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Los Angeles Theater Review: I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND (Theatre of NOTE)
STRAWBERRY FIELDS I’m not sure what, but it says something about our young writers and aging audiences that the most durable millennial genre is the coming-of-middle-age medical trauma family drama. David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, car accident), Jenny Schwartz (God’s Ear, drowning), Margaret Edson (Wit, cancer), Kathryn Walat (Creation, struck by lightning), Brian Yorkey & Tom…
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Chicago Theater Review: OTHELLO (The Gift Theatre)
A JEWEL OF THEIR SOULS The Gift Theatre’s production of Othello – their first Shakespeare, and my first exposure to this company – is a gift indeed. The doubly minimal set, combined with the decision to frequently execute the Elizabethan script with contemporary vernacular rhythms, serves to rid the production of any period distractions and…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE ECHO ONE ACTS 2014 (The Echo Theater Company in Atwater Village)
ONE ACT IS COMPANY, SIX IS A CROWD Here’s the thing: an evening of one-act plays always reminds me of those Night of Scenes showcases back in school. It’s a good chance for writers, actors, directors, and designers to work out, but for the audience…it’s a night of scenes. So much can go wrong. In…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: DONKEY PUNCH (Ivy Theatre Company at SoHo Playhouse)
A TASTY PUNCH NEEDS TO BE SPIKED Flowing dialogue, skillful performances, and Audrey Alford’s solid direction make Micheline Auger’s banal and predictable Donkey Punch, a play which attempts to explore the romantic relationships of two yupster couples in an ultra-contemporary setting, watchable and occasionally entertaining. Sexually carnivorous attorney Kareena (a wound up Cleo Gray) sets…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: BROADWAY BOUND (Odyssey Theatre)
BROADWAY VIA THE CATSKILLS AND THE ACTORS STUDIO I like plays featuring middle-aged guys who did everything right and still can’t figure anything out. So Ron Sossi and Larry Field’s new production of Neil Simon’s 1986 Broadway Bound has a present for me in the character of Jack, the no-nonsense garment cutter whose wife and…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: FOREVER FLAMENCO! (Ford Amphitheater)
FLAMENCO FEVER AT THE FORD AMPHITHEATRE Last year, after the thrilling, fiery, and passionate flamenco dancer Manuel Gutiérrez displayed a crackling tap and pedal pyrotechnics the likes of which confirmed why Flamenco is so compelling, my companion leaned over and said, “That’s it. I’m booking us on the next flight to Seville.” Well, we never…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE MAX FACTOR FACTOR (New Musicals Inc. at Noho Arts Center)
DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME Ah Hollywood. How it glitters. How it glistens. How true it is that when you scrape off the layers of tinsel, you find, well, more tinsel. This musical (Adrian Bewley, book; Joe Blodgett, music; Chana Wise, lyrics) is an affectionate paean to the Good Ol’ Days of Hollywood, when Movie…
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Theater Review: HAIR (Hollywood Bowl)
EVEN WHEN A GENERATION CAN’T HOLD UP, ITS HAIR CAN When Diane Paulus’s revival of Hair swooshed into the Pantages in 2012, it felt more like a cause for nostalgic partying than a recreation of the zeitgeist of the summer of love. Adam Shankman’s version which opened at the Hollywood Bowl last night is far…
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Regional Theater Review: THE ART DETECTIVE (The Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, CA)
THE PAGEANT OF THE MASTERS IS ON THE CASE On March 18, 1990, two young men dressed as Boston police officers walked unchallenged into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Some 81 minutes later, after tying up security guards in the basement, they had taken 2 objets d’art and 11 major paintings’”including 3 of Rembrandt’s works’”with…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: ALWAYS… PATSY CLINE (El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood)
SWEET, DREAMY Based on the true story of a rabid blue-collar fan whose dream of making friends with her favorite Grand Ole Opry star came true in 1961, Always… Patsy Cline is an enormously successful 1990 jukebox musical written and “originally directed” by Ted Swindley. In its latest incarnation at the El Portal through Sunday,…
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San Diego Theater Review: ETHER DOME (La Jolla Playhouse)
ETHER IS NEITHER/NOR A dramaturgical mess, Elizabeth Egloff’s strangely shapeless historical drama about the mid-19th-century advent of ether as an anesthesia contains a fascinating story but lacks clear protagonists and precisely drawn characters. With a sprawling number of roles played by a 16-member ensemble, Ether Dome (the name given to the operating theater of Boston’s…
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San Diego Theater Review: INTO THE WOODS (Fiasco Theater at The Old Globe)
FINDING NEW MOMENTS IN THE WOODS I wondered at the intermission of Fiasco Theater’s production of Into the Woods why they hadn’t cast amazing singers. Up to this point, the ten-member ensemble played instruments, doubled up on roles, and told the oft-produced Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical in a Story Theatre fashion, omitting the role of…
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San Diego Theater Preview: QUARTET (The Old Globe)
FOUR PLAY The setting for Ronald Harwood’s 1999 play is a retirement home in England for former opera singers. Three of the residents, Reginald, Cecily, and Wilfred, try to persuade a newcomer to sing with them the Quartet from Rigoletto (which they once were famous for) during Verdi’s Anniversary Gala. Problems arise as this new arrival, an…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE PROTAGONIST (Carthay Films at the Lillian Theatre in Hollywood)
AGONY UNVISITED In this play by Tim Livingston, apparently his first, an artist and self-proclaimed protagonist named Joey (played by the author’s brother Joey Livingston) complains in verse about his desire to make a living as a rapper; his antagonist brother Tim (an enthusiastic Keenan Jolliff), who “works in finance,” bitches in couplets and iambs…
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Tour Theater Review: HAMLET (Shakespeare’s Globe World Tour Production at Chicago Shakespeare)
GLOBE THEATRE EARNS ITS NAME This play really is the thing. Audaciously assuming that all’s well that ends well, the Globe Theatre is celebrating both Shakespeare’s 450th birthday and the 400th anniversary of his death by touring the world for the next two years and playing in every country of the world. Talk about proselytizing…
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San Diego Theater Review: PAGEANT (Cygnet Theatre)
DRAG YOURSELF DOWN TO PAGEANT Exiting Cygnet’s revival of Pageant, my writing pad, normally filled with pages of barely decipherable notes, had nothing upon it but the title. This successfully silly and enjoyable entertainment is neither deep nor needs fixing’”and besides, who can turn away from such lovely ladies? Pageant takes us through an over-the-top…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE MARVELOUS MARVELETTES (Black Ensemble Theater)
THE OTHER DREAMGIRLS Black Ensemble Theater’s latest summer-long tribute is to a girls group who never quite achieved escape velocity to lasting fame. Reginald Williams’ faithful chronicle of the rise and fall of the marvelous Marvelettes is a happy excuse to revisit a jukebox full of sassy songs, perfectly reinvented by director Rueben D. Echoles. It also…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: DORIS AND ME (El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood)
NO SECRET ANYMORE Boy, oh boy, oh boy, does Scott Dreier (the “Me” of Doris and Me) love Doris Day (the “Doris” of Doris and Me). I mean, he loooooooooves her. The tag line of his show is: “One man’s obsession with music and movie icon, Doris Day, leads to this loving tribute to America’s…
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San Diego Theater Review: JADE HEART (MOXIE)
THE GREAT CALL OF CHINA The very nature of adoption can leave a child’”and the adult he or she becomes’”filled with questions: Who were you, Mother? Why did you make this choice? Do you regret it? And perhaps most painful to ponder: Would you be glad to meet me, if you could? For Jade McCullough…
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San Francisco Music Review: HELLO, GORGEOUS! (Cheyenne Jackson and the San Francisco Symphony)
HE COULD HAVE SUNG ALL NIGHT Handsome, self-effacing, and charmingly humble, singer/songwriter, Broadway actor (Xanadu, Finian’s Rainbow) and film/TV star (United 93, 30 Rock) Cheyenne Jackson could do no wrong in the eyes of his adoring fans, who packed Davies Symphony Hall for the premiere performance of Hello, Gorgeous!, his newly created tribute to songs…
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