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Theater Review: JULIUS CAESAR (Warriors for Peace at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood)
HAIL, CAESAR! Shakespeare’s 1599 history play has, of course, had many lives – conservative as well as wildly interpretive – which has kept the slain Dictator of Rome in the forefront of our histories. Some directors have kept to the known facts as imagined by the Bard, and some have modernized it for contemporary comment….
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Dance Review: THE NUTCRACKER (American Contemporary Ballet; Santa Fe Ballet; Long Beach Ballet)
TRIPLE-CRACKED It wouldn’t be the holidays without The Nutcracker ballet, a wondrous fantasia limited in scope only by imagination — or, more practically, budget. This year I attended three separate SoCal productions: L.A.’s own American Contemporary Ballet’s sparkling condensed jewel and Santa Fe Ballet’s disappointing tour both pared down the work, while Long Beach Ballet…
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Theater Review: BURNING BLUEBEARD (The Ruffians at Ruth Page Center for the Arts)
ASHES TO THEATER It’s the spectacle that keeps on giving: No longer sprawling the width of the Neo Futurarium’s stretched-out stage or concentrated in Theater Wit’s proscenium hall, The Ruffians’ superb 100-minute Burning Bluebeard has now taken its glorious, dream-like make-believe and contagious magic realism to the Ruth Page Center for the Arts — in…
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Theater Review: A CHRISTMAS STORY (San Diego Musical Theatre at Horton Grand)
A HOLIDAY CLASSIC PUT TO SONG: ONE THAT WON’T SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT While it may seem a bit premature to call the 1983 movie A Christmas Story a “classic,” the near-universal popularity of the film and its nostalgic look back at a Christmas in 1940 certainly give it that feeling. True to the film,…
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Film Review: CATS (directed by Tom Hooper)
CATNIP FOR THIS CATS LOVER OK, I’m fully aware that many people find Cats the musical a baffling phenomenon. I’ve loved it from the start, when I saw it with my husband on Broadway. He hated it. Later I dragged him clawing and mewling to the now shuttered Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles, and he…
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Cabaret Preview: THE SKIVVIES: I TOUCH MY ELF (Laguna Playhouse)
GET YOUR SANTA CLAWS INTO THIS! The Skivvies. A not to be missed, sexy, entertaining, musical cabaret performance. New York based Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley are singers/actors/musicians who have performed anywhere they can take their clothes off, performing fun arrangements of eclectic covers and eccentric originals. Not only is the music stripped down —…
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Theater Review: IRVING BERLIN’S WHITE CHRISTMAS (National Tour)
LET THEM SING AND WE’RE HAPPY Given the daylight deprivation that comes with December, music works like light to dispel the darkness. This musical couldn’t be brighter: White Christmas, of course, salutes the similarly named 1954 film that itself builds on the 1944 delight Holiday Inn, the film that in the middle of a war premiered the…
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DVD Review: AGATHA CHRISTIE’S CRIMINAL GAMES [LES PETITS MEURTRES d’AGATHA CHRISTIE] Season One (MHz Releasing)
NIFTY CHRISTIE MYSTERIES As clever as Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was in her now old-fashioned writing (no vulgar words or on-page violent deaths), contemporary film makers have a difficulty in making her plots relevant to our more brutal and vicious times So, in the French tradition of Maigret, six of Christie’s novels have been adapted to…
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Theater and Dance Review: SWAN LAKE (Matthew Bourne Productions at the Ahmanson)
SWOON LAKE Sir Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake has flown into town and it’s a rapturous reimagining of Tchaikovsky’s beloved ballet. While productions based on the popular Petipa-Ivanov 1895 revival are commonly performed (with alternate endings), Bourne’s radical retelling — which debuted a hundred years after this iconic interpretation — gives the folkloric piece a modern…
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Theater Review: THE CHRISTMAS FOUNDLING (Pride Films and Plays in Chicago)
A GOLD RUSH NATIVITY You could call it a second coming of Christmas from our Golden West. Delivered with the grit and gusto of 19th century raconteur Bret Harte, The Christmas Foundling is a likable tale from the California Gold Rush, specifically a late-blooming nativity on Christmas Eve. Norman Allen’s 2001 period piece, now warmed up by directors…
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Theater Review: FROZEN (National Tour)
CAN FROZEN MELT YOUR HEART? Direct from Broadway, Disney’s Frozen officially kicks off its national tour at the Hollywood Pantages after a tryout in Schenectady, NY, and it’s the hygge snowblast we need. Based on the 2013 Academy Award-winning animation (currently the 15th highest-grossing film of all time), this stage musical adaptation — directed with…
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Theater Review: AN UNFORGETTABLE NAT KING COLE CHRISTMAS (Mercury Theater Chicago)
A MELLOW YULE Back in the day velvet-toned Nat King Cole practically owned Christmas. His TV specials were characterized by what his recreator Evan Tyrone Martin calls “bold simplicity.” His trademark was his famously smoky voice (ironic because he died at 45 of lung cancer). Nat King Cole made inroads where mainly white performers had…
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Theater Review: COLD TOWN/HOTLINE: A CHICAGO HOLIDAY STORY (Raven Theatre)
A WELL-MEANING YULE CONFECTION THAT’S A BIT DIFFICULT TO SWALLOW For dogged seekers of sentimentality for whom The Gift of the Magi or It’s A Wonderful Life are insufficient tinsel treacle, help is on the way! You will love Raven Theatre’s unashamedly heartwarming, aggressively feel-good Cold Town/Hotline: A Chicago Holiday Story. An 80-minute world premiere written and directed by Eli Newell, this…
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Theater Review: THE SANTALAND DIARIES (Diversionary Theatre in San Diego)
ELF-DEPRECATING HUMOR PAYS OFF It’s hard to go wrong with this script, as writer David Sedaris’s biting wit, which has made him an NPR favorite for years, delights the cynic in us all. While it’s fine-and-dandy getting into the holiday spirit, one cannot be completely blind to the craziness that goes with it. Now multiply…
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Theater Review: CLOUD 9 (Custom Made Theatre Company in San Francisco)
CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SATIRE Has it really been 40 years since Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9 was first presented? The biting satire is so topical — containing cross-dressing, gay relationships, and patriarchal and colonial rule — that one would think it just arrived on the scene. It’s every bit as entertaining, contemporary, and downright…
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Theater Review: AMERICA’S BEST OUTCAST TOY (Pride Films & Plays)
ODDBALL OUTCASTS It pays homage to the goofy compassion exhibited by claymation holiday specials, especially the iconic classic where the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys are rescued by Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Now a world premiere musical by Pride Films and Plays staged by director/choreographer Donterrio Johnson, America’s Best Outcast Toy — An…
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Theater Review: SALVAGE (Lounge Theatre, Hollywood)
GET YOUR SOUL SALVAGED The minute I sat down at the Lounge theatre and saw the rundown bar on the stage equipped with a few tables, a jukebox and several guitars hanging on the walls along with a photograph of a famous country musician named Floyd Whitaker, I was transported to some small rural town…
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Operas Review: HANSEL AND GRETEL (SF Opera)
THIS IS ONE HANDSOME HARROWING HANSEL AND GREAT GOOEY GRETEL Well, how thrilling is it to see a brand new production in the world of opera. Especially given that this one is a winner replete with charm and cast with perfection. This new SF Opera co-production of Hansel and Gretel with London’s Royal Opera House…
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Theater Review: GROUNDHOG DAY THE MUSICAL (San Francisco Playhouse)
DOES GROUNDHOG DAY BEAR REPEATING? At the center of San Francisco Playhouse’s first regional premiere of Broadway’s Groundhog Day the Musical is the brilliant, perfectly cast Ryan Drummond, playing local TV news weatherman, Phil. This arrogant, uncaring teaser must relive Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney until he learns to care about other people. This musical adaptation of the…
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Theater Review: PUNKPLAY (Circle X Theatre Company at the Atwater Village Theatre)
PUNK’D In many ways, Gregory S. Moss’s 1980s-themed punkplay feels like a dream. Props and seasons are generically labeled. Flights of fancy are realized like make-believe. Even the era itself is presented as a distant memory we’re not sure really happened. Unfortunately, the wistfulness of a nighttime enigma doesn’t always make for compelling storytelling. Co-directed…
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