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Theater Review: INTO THE WOODS (Hollywood Bowl)
THRIVING WOODS Somewhere between “Once Upon a Time” and “Happily Ever After” there is a very adult world of tests, losses, disappointments, and grief. Despite this, we assert our agency; or as a baker’s wife sings in Into the Woods, “If you know what you want, then you go and you find it, and you get…
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Film Review: SHAZAM! (directed by David F. Sandberg)
SHAZAM! Two Captain Marvel films were released in the space of a month during this year. For those who didn’t know, the superhero from Shazam! with its funny white cape and bad lightning suit, was once the original Captain Marvel. For decades, some lawsuits and a lot of creative scrutiny later, the comic book audience…
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Theater Review: ANOTHER ROLL OF THE DICE (North Coast Rep in San Diego)
LESSER LOESSER Well, here’s a jukebox musical just bursting at the seams with promise. And North Coast Rep’s production of Another Roll of the Dice is definitely kinda cute, a far cry from the overblown, disappointing jukeboxers we’re forced to endure. It may get a life at regional theaters with subscription audiences who thrive on…
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Film Review: ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (directed by Quentin Tarantino)
DO WE CARE? Being a major Quentin Tarantino fan, I was really looking forward to seeing this film. I just knew I was going to love it. But unfortunately that was not the case. My biggest problem with the film was that I didn’t really care about the characters. The one exception is Margot Robbie,…
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Theater Preview: RAGTIME (Chance Theater)
CHANCE THEATER’S RAGTIME EXTENDS TO AUGUST 11 This critically-acclaimed intimate reimagining of the epic musical will be adding ten performances over the course of a two-week extension. Chance Theater, Orange County’s best small theater oufit, will be extending its sold-out run of Ragtime: The Musical. Based on the novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow, the…
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Chicago Theater Review: GHOST QUARTET (Black Button Eyes Productions at Stage 773)
SEEING RIGHT THROUGH THIS MACABRE MASHUP It’s a roller coaster journey to the dark side of almost everything: Ghost Quartet, now haunting Stage 773 in a Chicago premiere from Black Button Eyes Productions, is a sinister 2014 song cycle “of love, death and whiskey.” It issues from the macabre mind of bookwriter, lyricist and composer Dave…
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Theater Review: THE SPITFIRE GRILL (American Blues Theater at Stage 773 in Chicago)
SECOND CHANCES NEED SECOND ACTS Sit — and calm — down and make yourself at show. A captivating work extolling rural redemption, The Spitfire Grill, a 2001 musical of the 1995 film, shows how, if a wound goes deep, even the healing is bound to hurt. Its tender focus is on a female parolee who…
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Theater Review: MISS SAIGON (National Tour)
IT USED TO BE A MISS; NOW, THE HEAT IS ON IN SAIGON Infinitely stronger than the original Broadway outing, this national tour of Miss Saigon overcomes a still strangely muddled plot, some awkward sophomoric lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Alain Boublil, and a few scenes and songs that could be cut with no…
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Theater Review: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX (The Old Globe in San Diego)
DESPEREAUX TIMES CALL FOR DESPEREAUX MEASURES More precious than profound, this new family musical is pure children’s theater with multilayered storytelling and plenty of songs that aid in exposition. The world premiere at The Old Globe is delightful, even if there are some flaws in the arc that keep the show from building in suspense….
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Theater Review: TRUE WEST (Steppenwolf)
SIBLING WARFARE Can lightning strike again after 37 years? In 1982 Steppenwolf Theatre Company put itself on the map with a landmark staging of Sam Shepard’s domestic disruption True West starring Jeff Perry, John Malkovich, and Gary Sinise (in the Broadway transfer). Nearly two generations later, it’s back — in a rightly reckless reprise directed by…
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Theater Feature: DEATH OF A SALESMAN (Ruskin Theatre Group in Santa Monica)
MORE LIFE FOR DEATH Rob Morrow’s completely compelling interpretation of Willie Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman has made the show so popular that an extension has been announced. Slated to close on August 4, 2019, the exciting event will play until August 25 (dark August 12 -15). The miracle of Death of…
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Theater Review: THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG (National Tour)
THE PLAY ABOUT THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG GOES WRONG The title of this play is brutally honest ’” and you can’t say you weren’t warned. In the style of Monty Python and Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off (an infinitely cleverer romp), The Play That Goes Wrong, a 2015 London hit written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and…
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Theater Review: PASSION (Custom Made Theatre Company in San Francisco)
A PASSIONATE PASSION Stephen Sondheim’s Passion is less a work of art than it is an art piece and the Custom Made Theatre Co., in its lovely and elegant chamber version, treats it as such. It is the jewel in the Sondheim canon, exquisite to some, an oddity to others, and it contains some of…
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San Francisco Theater Review: CABARET (SF Playhouse)
GO TELL MAMA: CABARET‘S A HIT Cabaret was and remains one of the boldest and most innovative experiments in the history of musical theater, a ravishing work that has neither lost its power nor its pertinence no matter what one does with it, and it is gratifying to report that the new production at the…
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Dance Preview: THE ROYAL BALLET & COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR (World Premieres in Los Angeles)
ROYAL DANCE PREMIERES Do you hear the buzz? One of the biggest events of the year with some of the biggest arts organizations in the world involved, The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion will host the dance world premiere of the 45-minute Inferno which will be a part of the full-length evening The Dante Project…
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Music Review: CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS (Sean Hayes, Katia and Marielle Labí¨que & The LA Phil)
BEAUTY AND HUMOR I wonder what French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) would have thought had he known his Carnival of the Animals (Le Carnaval des Animaux) would become one of his most well-known and perhaps best-loved works. Written in 1886, it was meant to be a divertissement for his pupils to play, so the…
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Theater Review: HAIRSPRAY (Bay Area Musicals)
EVEN WHEN HAIRSPRAY CAN’T HOLD UP… THE EXPERIENCE CAN There are some shows that are beyond criticism or, rather, shows that render criticism totally unnecessary, and the Bay Area Musicals production of Hairspray is one of those shows. Everyone involved has set out to provide a lively showcase for local talent and for the friends…
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Theater Review: ROCK OF AGES (Cygnet Theatre Company in San Diego)
SOLID AS AN 80s ROCK Big hair, short shorts, and tons of Madonnawannabees. It’s hard not to love the spirit of the 80s. A huge part of that was the high-spirited music of the decade. Moving past the 70s folk ballad/disco era but not yet into the angst-y 90s, the 80s were loaded with feel…
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Theater Review: THE MUSIC MAN (Goodman Theatre)
MAN, OH MUSIC MAN If ever a show spelled out summer, it’s Meredith Willson’s 1957 masterpiece The Music Man. Throughout the rollicking story, the title character exudes sunny optimism, a flimflam that “Professor” Harold Hill wants to believe as much as the suckers who take it in. His buoyant drive fits the season like a picnic. It’s…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: WE SHOULD HANG OUT SOMETIME (Santa Monica Playhouse)
A GUY WITH ONE LEG WALKS INTO A THEATER: This show-in-residence at the Santa Monica Playhouse (it plays most Friday nights) is a funny, exhilarating dive into comedian, best-selling author, Paralympic champion, and YouTube star Josh Sundquist’s sometimes bizarre, always engrossing experiences as a guy who, although he had plenty of friends and a great…
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