to cancel all plans and catch the last performance tonight. The one-hour work eventually overstays its welcome, but up until then it is charismatic, engrossing, mysterious, spellbinding, and truly one of the most…

GO DRUNK OR DON’T GO AT ALL The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, David Greig’s ghostly, song-filled tale of a mousy academic in search of artful Scottish balladry, is running at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. The National Theatre of Scotland creates a night in Kelso as central character Prudencia faces her demons in…

A TRIP Your average 4 to 12   year old carries enough infectious optimism and joie de vivre to put even a theater critic in a good mood.   But childless people who like children notice things about them that parents can’t, for reasons of familiarity and self-preservation.   Everybody knows there’s a biological reward for being around…

STRINGS ATTACHED A worldwide pandemic has already claimed the lives of hundreds of millions of humans and the apocalypse is near.   An intriguing plot line to be sure but hardly one you would associate with a puppet show. Rest assured, Penny Plain, currently stringing audiences along at UCLA’s Little Theater, is no ordinary puppet show….

UPDATING THE OLD, PRESENTING THE NEW As part of the North American tour celebrating its 45th season, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company arrived at Valley Performing Arts Center last Saturday with a program of mostly newer works and some older duets. With Picasso’s 1905 Family of Saltimbanques as inspiration, we are taken through the creative…

A HITCH IN THE BOURNE LEGACY It’s a shame that Matthew Bourne’s narrative began to fizzle out in the second act of his Sleeping Beauty, for up to then this extraordinarily imaginative and enthralling retelling was close to proving itself another feather in the cap of this British director known for his Dance Theater productions….

WHOA, NELLIE Quirky vocalist, songwriter and multi-talented instrumentalist Nellie McKay merged with the cutting-edge jazz string ensemble Turtle Island Quartet for a program of colorful tunes at the stunning Valley Performing Arts Center this week. As part of their A Flower is a Lovesome Thing tour, these unique performers dusted off some standards, introduced us…