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Dance Review: ASTAIRE DANCES III (American Contemporary Ballet)
TOP HATS OFF TO ACB With Astaire Dances III, American Contemporary Ballet recreates several iconic routines evolved by the great Fred Astaire and his choreographer Hermes Pan, and executes them with charm and grace. But the evening is about so much more than presenting a few meticulously copied dance numbers; the audience is treated to…
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Theater Review: ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (La Mirada)
THERE’S ARSENIC AND LACE; BUT IT DOESN’T FEEL OLD Serial murder, euthanasia, slasher psychopaths, bodies buried in a crawl space, face-lifts for people trying to change their images, the cyanide poisonings of innocent strangers — it’s a click-bait tabloid-rotten world we live in. Not like the good old days, when crime didn’t pay and virtue…
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Theater Review: DO YOU FEEL ANGER? (A Red Orchid)
I DON’T FEEL YOUR PAIN Lately a chronic lack of empathy–sensitivity to the feelings of others–threatens to become a liability as great as any budget deficit. Compassion has never felt less contagious. So maybe it’s time for Do You Feel Anger? No indignant expose of sociopathic alienation, this 2019 drama by Mara Nelson-Greenberg, now in…
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Music Review: ALL-STRAUSS (Philippe Jordan, Gautier Capuçon, Teng Li, Los Angeles Philharmonic)
STRAUSS RELIEVER A few years ago, I saw Richard Strauss’s opera, Elektra. Let me just say that even with moments of beautiful, chilling music it veered into atonal territory, sounding like a disjointed, anticlimactic Danse Macabre, but without the dance. The vocal lines skewed towards the upper range which not only grated on the ear,…
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Theater Review: UNTIL THE FLOOD (Center Theatre Group at the Kirk Douglas Theatre)
AFTER THE FLOOD Until the Flood lasts only 70 minutes. But its concentrated running time delivers a devastating drama. A ton of truth-telling now on tour at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, this 2016 one-act is the creation of actor, poet and oral historian Dael Orlandersmith. She becomes the partisans, witnesses, survivors and, above all, inhabitants…
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Theater Review: SOPHISTICATED LADIES (Porchlight Music Theatre at Ruth Page Center for the Arts)
SOPHISTICATED SWING FROM KING ELLINGTON Some shows are just pure pleasure, delivering unpretentious delight with no plot to process or points to proclaim. Much like Ain’t Misbehavin’, an infectious romp that salutes the music and mirth of Fats Waller, Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies is a 1981 confection conceived by Donald McKayle that enthralls audiences with two dozen hit numbers…
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Theater Reviews: RED INK (Playwrights’ Arena) and EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON (Rogue Machine)
YELLOW JOURNALISM, BLUE PLANET — UNCERTAIN FUTURES Propaganda has always existed. It’s when people promote and publicize their agenda utilizing biased or misleading information, a perfect tool for predomination, profit, and/or political power. With the advent of the internet, propaganda such as yellow journalism — which uses scandal-mongering, sensationalism and exaggeration of news events to…
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Theater Review: KILLER’S HEAD & THE UNSEEN HAND (Sam Shepard One-Acts at the Odyssey)
SHEP IN TIME When I think of the late Sam Shepard, his plays Fool for Love, True West, Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class usually come to mind. I was totally unfamiliar with Killer’s Head and The Unseen Hand now playing as a double bill at the Odyssey in celebration of the theater’s 50th…
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Theater Review: FOR THE LOVE OF A GLOVE (Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan Theater in Los Angeles)
IF THE GLOVE FITS… On the heels of Leaving Neverland — the jaw-dropping 2019 documentary that explores the sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson — comes the world premiere of a musical that posits a bizarre, untold story of the King of Pop. For the Love of a Glove is a ribald, lampooning satire that…
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Opera Review: GIANNI SCHICCHI & L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILÈGES (Pacific Opera Project)
A DAZZLING DOUBLE BILL The laudable Pacific Opera Project gave us two sparkling gems of operatic joy this week: a double bill of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Ravel’s L’enfant et les Sortilèges. Director Josh Shaw has updated both operas to the mid-1950s, a period which suits both pieces well — old enough for temporal distance…
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Theater Review: IF/THEN (Brown Paper Box Co.)
MANY FORKS IN MANY ROADS “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!” John Greenleaf Whittier’s bittersweet couplet is echoed in If/Then, a 2014 chamber musical. This sprawling, 160-minute speculation of a show wonders whether there are any accidents in life. Is chance just “probabilities playing…
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Theater Review: THE LAST SHIP (National Tour)
A SHIP THAT REMAINS DOCKED Sting’s musical The Last Ship has been in a shakedown cruise since it opened in Chicago six years ago. Based on last night’s star-studded opening night at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles, this retooled version sadly remains docked. Sure, it’s got a decent new book that jettisons jetsam from the…
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Concert Review: LEA DELARIA (The Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles)
DELIGHTFULLY DELIRIOUS DELARIA She’s butch, bold, brazen and brash. She’s riotous, raucous, ribald and rebellious. She scats with style and scurrilously scours political cads. And above all, she’s enormously entertaining. Since the mid-eighties, I’ve seen her on Broadway as well as her solo shows, some mostly singing and some mostly stand-up. Last Saturday night, January…
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Theater Review: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND (Nat’l Tour)
A TREE GROWS IN THE ANTILLES In 1990, eight years before he wrote Ragtime, Stephen Flaherty composed an eclectically exotic score for this one-act fairy tale. It’s the forthright story of a French Antilles peasant girl and the rich boy whom she adores to the unreciprocated end. Well-cooked in Lynn Aherns’ supple lyrics, Flaherty’s warm “Margaritaville”…
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Theater Review: VOLTA (Cirque du Soleil)
PLENTY OF WATTAGE, EVEN WITH AN OBSCURE STORY Cirque du Soleil is back with its latest touring show, which opened last night, January 21, at Dodger Stadium. At its best, Volta provides all the pleasures of a Cirque production — knockout acts of grace, athleticism, skill, creativity, and danger. The show does have difficulties associated…
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Film Preview: HUMP! FILM FESTIVAL (National Tour curated by Dan Savage)
SIT ON MY FACEBOOK Attending Dan Savage’s awesome HUMP! Film Festival is easy enough, but now you can take a stand against corporate fascism just by getting the word out. Then get yourself to a theater near you for the 15th annual Festival, which is on tour beginning January 30 and running through October of…
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Theater Review: NOWHERE ON THE BORDER (Road Theatre Company in North Hollywood)
BYOC: BRING YOUR OWN CANTEEN In an effort to spark dialogue on Trump-era immigration, The Road Theatre Company has mounted a revised version of Carlos Lacámara’s Nowhere on the Border, a play that premiered at The Hayworth Theatre in 2006 during the presidency of George W. Bush. While this partially-rewritten work is a testament to…
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Theater Review: WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME (Mark Taper Forum)
WHAT WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME MEANS TO ME Given the barrage of nasty nightly news, I don’t doubt that Americans are champing at the bit for a large slice of patriotism as they watch America seemingly evolving and devolving at once. And there isn’t a document that represents our constantly changing America more…
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Theater Review: BABETTE’S FEAST (Lamb’s Players Theatre in San Diego)
SIMPLE PLEASURES IN THIS FEAST The Shakers have a song in their hymnal that reads: ’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free ’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ’Twill be in the valley of love…
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Theater Review: TOP GIRLS (Remy Bumppo Theatre Company at Theater Wit)
LONELY HUBRIS “I want it all.” “The sky’s [not] the limit.” “You only live once.” “You can’t take it with you.”: We’re fascinated by all the pride that precedes a fall. We can conditionally identify with hyper self-assertion — then strategically withdraw our sympathies when it comes a cropper. That’s what still works, almost 40…
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