Areas We Cover
Categories
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: WHAT THE BUTLER SAW (Mark Taper Forum)
WHAT DIDN’T HE Joe Orton was a loudly subversive English playwright who, before his murder in 1967, helped rip out the loud, inefficient plumbing of kitchen sink social drama and replace it with something really dangerous: comedy. In a series of black farces, Orton substituted the Socialist Rape Victim for John Osborne’s Angry Young Man….
-
Chicago Theater Review: A Q BROTHERS’ CHRISTMAS CAROL (Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
SCROOGE GETS RAPPED These eighty glorious minutes of boom-box beats get into your blood and bones’”and inevitably they reach the heart. Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s latest “ad-rap-tation” from the Q Brothers and Rick Boynton (creators of Funk It Up About Nothin’ and Othello: The Remix) plays the Dickens with a Christmas classic. Inventing perpetual motion as…
-
Chicago Theater Review: A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Goodman Theatre)
CURSES! SAVED AGAIN! Thanksgiving hasn’t happened but, yes, it’s time for the 37th second coming of Goodman Theatre’s beloved cash cow. A Christmas Carol remains their venerable, popular and’”to addicted theatergoing Chicagoans’”invaluable, holiday hallmark. After so many Scrooges and Marleys over two generations, the slightest changes loom large: That, of course, provides the best excuse…
-
Chicago Theater Review: THE TESTAMENT OF MARY (Victory Gardens Theater)
MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY It begins with a woman taking a bath. The lighting is low and there are dozens of candles spread about the set. She slowly gets up and dries off, donning a linen shift and a crimson robe. She is Mary, the mother of Jesus. This simple, but highly effective entrée into…
-
Los Angeles Music Preview: EXPRESSIONIST & IMPRESSIONIST (Le Salon de Musiques)
COME BE IMPRESSED BY WHAT’S EXPRESSED For the third concert of Le Salon de Musiques’ fifth season, Masters Rediscovered, French-American Pianist/Melodist and Artistic Director François Chouchan has selected the works of four composers, three of whom are mostly unknown but not because they lack genius. Chouchan’s carefully selected programs have proved time and again that…
-
Chicago Theater Review: LOOKINGGLASS ALICE (Lookingglass Theatre Company)
CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER MADE BETTERER AND BETTERER A signature work ripe for revival, the eponymous Lookingglass Alice is back for the holidays and New Year, brilliantly tricked-up with the most aggressive and interactive make-believe this side of Disney. In 100 minutes, adaptor David Catlin’s hip and arch, sine qua non staging of Lewis Carroll’s Through…
-
CD Review/Original Cast Opera: INVISIBLE CITIES (written by Christopher Cerrone)
IT’S ONLY INVISIBLE IF YOU KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN The first time I heard Christopher Cerrone’s opera Invisible Cities, based on Italo Calvino’s 1972 fictional novel, was during The Industry’s interactive theatrical experience at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Along with about 200 other patrons, I donned state-of-the-art headphones and followed singers and dancers…
-
Chicago Opera Review: PORGY AND BESS (Lyric Opera)
LYRIC DOES THE BESS THAT IT CAN After two outings to Spain (Don Giovanni and Il Trovatore) and one to Paris (Capriccio), Lyric Opera is bringing audiences something homegrown, composed by an American and set in South Carolina. Porgy and Bess should be rather familiar to Lyric audiences, since it played here just six years…
-
CD Review/Classical: MASTERPIECES IN MINIATURE (San Francisco Symphony)
MINIATURES MADE MONUMENTAL A confession: I’ve never been a fan of classical compilation CDs. Whatever the conceit’”The Greatest Hits of (fill in composer) or Romantic Favorites’”collections tend to consist of incongruous pieces, selected for no other reason than that the publisher had them lying around and didn’t know what else to do with them. In addition,…
-
Chicago Dance Review: DANCE THEATRE OF HARLEM (Auditorium Theatre)
PERFECT PLACEMENT AND PERPETUAL MOTION Making a too-brief, always welcome return to Chicago’s gorgeous Auditorium Theatre (now celebrating its 125th anniversary), Dance Theatre of Harlem never looked more awesomely athletic, devotedly disciplined or able, as much as eager to please. Closing tomorrow, their three-ballet program, a feat for the limbs and a feast for the…
-
San Francisco Theater Preview: SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS (42nd Street Moon)
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT Beginning November 26, 42nd Street Moon will revist one of its earliest hits, the mirthful 1943 farce Something for the Boys. This rarely performed boisterous musical is a fascinating look into a time when Broadway was about to undergo significant changes from silly book musicals into classier fare. Even though Cole Porter’s…
-
Chicago Theater Review: DR. SEUSS’ HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS! THE MUSICAL (The Chicago Theatre)
GRINCH AND BEAR IT As with Sweeney Todd, the Grinch is bent on revenge, though his motivation is much murkier. He’s your typical green outsider, like Little Shop’s plant Audrey II, the Frog Prince, or Shrek the Ogre, enraged at not fitting in with the Hallmark-carded Whos of Whoville. Perversely, the creature wants to earn…
-
San Francisco Theater Preview: PROMISES, PROMISES (San Francisco Playhouse)
PROMISING PROMISES, I PROMISE The premise of Promises, Promises is one you are probably familiar with even if you have never seen the 1968 musical, which opens in a splashy revival at San Francisco Playhouse this week. An ambitious junior executive, Chuck Baxter, wants to move up the corporate ladder. In return for promises of…
-
Los Angeles Theater Preview: STEEL PIER (Musical Theatre West in Long Beach)
KANDER & EBB’S DANCE MARATHON MUSICAL FINALLY ARRIVES IN LOS ANGELES I can understand why you hear about a “Staged Reading” and want to bolt in the opposite direction. Don’t let that title fool you. Indeed, in the last year, some of the best nights in the theater can be found at these events. Especially…
-
Chicago Theater Review: THE HUMANS (American Theater Company)
A HOLIDAY FOR HUMANITY Playwright Stephen Karam’s Sons of the Prophet was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012, and his Speech and Debate’”with its with crackling humor and vivacity’”has some of the most believable, empathetic teenagers ever put on stage. American Theatre Company has an excellent track record for introducing new works. With…
-
Broadway Theater Review: SIDE SHOW (St. James)
A TWIN/LOSE SITUATION Henry Krieger’s succulent score and the co-leads’ powerful, penetrating voices are among the few reasons to see Side Show, a dull bio-musical set in the first half of the 20th century, about a set of conjoined twins’”loosely based on the life of the British-born Hilton sisters’”who go from being exhibited in a…
-
Off-Broadway Theater Review: MAJOR BARBARA (The Pearl Theatre Company)
MAJOR TO MINOR The Pearl Theatre Company and Gingold Theatrical Group’s revival of George Bernard Shaw’s 1905 comedy Major Barbara feels like theater for people who go to shows for the same reasons many of us watch television programs’”not because they’re great but because they’re good enough, occasionally entertaining, and it’s something to do. Not to…
-
Chicago Theater Review: ALWAYS: PATSY CLINE (Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre)
JUST A CLOSER WALK WITH PATSY Patsy Cline, the once and future crossover country icon who made audiences “fall to pieces,” couldn’t be more fondly or accurately recalled. It happens weekly in Rogers Park’s No Exit Café through at least December. Sweet, spunky, and sincere, Fred Anzevino’s revival of the tribute Always: Patsy Cline sums…
-
Chicago Theater Review: IPHIGENIA IN AULIS (Court)
AULIS WELL AT THE COURT THEATRE With its new production of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis, Court Theatre embarks upon an ambitious three-year venture: to present a trilogy of Greek tragedies chronicling the House of Atreus. Guided by the scholarship of translator Nicholas Rudall (founding artistic director of Court Theatre from 1971 to 1994), director Charles…
-
Theater Review: IT’S A WONDERFUL SANTALAND MIRACLE, NUT CRACKING CHRISTMAS STORY… JEWS WELCOME! (Stage 773)
ROASTING CHESTNUTS Nothing if not all-inviting, this modestly entitled holiday revue, It’s A Wonderful Santaland Miracle, Nut Cracking Christmas Story… Jews Welcome! is Stage 773’s second coming of 2012’s feel-good, all-purpose Yuletide romp. Accordingly, the pro(scenium) stage is festooned with colored lights, stockings, snowflakes and sparkles. The audience is regaled with cookies before the show…
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
