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San Francisco Theater Review: COMPANY (San Francisco Playhouse at the Kensington Park Hotel)
IN GOOD COMPANY In a world of musicals that are filled with catchy harmonies and melodies that stick in your mind, Stephen Sondheim’s songs have frequently been the rebels. Sondheim is notorious for creating moods through carefully clashing tones and purposeful disharmonies. For some attendees, it’s a reason to celebrate his work; for others, it’s…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: GROUNDLINGS RED LIGHT DISTRICT (The Groundlings Theatre)
THE FUTURE LOOKS LIGHT For almost 40 years, The Groundlings has proved itself to be one of the premiere comedy troupes in the nation, creating more stars than the Big Bang. Performers showcase material that arises from improvisation workshops; their weekly shows range from all-improv to all-sketches and anywhere in-between. The current sketch comedy offering…
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Theater Review: BENT (Mark Taper Forum)
DACHAU DELIVERANCE TO THE MAX More than six million Jews were slaughtered by Nazis. When Martin Sherman wrote Bent in 1979, the yellow star that emblazoned the clothing of Jews was well-known, but history had yet to add “We shall never forget” to the image of a pink triangle, the insignia used to identify the…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: THE SINATRA PROJECT (Michael Feinstein and the Pasadena POPS in Arcadia)
FEINSTEIN & FRANK: THE BEST IS YET TO COME Of all the Michael Feinstein Pasadena POPS concerts so far, my favorite was last year’s presentation of Gershwin songs’”and it wasn’t because of the selections or Feinstein’s history with George’s brother Ira as friend and archivist. It was because Feinstein set aside the conductor’s baton and…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: GIRLFRIEND (Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City)
GIRLFRIEND, PLEASE! While it’s being sold as a rock musical, Todd Almond’s gay two-hander is really a play; the songs from Matthew Sweet’s 1991 breakout album Girlfriend are indiscriminately tossed into the script as filler. Take away the music and you’re left with a very small coming-of-age tale ideal for a Fringe Festival, maybe, but certainly not…
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Film Review: LISTEN TO ME MARLON (directed by Stevan Riley)
LISTEN TO HIM Besides the enormous acting talent, a wonderful tertiary gift delivered by the presence on Earth of Marlon Brando is the Marlon Brando story. Everybody who knew him or ran into him in a drugstore has at least one. One of the best that does not involve sleeping with him is frequently told…
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Chicago Theater Review: 15 BREATHS (About Face Youth Theatre Ensemble)
STILL BREATHING 15 years ago a new show called First Breath launched the About Face Youth Theatre Ensemble. Appropriately, the current showcase 15 Breaths is presented by the next generation (more or less) and looks back as much as forward. Interestingly, the concerns these GLBT teens address persist like unanswered questions–the generation gap, gender identity, homophobia, coming…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: FAILURE: A LOVE STORY (Coeurage Theatre Company at GTC in Burbank)
SUCCESS You have had at least one dream in which the universe of potential joy is realized in a moment. The moment is ethereal and tangible, in the way of dreams. For me this dream is always of a kiss. In the dream I am young and the girl I am going to kiss is…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: THREESOME (59E59)
MÉNAGE í€ TWADDLE At the conclusion of Yussef El Guindi’s new play Threesome it isn’t unreasonable to ask oneself the following question: What does the semi-comic attempt of three young arty types to engage in group sex in an unnamed American metropolis have to do with the politically motivated, state sanctioned gang-rape of a female…
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San Diego Theater Review: KISS ME, KATE (Old Globe)
A FULL-ON KISS Everything is so dang perfect about the construction of Kiss Me, Kate that it’s doubly amazing when a revival comes along to match that perfection. With some of the most boffo talent you are likely to encounter on stage, director Darko Tresnjak and choreographer Peggy Hickey (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and…
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Chicago Theater Review: BETTE, LIVE AT THE CONTINENTAL BATHS (Hell in a Handbag Productions)
DIVA TO THE TOWEL SET In this summer fluff title tells all–Bette, Live at the Continental Baths (in Chicago, upstairs at Mary’s Attic). This uncredited concoction by Hell in a Handbag Productions, staged and choreographed by Christopher Pazdernik, recreates the Divine Miss M in her gay salad days at New York’s biggest bathhouse. Here, where…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: ASTRO BOY AND THE GOD OF COMICS (Sacred Fools)
SYNTHETICS AND STRUCTURE Excelling at stage picture, Jaime Robledo sets a lot of toys in motion in Sacred Fools’ latest offering, recently extended into August. Robledo’s direction of Natsu Onoda Power’s 2011 spectacle Astro Boy and the God of Comics features scrims and screens, puppets, projections, live actors and plain old pen and paper, all interacting…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE WINTER’S TALE (First Folio Theatre in Oakbrook)
TIME HEALS ALL PLOTS Shakespeare’s strange romance, which begins with gratuitous jealousy and ends with gratuitous forgiveness, is best treated as a fairy tale for grownups: A virtuous queen is condemned for adultery, her supposed spoiler her husband’s equally honest best friend. It suddenly seems as if we blundered from courtly courtesies into an Othello-like…
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San Diego Theater Preview: SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM (North Coast Repertory Theatre)
SALUTING SONDHEIM IN SOLANA BEACH Stephen Sondheim is so beyond merely good and light years away from conventional that some may view his musicals as pure art and overlook the slathers of songs he wrote that are packed with Broadway showmanship. Even if Sondheim’s standards aren’t effortlessly hummable’”except for his one huge hit “Send in…
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San Diego / Regional Theater Preview: THE MUSIC MAN (Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista)
NOW IN THE MOONLIGHT WITH THE MUSIC MAN When Moonlight Stage Productions announced their production of The Music Man, which opens this week at the Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista, I actually got excited. While I never tire of seeing this charming musical, it occurred to me that I haven’t watched it live since 2001, when…
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Chicago Theater Review: MEN OF SOUL (Black Ensemble Theater)
BLACKBUSTERS A dozen shows in one and a showcase of solos to beat any band, Black Ensemble Theater’s summer blockbuster Men of Soul pays kickass tribute to the greatest soul singers–black and white–of all time. Sensational singing, coming so close to the original vocalists as to be scary-accurate, is the payoff here for over two…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: RUTHLESS! (St. Luke’s)
TOOTHLESS RUTHLESS Though useful as a showcase for the capable performers and boasting some excellent singing, Joel Paley’s revival of his gray farce Ruthless!, a self-referential spoof of Broadway musicals, offers few laughs, little suspense and no surprises; at least one audience member found himself stifling yawns as he fought the urge to nod off. Played…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: SHIV (The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena)
RHYMES WITH SIEVE In her play Shiv, the third part of an immigrant-experience trilogy first workshopped in 2013, Aditi Brennan Kapil writes of a character (played by Monika Jolly) named after a Hindu god most widely known as an agent of destruction. The girl’s troubled relationship with her poet father, and her subsequent involvement with…
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Chicago Theater Review: GRAND CONCOURSE (Steppenwolf Theatre Company)
IS IT REALLY HUMAN TO FORGIVE? Heidi Schreck’s powerfully pleasing play exists for its final moment. So this critique will be strategically selective and shorter than usual. In any case, thanks to Yasen Peyankov’s sweetly sensitive staging (a Chicago premiere by Steppenwolf Theatre Company), Schreck’s five characters count as much as the conclusion. Totally grounded…
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Chicago Theater Review: BRILLIANT ADVENTURES (Steep Theatre Company)
TIME TRAVEL AS URBAN RENEWAL [Editor’s note: There are some minor spoilers used in Mr. Bommer’s synopsis.] U.K. playwright Alistair McDowell likes to break the rules to reach a crowd. An intriguing U.S. premiere by Steep Theatre Company, his sardonically titled Brilliant Adventures exposes McDowall’s iconoclastic ways: It’s bracingly matter-of-fact about a weird world of…
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