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Music Preview: SALONEN CONDUCTS TCHAIKOVSKY AND BARTOK (LA Phil at Disney Hall)
REAWAKENING A FAMILIAR CONCERTO As you may know, Composer and Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen is off to the Bay Area to become the San Francisco Symphony’s new music director. The Fab Fin will be leading a few concerts before he leaves. This weekend, he serves up the world premiere of his new work, Castor, a…
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Dance Review: JANE EYRE (The Joffrey Ballet)
DEMONS DANCE ON THE MOORS You can’t keep a good protagonist down. A 2016 British ballet (also performed in June by American Ballet Theatre), Jane Eyre transforms a romantic heroine into a feminist icon, her sterling goodness sturdy enough for 2019. Joffrey Ballet’s Chicago premiere of Cathy Marston’s literally moving 130-minute version reaffirms a once and future…
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Music Review: JONATHAN BISS (Recital at Soraya)
BISS IS IT What a splendid way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth year (the Sagittarian was actually born December 17, 1770): The great pianist Jonathan Biss played two separate programs of sonatas this week at The Soraya. I caught the latter, and it was all I could do to keep…
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Theater Review: SUNSET BOULEVARD (Porchlight Music Theatre at Ruth Page Center for the Arts)
UP CLOSE, SHE’S BIGGER THAN EVEN PEANUT BUTTER From the start it seemed strange that anyone would make a musical out of a movie that embodies its medium so completely. Yes, the film All About Eve deserved to become the musical Applause. Both were obsessed with the theater. But Billy Wilder’s consummately cinematic 1950 masterpiece was a cautionary…
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Review: 217 BOXES OF DR. HENRY ANONYMOUS (Freud Playhouse at UCLA)
UNMASKING A GAY HERO There is a method of political activism called a “zap.” Basically, zaps are militant but non-violent face-to-face confrontations with persons in positions of authority, but when used in tandem with a media alert, they can be powerful weapons when furthering a cause. Since gay activists in the late 1960s and early…
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Theater Review: ANASTASIA (National Tour)
ON ANASTASIA, AMNESIA, AND ANESTHESIA First came the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, who was murdered in 1918 just after the Bolshevik Revolution, most likely by Vladimir Lenin’s secret police. Then came the rumors that she was still alive. Then came the imposters, keeping alive one of…
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Theater Review: A KID LIKE JAKE (IAMA Theatre Company at the Pasadena Playhouse)
CINDERFELLA The best play on any L.A. stage right now, Daniel Pearle’s 2013 A Kid Like Jake couldn’t be more relevant. The parents of a four-year-old boy are applying for a private primary school in Manhattan with the help of a pre-school admissions counselor, Judy (Sharon Lawrence), who gets caught in the crosshairs of the…
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Theater Review: THE ABUELAS (Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale)
THE DIRTY WAR COMES HOME Stephanie Alison Walker’s The Abuelas at Antaeus Theatre is the story of a woman discovering that she is a child of the “Disappeared,” the approximately 30,000 people killed through state-sponsored terrorism during Argentina’s 1976-1983 Dirty War, when opposition to the military junta-led government was ruthlessly quashed. Two generations of women,…
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Theater Review: TRUE WEST (VS. Theatre in L.A.)
SHEPARDING OUT THE TRUTH Sam Shepard’s domestic disruption True West hasn’t left the theatrical landscape since it first premiered with Peter Coyote at San Francisco’s Magic Theater in 1980. Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre’s 1982 production with John Malkovich and Gary Sinise remains legendary and Roundabout’s Broadway outing with Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano just closed last…
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Film Feature: CASINO ROYALE: A SPY FILM TO REMEMBER
CASINO ROYALE: A SPY FILM TO REMEMBER The name Casino Royale itself brings a hoard of joy into the minds of many audiences. It is possibly one of the finest movies of James Bond that is based on a casino theme. Well, 007 is himself a fantastic Poker player and has appeared in numerous casino…
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Music Review: DUDAMEL CONDUCTS MUSIC FROM THE AMERICAS (LA Phil at Disney Hall)
LA PHIL — IT’S WHAT’S FOR DINNER Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela and the U.S. were represented in the sensational concert last night at Disney Hall. The program Dudamel Conducts Music of the Americas has the conductor collecting pieces that were inspired by folk music and celebrate peoples who came before. Two of the four pieces —…
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Theater Review: SUNDOWN, YELLOW MOON (Raven Theatre in Chicago)
A FAMILY IN KEY SIGNATURES As she showed in  Five Mile Lake,  Rachel Bonds works with a small brush. She lays low before her subject in order to convey tender, unassuming connections between the characters. The result: inconclusive plots that suggest so much more life around these souls — ones that we can only assume but nonetheless…
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Theater Review: BORDER PEOPLE (The Marsh San Francisco)
ON THE BORDERLINE What do a Latino cop, a black vet in the Bronx, a Saudi Arabian without a country, a gay pagan goat rancher, and a homeless HIV-positive man have in common? Dan Hoyle. SF’s own master storyteller is back with a new show, Border People, one he has crafted from a series of…
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Theater Review: THE VANDAL (West Coast Premiere at Chance Theatre)
WHAT LIES BURIED Actor Hamish Linklater’s funny, sharp and tender play The Vandal begins on a cold winter night as a down-on-her-luck middle-aged woman waits for a bus on a deserted street. A high-school boy appears and starts up a conversation. Precocious and lively, he quickly overcomes the woman’s reluctance to participate. He points out…
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Music Review: DUDAMEL CONDUCTS GERSHWIN AND COPLAND (LA Phil at Disney Hall)
THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN GRAFFITI It’s difficult to determine just what makes music American; and if a symphonic program is to be labeled “American”, which composers might be on the shortlist? Under the blanket title Dudamel Conducts Gershwin & Copland, this thrilling evening also included short works by Barber and Previn, all four composers giving us…
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Theater Review: YOGA PLAY (Laguna Playhouse)
THE CORE IS THERE, BUT THE POSE IS OFF Not only is yoga a gentle exercise and a Hindu spiritual discipline, it’s also an $83 billion international industry. Meet Joan (Susi Damilano), a new marketing director of Jojomon, a yoga merchandise conglomerate. She actually could care less about yoga; she’s going for numbers and new…
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Theater Review: THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (City Lit in Chicago)
THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME Terry McCabe, artistic director of City Lit Theater, knows Sherlock Holmes and his shadow sleuth Dr. Watson almost as well as author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His adaptations of their adventures combine storytelling urgency and narrative drive with crime solving at a perfect fever. Ever at…
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Jazz Review: CHICK COREA TRILOGY W/ CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE & BRIAN BLADE (CAP UCLA at Royce Hall)
TRILLIANT The first time I saw Chick Corea play was at Disneyland on the Tomorrowland Stage in the mid-1970s. I was entranced watching the solo pianist with brown afro and mustache, as he was offering a type of jazz I had never heard before. My upbringing consisted of mostly big band and swing, so when…
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Theater Review: LERNER AND LOEWE’S GREATEST HITS (Music Theater Works)
WELL, LERNER & LOEWE ME DOWN Seldom has a dream team had a shorter span: It was all over in only 13 years. But between 1947 and 1960 Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe ran a glorious gamut. It happened both on Broadway and in Hollywood transfers of five very different successes. The powerful partnership…
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Film Review: JOKER (directed by by Todd Phillips)
A FILM THAT’S NOT JOKING AROUND Joker, directed and co-written by Todd Phillips and Scott Silver, is a dark, disturbing, profound film that has tapped into the zeitgeist of today’s class divides with a vengeance. This is not a comic book movie, although DC Films is one of the production companies. In this prequel, Joaquin…
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