Areas We Cover
Categories
-
Commentary and Regional Theater Review: THE PURPLE LIGHTS OF JOPPA ILLINOIS (World Premiere by Adam Rapp at South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa)
DIM LIGHTS As part of its 17th Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival, South Coast Repertory presented a play by Adam Rapp. Unlike Theresa Rebeck’s Zealot and Rajiv Joseph’s Mr. Wolf, which received staged readings last weekend, Mr. Rapp’s The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois, read once at SCR’s NewSCRipts series last December, was given a fully staged…
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: TASTE (Sacred Fools)
WHAT DO YOU HAVE A TASTE FOR? Six weeks before the opening of Sacred Fools’ cannibal play, one of Stage and Cinema’s writers (to whom I will assign the alias “Ethel”) asked if she could review Taste. I had not received a press release and knew nothing about it, so I let her have the…
-
Los Angeles Music Preview: BACH’S CLAVIER-ÜBUNG III (Paul Jacobs at Disney Hall)
AN ORGAN-IC CONCLUSION Disney Hall’s 2013/2014 Organ Recital Series comes to a rousing conclusion on Sunday, May 4th with Johann Sebastian Bach’s most complex and demanding organ composition Clavier-Übung III (German Organ Mass). Taking command of the keys and putting the multitudinous pedals to the metal will be world renowned organist Paul Jacobs. Adding to…
-
Chicago Dance Review: ROMEO AND JULIET (Joffrey Ballet at Auditorium Theatre)
PROKOFIEV GETS POLITICAL This is not your usual Romeo and Juliet. Truncated and concentrated, Joffrey Ballet’s U.S. premiere of Krzysztof Pastor’s two-act treatment of Prokofiev’s celebrated ballet carries no Renaissance finery, just real-world immediacy. Premiered by the Scottish Ballet in 2008, this muscular treatment of ancient Verona isolates the lovers all the more against a…
-
San Diego Theater Review: WATER BY THE SPOONFUL (The Old Globe)
WATER IS THE GIFT OF LIFE Water by the Spoonful is the second play in Quiara Alegria Hudes’ “Elliot Cycle,” three stand-alone plays written over an eight-year period. Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, the first in the trilogy and a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize, follows the title character, a perky but troubled Puerto Rican…
-
Chicago Theater Review: HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (Porchlight)
WHEN THE MIDDLE CLASS MATTERED The best thing about this well-earned, state-of-the-art revival of Frank Loesser’s Pulitzer-winning masterwork is this: No one dared to update what must now be a vintage Eisenhower-Era period piece, as much as AMC’S Mad Men or The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. It wouldn’t take anyway. Though fast-moving and…
-
Los Angeles Music Review: LE SALON DE MUSIQUES: LA BELLE ÉPOQUE (Season Four, Concert Seven)
A BEAUTIFUL ERA IN ONE AFTERNOON There were two revelations at Le Salon de Musiques’ “La Belle Époque,” the seventh concert of its fourth season: Pianist Steven Vanhauwaert and Ernest Chausson’s Piano Trio in G minor Op. 3. First, you must understand that I have been thoroughly spoiled by this premier organization. Helmed by François…
-
Off-Broadway Theater Review: INVENTING MARY MARTIN (York Theatre Company)
OUR HEARTS BELONG TO MARY, BUT THE REVUE ABOUT HER LIFE NEEDS REINVENTING The legendary actress and singer Mary Martin would have been 100 years old today, and to celebrate this centennial York Theatre Company is presenting the world premiere of Stephen Cole’s Inventing Mary Martin: The Revue of a Lifetime. The show, a tribute…
-
San Diego Theater Review: PASSION (ion theatre)
DON’T PASS ON PASSION When first I saw Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion on Broadway in 1994, it was clear that this shattering new work was like nothing that had come before. Simultaneously dark, refreshing, provocative, troubling, and profound, the creative team behind Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods managed to…
-
Chicago Theater Review: MILL FIRE (Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit)
NO CLOSURE IN BIRMINGHAM Originally produced at Goodman Theatre in 1989, Sally Nemeth’s incendiary two-act, 125-minute Mill Fire depicts the origins and aftermath of its title disaster. This flash fire erupts at 2 a.m. in an ill-tended steel mill (itself basically a controlled fire) in Birmingham, Alabama circa 1978. It’s a small horror in a…
-
Off-Broadway Theater Review: THE COMPLETE AND CONDENSED STAGE DIRECTIONS OF EUGENE O’NEILL, VOLUME 2 (New York Neo-Futurists)
NOW SHOW ME HOW TO CHEW IT As a critic I have a confession to make: when reading a play for fun I usually skim over the stage directions. I generally don’t care how many chairs are in a room or what color the rug is or whether what’s in the corner is a dresser…
-
Tour / Los Angeles Theater Review: THE GERSHWINS’ PORGY AND BESS (National Tour at the Ahmanson)
I LOVES YOU, STORY I grew up with Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and Janis Joplin and Billie Holiday singing “Summertime” outside a context of which I was ignorant; I never cared much for the late Romantic tradition of which composer George Gershwin usually reminds me, and what I’d read of Porgy and Bess frightened…
-
Broadway Theater Review: BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (St. James Theatre)
SOME OF THE GLITZ WORKS, BUT BULLETS BASICALLY SHOOTS BLANKS In keeping with the growing trend of turning films into Broadway musicals, Douglas McGrath and Woody Allen’s 1994 comedy, Bullets Over Broadway, has arrived at the St. James Theatre. Director and choreographer Susan Stroman’s jukebox musical uses songs from the 20s and 30s with additional…
-
Tour / Los Angeles Theater Review: MAN IN A CASE (National Tour at the Broad in Santa Monica)
RURALITY AS A METAPHORICAL STRATEGY IN CHEKHOV: CHECK Deconstructing two Anton Chekhov short stories with a series of post-hip Director’s Theater flourishes, Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson are presently touring the 75 incredibly long minutes of Man in a Case. Familiar Chekhovian themes are investigated: of backwoods stultification, of falling to the level of one’s…
-
Chicago Theater Review: IN THE GARDEN: A DARWINIAN LOVE STORY (Lookingglass)
CHARLES DARWIN AND NATURAL AFFECTION With its intentionally contradictory title, In the Garden: A Darwinian Love Story is not about the Garden of Eden; it is an earnest but unengrossing world premiere at Lookingglass Theatre Company, a study in amorous opposites that attract. Lookingglass artistic associate Sara Gmitter delivers a warmly written but ponderously circular chronicle…
-
Los Angeles Theater Preview: THE DROWSY CHAPERONE (Norris Center in Palos Verdes Peninsula)
THE DROWSY CHAPERONE OPENS AT THE NORRIS Before American Musical Theater was reinvented by Oklahoma! in 1943, musical comedies were constructed piecemeal’”a comic star here, a songwriting team there, whoever was available, really. The plot was most often something to endure until the next great tune. Along with the boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl syndrome, librettos included a…
-
Chicago Theater Review: SEVEN HOMELESS MAMMOTHS WANDER NEW ENGLAND (Theater Wit)
PREHISTORIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE PRESENT Extended until mid-May, Theater Wit’s Midwest debut of Madeleine George’s sharp new show has clearly touched hearts and nerves. It’s no secret: Full of the quirky, zany, and daffy characters that constitute the “new normal,” it’s a relationship drama with enough metaphor-mongering and symbol-serving to reflect whatever the viewer may…
-
Film Review: NIGHT MOVES (directed by Kelly Reichardt / US premiere at Tribeca Film Festival)
THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS Most good actors need some help to be excellent – Nicholas Cage comes to mind, Kevin Spacey, the young Mickey Rourke. And then there are those few who are mesmerizing no matter what they are doing. Jesse Eisenberg is one of these brilliant rarities, fascinating to…
-
Los Angeles Theater Preview and Interviews: AN AMERICAN SOLDIER’S TALE / A FIDDLER’S TALE (Long Beach Opera)
GET SOME TALE In 1918, Igor Stravinsky and Swiss writer Ferdinand Ramuz wrote L’Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) a short theatrical work meant to be “read, played, and danced” while accompanied by a septet. Based on a Russian folk tale, the libretto relates the parable of a soldier who trades his fiddle to the…
-
Los Angeles Opera Review: A COFFIN IN EGYPT (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
A NAIL IN OPERA’S COFFIN As the opera’s West Coast premiere, A Coffin in Egypt is frankly disappointing. As the first opera production at the new Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (co-produced with Houston Grand Opera and Opera Philadelphia), A Coffin in Egypt is doubly disappointing. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winner Horton Foote’s similarly…
Search Articles
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
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
Explore a no id verification withdrawal casino for faster access to winnings with fewer account checks.
