Areas We Cover
Categories
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: VALLEY OF THE HEART (Mark Taper Forum)
VALLEY OF THE HEART ON ITS SLEEVE Captivating stagecraft and a winning, although not always authentic, cast fuel this epic tale of war-time love. But the riveting aspects of a relationship between two American citizens — one Mexican, one Japanese — are diluted when didacticism dictates drama. Writer/director Luis Valdez has his heart in the…
-
CD Review: LET THERE BE CELLO (2Cellos)
CELLO, I MUST BE GOING A little bit Celtic, a little bit rock and roll, a little bit classical, a little bit world music, and a lotta schmaltz and you get the idea behind 2Cellos, the duo of youthful, sexy Croatians Luka Š ulić and Stjepan Hauser. who put their skillful playing behind revamps and remakes…
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: FINKS (Rogue Machine Theatre at Electric Lodge in Venice)
SAVING YOURSELF At the opening performance of Rogue Machine’s presentation of the Los Angeles premiere of playwright Joe Gilford’s Finks, artistic director John Flynn welcomed the audience and drew comparisons between Finks and Rogue Machine’s other current offering, Oppenheimer. The two plays do complement one another. It could be said that the creation of the…
-
Theater Review: A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Geffen Playhouse in Westwood)
A GHOSTLY CAROL TO REMEMBER A Christmas Carol keeps the lights on at theaters across the country, filling their coffers every year and helping underwrite their other productions. It usually is done as a rather jolly affair, along the lines of British panto, where nothing bad ever seems to happen. Sometimes the ghosts are funny…
-
CD Review: DESPERATE MEASURES (Original Cast Recording, Off-Broadway)
THERE’S TREASURES IN MEASURES This Off-Broadway hit, which just closed at New World Stages on October 28, 2018, is a Wild West musical inspired by, meaning it’s very loosely based on, Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. When the dangerously handsome Johnny Blood’s (Conor Ryan) life is on the line, he must put his fate into the hands…
-
Opera Review: IOLANTA (Chicago Opera Theater)
HOT IOLANTA, OR LOVE REALLY IS BLIND A glorious 126-year-old discovery just happened again. First performed at Saint Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater in 1892 (on a double-bill with The Nutcracker), the one-act Iolanta is the last of eleven operas written by the great Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Running for only one more weekend, this 85-minute Slavic gem, performed in Russian…
-
Theater Review: DEATH AND COCKROACHES (Chalk Repertory Theatre at Atwater Village Theatre)
LOVING THE COCKROACH WITHIN Playwright Eric Reyes Loo wisely observes that the messiness of love and grief does not easily coexist within the binary world of Facebook. In his new play, Death and Cockroaches, a Chalk Repertory Theatre presentation at the Atwater Village Theatre, he explores the tectonic changes his family experienced in real life…
-
Theater Review: A BRONX TALE (North American Tour)
CULTURE CLASH Narratively, there are two cultural clashes at the center of A Bronx Tale, now at the Pantages as part of its North American Tour. Italians and African-Americans are on opposite sides, as are the mafia and law-abiding citizens. There is also a third clash, though, and it’s the one that matters most: The clash…
-
CD Review: SIX EVOLUTIONS: BACH CELLO SUITES (Yo-Yo Ma)
YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH Last night at The Wallis Performing Arts Center in Beverly Hills, I was privileged to witness MacArthur “Genius” Alisa Weilerstein (A-LEE-sah WYE-ler-steen) perform all six of Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites. It felt almost surreal to do this after driving through horrendous L.A. traffic listening to updates on the mass murder in…
-
CD Review: LOVE IS HERE TO STAY: TONY BENNETT & DIANA KRALL (Verve and Columbia)
PLEASE TELL ME LOVE ISN’T HERE TO STAY Jazz-light comes a callin’ with Tony Bennett and Diana Krall’s latest effort, 12 tracks of George Gershwin tunes that have been playing the hit parade since they were written in the 20s and 30s. The majority have lyrics by brother Ira, and many were introduced by Fred…
-
Chicago Theater Review: THIS BITTER EARTH (About Face Theatre at Theater Wit)
THE BITTER END The gulf is clear from the start. Joe Schermoly’s set consists of interconnected boxes that create shelves which suggest two apartments separated by a crosswalk. It’s an apt depiction of the divide between the interracial gay lovers in This Bitter Earth. An earnest if unfulfilled one-act by Harrison David Rivers, this Chicago premiere…
-
Opera Review: SIEGFRIED (Lyric Opera of Chicago)
FANTASTIC FANTASY, BUT STILL LEAVES YOU FRIED Beautiful. Exhausting. Whimsical. That’s how I would describe Siegfried — in that order. The third installment of Richard Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle has all the gorgeous music you would expect, played by an excellent orchestra and sung by an international cast of musician-actors. At a run-time of five hours,…
-
Music Review: JONI 75: A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION LIVE (Various Artists at the Chandler in Los Angeles)
SOMETHING SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE FOR THIS BORDERLINE CONCERT A blindingly colossal line-up of some of music’s greatest stars offered their interpretation of Joni Mitchell songs last night in Los Angeles. With names including James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Norah Jones, Seal, Chaka Khan, and Joni’s fellow Canadians Diana Krall and Rufus Wainwright, the excitement was palpable from the sold-out crowd…
-
Chicago Theater Review: 110 IN THE SHADE (BoHo Theatre at Theater Wit)
A SHOW TO END ANY THEATER DROUGHT It’s a “big sky” story with a ton of heart, this other musical created by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, composer and lyricist of The Fantasticks and I Do! I Do! Wonderfully revived by BoHo Theatre at Theater Wit, 110 in the Shade deserves packed audiences for a sweet show steeped in down-home decency and wise…
-
CD Review: DESTINATION RACHMANINOV — DEPARTURE (Daniil Trifonov, pianist; The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin)
TAKE THIS DEPARTURE All it took was one live performance from Daniil Trifonov (dan-EEL TREE-fon-ov) to resoundingly validate for me why he is the current Big Thing of the piano world. The Liszt-like master’s rendition of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (followed by a jaw-dropping encore…
-
Opera Review: SATYAGRAHA (LA Opera)
A NONVIOLENT REVIEW What is it about Philip Glass’s operas that have completely captivated me? You would think that all of that minimalism — the spellbinding reiterating arpeggios, unhurried modulations and almost uniform orchestrations — would bore me to tears. Perhaps there’s something mathematical or perfectly in harmony with nature (or in nature with the…
-
Theater Preview: ZORBA (Musical Theatre Guild)
GREEK ACTIVE It only seemed natural that Michael Cacoyannis’s 1964 film, Zorba the Greek, about a happy-go-lucky fisherman on the isle of Crete, should one day become a musical. It took John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss Of The Spider Woman and many more) to make this a reality, with Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof,…
-
Theater Review: BABY EYES (Playwrights Arena)
IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME In 2011, Playwrights Horizon Artistic Director Jon Lawrence Rivera staged Donald Jolly’s bonded, which explored the restrictiveness of gays based on their situation, namely slavery in 1820s’ Virginia. That work-in-progress was made more than palatable with witty, poetic dialogue and a tantalizing tale. Now comes a tale of repressed homosexuality,…
-
Theatre Preview: CAL IN CAMO (VS. Theatre and Red Dog Squadron)
CAL IN CAMO EXTENDS ITS RUN AT VS. THEATRE William Francis Hoffman’s multilayered play attempts to lay bare, (literally in the case of the character “Cal”) the issues surrounding postpartum depression, and people’s abilities to connect with one another. The production of this powerful work at VS. Theatre, directed by Amy K. Harmon, has just…
-
Theater Review: QUACK (Kirk Douglas in Culver City)
WALKS LIKE A DUCK, QUACKS LIKE A HIT Playwright Eliza Clark, in notes about Quack, her new play now in its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, writes that she has been thinking a lot about privilege and entitlement, and the scary forces coming out of the woodwork in America. As…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
Find beautiful trendy gowns for girls' special events.
Need to order an essay? Hire our top writers to complete the most challenging papers at an affordable rate.
For professional writing support, hire essay writers at Edubirdie for high-quality help.
Discover top-rated Australian online casinos with fair games, fast payouts, and generous bonuses for every type of player.
Explore the best paying pokies Australia games with high RTP and clear bonus terms
