Areas We Cover
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Tours
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Theater Review: THE SOUND OF MUSIC (National Tour at The Nederlander in Chicago)
YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO SEE A BETTER PRODUCTION OF THIS EVERGREEN MUSICAL. JUST BRING SOME CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM. How do you solve a problem like the schmaltz in The Sound of Music? Or even, how do you review a populist juggernaut like The Sound of Music? It’s been sixty-five years since its first appearance on Broadway…
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Theater Review: JULIA MASLI: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA (Pasadena Playhouse)
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA OFFERS UNITY THROUGH AN ABSURDIST GROUP THERAPY SESSION I had no idea what I was walking into when I drove out to the Pasadena Playhouse (more than an hour’s drive during traffic) to see absurdist clown Julia Masli entertain the crowd at a 70-minute absurdist clown’s group therapy…
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Dance Review: FRANKENSTEIN (San Francisco Ballet at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa)
When creation becomes choreography in Frankenstein, the laboratory turns into a stage of desire Mary Shelley’s creation continues to haunt not only literature but the stage, where movement and music conspire to make visible the tremors of his unnatural birth. The late choreographer Liam Scarlett’s Frankenstein, brought vividly to life by San Francisco Ballet, joins…
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Theater Review: SUFFS (National Tour)
A GREAT MUSICAL, SUFFS REMINDS US THAT DEMOCRACY ONLY MOVES FORWARD WHEN WOMEN DO While much of what we love in musicals is pure fiction, history has had an undeniable flair for the dramatic — and Broadway has always noticed. From Hamilton to 1776 to Evita, political legends have inspired some of the stage’s most…
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Theater Review: HAMILTON (National Tour in Boston)
STILL SCRAPPY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS It has been more than ten years since Hamilton’s Off-Broadway premiere. Alexander Hamilton may have declared himself—like his country—“young, scrappy, and hungry,” with scrappy meaning feisty, resourceful, and unwilling to back down. The musical that bears his name is no longer young, nor is it hungry—according to a 2020…
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Theater Review: LES MISÉRABLES (National Tour in San Diego)
A FAR CRY FROM MISERABLE (UNLESS YOU’RE ONE OF THE CHARACTERS) There’s a lot to gripe about in the world in 2025, but you know what? Spend a little time in 1815 France and you’re going to feel a lot better about your week. Victor Hugo’s novel takes us in deep, and the musical version…
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Theater Review: PARADE (Tour at Kennedy Center, D.C.)
A stark and haunting Parade marches into the Kennedy Center, the final stop of this Broadway tour, confronting history with stripped-down staging and searing urgency The national tour of Parade, now at the Kennedy Center, arrives with an intensity that refuses to let its audience settle. Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s 1998 musical has always…
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Theater Review: SHUCKED (National Tour in Hollywood)
A FIELD OF PUNS IN FULL BLOOM Corn puns are like tequila shots. A few will make you smile and loosen you up, but by the time you are ten or twelve deep you start to wonder how you got here and whether you should call a cab. The national tour of Shucked, now playing…
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Theater Review: & JULIET (National Tour in Los Angeles)
SHAKESPEARE, INTERRUPTED About five minutes into & Juliet, Juliet belts “…Baby One More Time” with such raw confusion you half-believe Britney’s lyrics might hold the secrets of the universe. It should collapse under its own absurdity, yet it lands. That is the show in miniature: ridiculous on purpose and, against the odds, brilliant. Rachel Simone…
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Theater Review: THE WIZ (North American Tour at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre)
A BEWITCHING WIZ Director Schele Williams’s touring adaptation of The Wiz touches down in Boston like a technicolor cyclone and lifts its audience up with a storm of funk, gospel, and unapologetic Black joy. Amber Ruffin’s updated book recasts Dorothy (Dana Cimone) as a recently orphaned girl from an urban background who has come to…
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