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Theater Review: BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL (National Tour)
BACK TO THE FUTURE NEEDS TO GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD The Broadway tour of Back to the Future, a musical adaptation of the beloved film, has landed at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace as part of a national tour. Directed by John Rando, it is visually marvelous and otherwise totally unmemorable. This is a theatre…
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Theater Review: CLUE (National Tour at the Ahmanson Theatre)
CLUELESS NO MORE As a kid, I never played the Hasbro board game Clue, nor did I ever see the Paramount Pictures movie based on that board game. But at opening night on July 31, I was absolutely wowed by the sensational national touring production of Clue at The Ahmanson Theatre, on stage through August…
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Theater Review: PETER PAN (National Tour)
HAPPILY EVER EVER IN THE LAND OF NEVER NEVER There have been so many versions of Peter Pan over the years that current viewers might have been exposed to the character in numerous ways. Granted, it’s not too likely that anyone today got to see J.M. Barrie’s original 1904 London staging of his play about…
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Theater Review: COMPANY (2023-2024 North American Tour)
THE COMPANY WE KEEP To wed or not to wed — that is the question that Stephen Sondheim poses in his 1970 musical Company, for which he is the composer and lyricist (with a book by George Furth). James Earl Jones II as Harry, Kathryn Allison as Sarah, Britney Coleman as Bobbie and Judy McLane…
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Theater Review: CLUE (National Tour)
MURDEROUS LAUGHTER In 1945, “Cluedo” first came on the scene in the United Kingdom to the delight of board game lovers. Created by game designer Anthony E. Pratt, this beloved family friend board game, better known as “Clue” in the United States, has been a staple in the American zeitgeist for over half a century….
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Theater Review: THE BEST MAN SHOW (Hollywood and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals)
THE WORST BEST MAN MAKES THE BEST MAN SHOW A GUARANTEED WINNER We’re attending a wedding. Every viewer in the audience is an attendee. The vows have already been exchanged, and now it’s time for the groom’s brother — his best man — to give the customary speech. Charming and truthful but filled with toxicity…
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Highly Recommended Dance: SMUIN CONTEMPORARY BALLET (The Joyce in NYC)
SMUIN IS A SHOO-IN Celebrating its 30th anniversary, San Francisco-based Smuin Contemporary Ballet returns to The Joyce with a triple bill of original commissions each making their New York premiere through Sunday. The engagement will be the Company’s ninth at the Joyce and first since 2012. The program will include the New York premiere of Val Caniparoli’s…
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Theater Review: FUNNY GIRL (National Tour at Kennedy Center)
KATERINA MCCRIMMON IS INDEED THE GREATEST STAR Funny Girl is a beloved musical that first premiered on Broadway in 1964, with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill, and a book by Isobel Lennart. The original production starred Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice, a role that catapulted her to stardom and earned her critical…
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Theater Review: MRS. DOUBTFIRE THE MUSICAL (National Tour at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco)
MRS. DOUBTFIRE IN GOOD HANDS WITH ROB McCLURE In Mrs. Doubtfire The Musical, a familiar San Francisco-based plot meets with the Tony-nominated actor Rob McClure, who makes Robin Williams’ classic ‘drag’ character come to life in an entirely new way. But the road from the 1987 Anne Fine novel that inspired the franchise on its…
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Theater Review: FEMMINA SUPER (Broadwater Main Stage at the Hollywood Fringe Festival)
SUPER FEMMINA SUPER To say that I was fascinated with Femmina Super is an understatement. The show is subtitled, “A New Opera,” which normally has me running in the other direction, as newer operas tend to be atonal and opaque and pretentious. Writer-composer-performer Bethany Hill offers just the opposite. I fear that subtitle may scare…
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Theater Review: THE KITE RUNNER (National Tour at The Kennedy Center in D.C.)
THE KITE RUNNER FLIES HIGH AT THE KENNEDY CENTER Because the best-selling novel The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is so significant and well-revered, as is the 2007 movie screenplay by David Benioff, my expectations were high at last night’s opening to see the stage version, currently on a national tour at The Kennedy Center’s…
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Off-Broadway Review: DARK NOON (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
THE NOT-SO-GOOD, THE BAD AND THE REALLY REALLY UGLY What better way to get a fresh perspective of our American West than by attending a 300-year history reenactment in 100 minutes? Written and directed by the acclaimed Danish director Tue Biering, with Nhlanhla Mahlangu as his co-director and choreographer, and performed by seven South African…
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Theater Review: THE KITE RUNNER (National Tour)
A KITE THIS BIG DOESN’T ALWAYS TAKE OFF; WHEN IT DOES, THIS STAGE ADAPTATION IS WORTH SEEING Directed by Giles Croft, the touring production of The Kite Runner at CIBC Theatre is an intensely human piece of theatre perhaps better suited for a more intimate venue. Based on the best-selling book by Khaled Hosseini, the…
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Highly Recommended Dance: ANNA KARENINA (Joffrey Ballet at the Dorothy Chandler in L.A.)
LEO TOLSTOY TURNED TO LEAPS AND TWIRLS IN THIS NARRATIVE BALLET MILESTONE FROM JOFFREY BALLET, COMING TO L.A. JUNE 21–23, 2024 With a brand new score created by 39-year-old wunderkind Ukrainian-born composer Ilya Demutsky, who replenishes the rhapsodic romanticism of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and genius choreographer Yuri Possokhov, who finds new depths in dance, Anna…
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Theater Review: HAIRSPRAY (National Tour at the Hobby Center in Houston)
HAIRSPRAY: HIGH-STEPPIN’ AND HIGH HAIR IN HOUSTON Returning to the Broadway at the Hobby Center series for one week only, the high-stepping, toe-tapping, raucous romp good time known as Hairspray the musical. Join “The Nicest Kids in Town” for a three-hour escapade through history, teenaged angst, a powerful message against the evils of segregation and the…
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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Jazz Concert: SAMARA JOY (McCallum Theatre in Palm Springs)
A JOY TO BEHOLD COMES TO MCCALLUM ONE NIGHT ONLY, SATURDAY JUNE 15 AT 8 The jazz world has been abuzz about the 24-year-old New Yorker Samara Joy since she won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition in 2019, and rightfully so. After releasing her eponymous debut album and then her first album with Verve…
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Highly Recommended Cabaret: WILL HE LIKE ME? (Phillip Chaffin at Coachella Valley Repertory in Palm Springs)
PHILLIP CHAFFIN’S 2018 ALBUM WILL HE LIKE ME? BECOMES A FULL-LENGTH STAGE SHOW Philip Chaffin, who has the perfect honeyed baritone for those swanky musicals of the 20s and 30s, embarked on an adventure that was rather trailblazing when his 2018 album Will He Like Me? came out (so to speak). (See my review.) It’s…
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Theater Review: FUNNY GIRL (National Tour at Segerstrom Hall)
THERE’S A STAR IN THIS DUSTY OLD COUCH OF A MUSICAL Funny Girl — the musical narrative of the ugly duckling turned Ziegfeld star turned tragic heroine — takes center stage once more. With beloved songs written by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, Isobel Lennart‘s 1964 book was updated by Harvey Fierstein for Broadway in…
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Cabaret Review: LUCIE ARNAZ: I GOT THE JOB! SONGS FROM MY MUSICAL PAST (Tour)
WHAT CAN I SAY EXCEPT, “I LOVE LUCIE” It has been said that the greatest art in the world is the art of storytelling and Lucie Arnaz is masterful at it. In her career of forty-five plus years in musical theater, Arnaz has amassed an impressive array of anecdotes and songs which she shared with…
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Dance Review: DEREK HOUGH – SYMPHONY OF DANCE (Tour at Rady Shell in San Diego)
HOUGH’LL HUFF AND HE’LL PUFF AND HE’LL BLOW YOU AWAY For those of you who’ve somehow missed all of the 31 seasons of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, two of the male dancers have crossed over from mere participants to celebrity status, on and off the show. Dark, handsome Maksim “Maks” Chmerkovskiy earned a reputation…
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