Areas We Cover
Categories
Tours
-
Theater Review: CHICAGO (National Tour)
WHERE IS MRS. O’LEARY’S COW WHEN YOU NEED HER? Had the inexhaustible 57-year-old Christie Brinkley performed “Roxie” on America’s Got Talent, I would have demanded that she make it to the next round. The leggy supermodel is in such great shape that it would inspire America to get its collective butt out of its seat…
-
Off-Broadway Theater Review: THE CARETAKER (Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater)
PICKING THROUGH AMBIGUITIES In Harold Pinter’s purposefully ambiguous The Caretaker (1960), currently playing at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater, Davies (Jonathan Pryce) is a transient who is invited by Aston (Alan Cox) to stay in a dilapidated London house. All the action takes place in one crummy, cluttered room that is also frequented by…
-
Tour Review: TOTEM (Cirque du Soleil)
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 animals acts are strictly for the birds when it comes to grand circus entertainment. Press materials tell us that “Totem traces the fascinating journey…
-
Chicago Theater Review: BEING SHAKESPEARE (Broadway Playhouse in Chicago)
GET THEE TO BEING SHAKESPEARE There’s simply no other way to encourage your attendance to Being Shakespeare than to submit my unequivocal good word. Those who fret at comprehending Shakespeare’s prose may be put off by the man’s name in the title. Don’t be. If you hear that this is a solo show, but you…
-
Los Angeles Theater & Tour Review: BILLY ELLIOT (Pantages Theatre in Hollywood)
A VERY F***ING SPECIAL SHOW One of the big dramatic moments in Billy Elliot, making its Los Angeles premiere for a month-long run at the Pantages, comes late in the second act, when Billy’s first teacher is saying good-bye. “You are very fucking special,” she says, spitting the words at him. “Now piss off, before…
-
Chicago Theater Review: JERSEY BOYS (Bank of America Theatre in Chicago and National Tour)
THE BOYS ARE BACK, AND BETTER THAN EVER Maybe it’s the law of averages. Put enough jukebox musicals on the American stage and one of them is bound to come up a classic. That may explain the hit status of Jersey Boys, the musical inspired by the male quartet Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons…
-
Theater Interview: CULLEN R. TITMAS (starring in Billy Elliot National Tour)
THE IMPORTANCE OF A BIG BROTHER When you hear of Billy Elliot being a phenomenal world-wide success, it is almost shocking that the popular musical (music by Elton John, book and lyrics by Lee Hall) has never played Los Angeles. That all changes this week. The heart-warming story of a young boy from a coal-mining…
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: AMERICAN IDIOT (National Tour at the Ahmanson Theatre)
WHICH AMERICAN IDIOT ARE YOU? If you know and love Green Day’s studio concept album on which it is based, American Idiot is the show for you. If, like me, you are a stranger to the original material and like to savor the lyrics in a theater and not have them turn to slush amidst the…
-
Theater Review: FELA! (National Tour at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago)
ONE EXCLAMATION POINT IN THE TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH Audience enjoyment of Fela! at the Oriental Theatre will be in direct proportion to the viewer’s capacity to absorb more than two hours of non-stop high-energy music and dance. For some (probably most) patrons, the musical will be a continuous high of propulsive music and dancing….
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: MAMMA MIA! (Pantages Theatre in Hollywood)
MAMMA MIA: TEN YEARS OF DIZZY, FIZZY DELIGHT The most essential elements of the Mama Mia! National tour, now in its tenth year, and visiting Los Angeles once again at the Pantages for the next two weeks, are people you have likely never heard of nor will ever see in person. It is production stage…
-
Theater Review: ROCK OF AGES (National Tour reviewed at the Hollywood Pantages)
ROCK & ROLL CAMP The cast of Rock of Ages is riotously hell bent on making you have a good time. They beat you into submission with energy, wide smiles, and hair’”lots and lots of great big 80s hair. It’s a jukebox musical, with a slender thread of a boy-meets-girl story piecing together some of…
-
World Tour Theater Review: RIVERDANCE (Oriental Theatre in Chicago)
RIVER OF DREAMS All good things must come to an end, they say, so it was inevitable that Riverdance would finally end its run, at least in the United States. But will it ever be missed. Playing for a paltry week of performances at the Oriental Theatre, the show bids farewell to Chicago, but it’s…
-
Regional/National Tour Dance Feature: ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER (Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa)
ALVIN AILEY – REMEMBER HIS NAME AIDS wreaked havoc on the theater world in all of its incarnations, and the crushing effects of its devastation remain with us today. So many ingenious creators were robbed from us that imagining the works that may have been instigates an unspeakable grief so vast that, at times, it seems best…
-
National Tour/Nightclub Review: MARíA VOLONTÉ (Blue Tango National Tour)
THE DARK STREETS OF PASSION The voluptuous Argentine singer María Volonté glided elegantly onto the stage at The Rrazz Room, caressed her guitar as with a lover, and had me at, “Are you ready to be dragged into the world of passion?” Music historians may debate the origins of tango music, but no one will…
-
Chicago Theater Review: AMERICAN IDIOT (Oriental Theatre)
IDIOT IS AS IDIOT DOES Inspired by a 2004 rock album by the American punk rock band Green Day, American Idiot has received its share of positive reviews since its premiere in Berkeley, California in 2009 and subsequent extended run on Broadway. The rock musical has also received its share of shrugs, especially from patrons…
-
Tour Review: OVO (Cirque du Soleil)
IF THIS IS THE CIRCUS, WHERE’S MY BREAD? In 1992, Guy Laliberté gentrified the big top with Saltimbanco, offering pure spectacle at Wagnerian prices, and in the process conflating art with acrobatics. Millions of people have subsequently made the same adjustment to their definition of quality entertainment. The change may be more significant than it…
-
Las Vegas / National Tour Theater Review: MICHAEL JACKSON THE IMMORTAL WORLD TOUR
OH, WHAT A FOOL THIS IMMORTAL BE [Editor’s Note: The tour reviewed below was a gigantic, arena-style show. A more intimate and intricate encounter with the late singer’s oeuvre took up permanent residence at Las Vegas’s Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino as Michael Jackson: ONE on June 30, 2013.] After a short run in Las Vegas, Cirque…
-
Theater Review: FELA! (National Tour kick-off at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles)
SING A SONG OF AFRICA Fela! is a scorcher. On these chilly nights in December and January, everyone (with a vested interest in the continuing power of musical theater) should retreat to the Ahmanson Theatre, where the heat is on. Warning: Do not try to put the fire out. Let the blaze burn bright. There…
-
Theater Review: MEMPHIS (National Tour)
MEMPHIS PROVIDES RHYTHM BUT ULTIMATELY GIVES YOU THE BLUES Kicking off its national tour, Memphis blew into Chicago trying to sell itself as a romping, stomping celebration of rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll during its turbulent early years in the 1950s. There is plenty of energy on the stage at the Cadillac Palace…
-
LA/National Tour Theater Review: BRING IT ON: THE MUSICAL (Ahmanson Theatre)
PREPPY IS THE NEW SUBVERSIVE When the development of Bring It On: The Musical was announced, I rolled my eyes. The commercial viability of yet another mediocre movie-to-musical had lured Tony Award-winning talent from three refreshingly original musicals: In the Heights, Next to Normal, and Avenue Q. I doubted whether director/choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, librettist Jeff…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
