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San Francisco and Tour Theater Review: AMALUNA (Cirque du Soleil)
OVER THE MOON A big top with a 13-meter stage, despite its yawning spatial dimensions, hardly seemed big enough to contain the amount of sheer artistry, astounding gymnastic physicality, slapstick humor, mythology, classic literature, contemporary music and dazzling delight that make up Cirque du Soleil’s Amaluna, a tribute to the voice and work of women….
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San Francisco Music Preview: NATALIE COLE WITH THE SF SYMPHONY (Davies Hall)
NATALIE CON GUSTO Yes, she’s the daughter of jazz legend Nat “King” Cole, but I’ve been a fan of Natalie Cole’s since she burst on the scene in 1976 with her hit single and album I’ve Got Love on My Mind (her dance song, “Dangerous,” is still on my iPod). She won a whole new…
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Los Angeles Music Review: TURTLE ISLAND QUARTET WITH NELLIE MCKAY (Valley Performing Arts Center)
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…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
GRAHAM CRACKLES The gorgeous Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts will present for its inaugural attraction the Martha Graham Dance Company, playing today and tomorrow only, November 8 and 9. The festive and comprehensive program of Graham favorites will play in the brand new state-of-the-art Bram Goldsmith Theater, the most perfectly intimate space for…
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Tour Review: BUILT TO AMAZE! (Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus)
A TITLE THAT LIVES UP TO ITS NAME The circus has rolled into Rosemont again, and the fall classic is worth running off to join (it moves to the United Center after Allstate Arena). This 143rd edition, Built to Amaze!, revels in its “construction zone” ambiance: An “engineering” ensemble parade as blue-collar workers erecting an edifice…
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Theater Review: EVITA (National Tour in Hollywood)
A HIGH FLYING, ADORED REVIVAL Composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice released the Evita “rock opera concept album” in 1976, a few years before the first theatrical production came to life on the West End and ultimately Broadway, a production that I vividly remember. It was truly exhilarating to witness Patti LuPone…
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Los Angeles Music Review: THE SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE (Valley Performing Arts Center)
A MUSICAL TRAVELOGUE Silk Road Ensemble’s violinist Colin Jacobsen introduced his “Atashgah” to an attentive crowd at the gorgeous Valley Performing Arts Center with a simple, “I wrote this piece.” Yet magically, it didn’t appear written at all. The consistent soul-searching and yearning that emanated from the 11-piece ensemble rendered the work seemingly improvisational. The…
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Los Angeles Concert Preview: AUDRA MCDONALD: ONE NIGHT ONLY (Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
I’M A LITTLE BIT IN LOVE The captivating singer and actress Audra McDonald performed last September at the SF Symphony gala opening, sharing the program with two orchestral works. At one point, she sang the Bernstein/Comden/Green tune “I’m a Little Bit in Love” from Wonderful Town: “Mm–mmm! / It’s so nice to be alive /…
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Chicago Theater Review: WE WILL ROCK YOU (National Tour at Cadillac Palace Theatre)
REINVENTING ROCK A huge West End hit for over a decade, this compilation jukebox musical does for Queen what Mamma Mia! did for ABBA, Buddy for Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and Jersey Boys for Frankie V. and the Four Seasons. But it’s much closer to the first example, if only because the plot is…
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Los Angeles Dance Review: NEDERLANDS DANS THEATER 1 (Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
PUTTING THE THEATER IN DANCE Living up to its name, Nederlands Dans Theater 1 bounded into Los Angeles last night, showing off the reasons why The Hague-based contemporary dance outfit is known for defying convention. With a mixture of acting, multi-media, unique choreography and bravado inventiveness, this world-class company offered three works in a program…
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Los Angeles Theater and Tour Review: TOTEM (San Pedro, Irvine and Santa Monica)
CIRQUE’S PERKS What’s a circus without lions, tigers, and elephants? In the case of Cirque du Soleil’s Totem, their eleventh major production in 26 years, it’s a marked improvement, proving that animal acts are strictly for the birds when it comes to grand circus entertainment. Press materials tell us that “Totem traces the fascinating journey…
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National Tour Review: ONCE (Oriental Theatre in Chicago)
LOVE IMITATES ART Ironically, the real-life love affair celebrated on film and in the theater by co-creators Glen Hasard, an Irish composer, and Marketa Irglova, a Czech songwriter, fizzled after John Carney’s 2007 film of Once became a success. (Well, it’s not called Once for nothing.) But its Tony-triumphant musical version, now in a soaring…
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Los Angeles Music Review: EMMYLOU HARRIS & RODNEY CROWELL (Valley Performing Arts Center)
AMERICAN LEGENDS Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell took the stage at Valley Performing Arts Center to deliver a hot set of good old-fashioned country-flavored Americana music. It was an evening of legends paying tribute to those whom they revere and love, not excluding each other. Since their first meeting forty years ago, these highly regarded…
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Theater Review: THE WIZARD OF OZ (National Tour)
NO HEART. NO BRAIN. NO NERVE. STAY HOME. Just short of insulting, a Broadway Machine-styled version of the iconic film, The Wizard of Oz, opened at the Pantages this week. Instead of writing additional new material that matched the screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf (uncredited in the program), bookwriters Andrew…
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Chicago Dance Review: EIFMAN BALLET OF ST. PETERSBURG’S “RODIN” (Auditorium Theatre)
SCULPTED TO PERFECTION Dance should never be dull: That’s the acting credo of Boris Eifman’s kinetic Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg, now erupting across the huge Auditorium Theatre stage through Sunday. Chicago may be a huge dance town already, but this amazing company is always welcome for their frenzied dancing, electric mood swings, pulsating lighting on swirling…
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Chicago/Tour Theater Review: ANYTHING GOES (Palace Theatre)
PORTER IS THE ONE WHO CARRIES THIS SHOW H.M.S. Titanic, they say, was unsinkable, but the S.S. American ’” the setting for Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, his biggest hit before Kiss Me Kate ’” actually is unsinkable, and has been sailing strong since 1934. Roundabout Theatre Company’s triumphant 2010 revival, a Tony-winning smash on Broadway now on tour in Chicago,…
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Music Interview: TINARIWEN (part of the MusicNOW Festival in Cincinnati)
MUSIC BORN OUT OF WAR The MusicNOW Festival will present a dynamic lineup of new music at Cincinnati’s Memorial Hall from April 12 – 14, 2013. Founded in 2006 by Bryce Dessner of the indie rock band The National, the festival hosts contemporary musicians who defy the traditional boundaries of genre. The festival fosters world…
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Chicago/National Tour Theater Review: PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (Auditorium Theatre)
BREAKOUT IN THE OUTBACK There are so many ways to glitter and be gay in American Musical Theater: La Cage Aux Folles depicts the unexpected bourgeois normality in a near-marriage of boa-wrapped impersonators at a gender-breaking Riviera nightclub; Kinky Boots celebrates vogue-crazed drag queens with foot fetishes who want to strut their stuff on a runway…
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Los Angeles/Tour Theater Review: ONE NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN (Pasadena Playhouse)
ONE NIGHT WITH PEARL Break out the Southern Comfort and feathered boa, One Night with Janis Joplin is a helluva concert experience presented at the Pasadena Playhouse. Writer-director-creator Randy Johnson offers a celebration of the biographical-musicological journey of Janis Joplin through a psychedelic prism and accents it with 21st century theatrics. No tragedy here, just…
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Chicago/Tour Dance Review: ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER (Auditorium Theatre)
A TRUE SPRING FLING Returning to new glory and restoring golden memories after many happy visits to Chicago, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater just unleashed an unprecedented two-week, three-program showcase, part of a 21-city tour by the evergreen troupe. Opening night at the beautiful Auditorium Theatre ignited three pieces as fresh as they are familiar and…
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