Los Angeles Theater Reviews Page 4

Review: ROMEO AND JULIE: LOVE IS A FIRE at Santa Monica Playhouse
by Evan Henerson - October 30, 2023

Neno Pervan’s production takes no risks and provides not a shred of insight - within the text or outside it - why this tale unfolds as it does. A few textual adjustments notwithstanding, Pervan’s production is standard issue ROMEO AND JULIET, fire or chill....

Review: METHUSALEM OR THE ETERNAL BOURGEOIS at The Actors' Gang
by Amanda Callas - October 30, 2023

Hallucinatory, astoundingly visual, and provocative, this absurdist, surreal satire runs through December 16...

Review: THE ANGEL NEXT DOOR at Laguna Playhouse
by Amanda Callas - October 26, 2023

The Angel Next Door is a glittering, effervescent hit romantic comedy by Paul Slade Smith at the historic Laguna Playhouse. It’s an elegant, sweet-dry glass of champagne, bubbling over with non-stop laughs, merriment, glamor, and high-spirited hijinks. It’s hard to think of more fun you could have a...

Review: Musical Theatre West's Heartwarming THE SOUND OF MUSIC Blesses Long Beach
by Michael Quintos - October 25, 2023

MTW's pleasantly perky, traditionally-executed production comes across as a show that's very eager to please, armed with a keen, fine-tuned goal of making sure both fans and newbies to this beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein classic are left feeling uplifted and happy. The show continues through Novemb...

Review: SHE at Antaeus Theatre Company
by Harker Jones - October 25, 2023

SHE is a moving, lyrical story with deft characterizations, luminous performances, and a poetic quality that reflects our heroine’s dreams...

Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at A Noise Within
by Evan Henerson - October 23, 2023

Visually and acoustically, from performances to pacing, this DREAM directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott is so beautifully thought out and rendered that the Noise Within brain-trust should consider filming it for posterity....

Review: BEFOK (OR THE DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO IMPRESS IÑÁRRITU) at Odyssey Theatre
by Amanda Callas - October 22, 2023

Gutsy and gonzo, this wild ride runs through November 5th at Odyssey Theatre...

Review: AIN'T TOO PROUD Revisits The Temptations' Hits at Segerstrom Center
by Michael Quintos - October 20, 2023

A surprisingly enjoyable jukebox musical featuring phenomenally-performed song-and-dance spectaculars (but with an awkwardly delivered story structure), this touring version of the 2019 Broadway musical about the founding of Motown's R&B supergroup The Temptations is a fun evening at the theater, es...

Review: THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY at Geffen Playhouse
by Tracey Paleo - October 18, 2023

“How to Ruin a Relationship in One Easy Step,”  is a definitive alternate title for, THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY, a smart, little 80-minute, light drama written by Samuel Balm, directed by Darko Tresnjak, currently at the Geffen Playhouse, Gil Cates Theater....

Review: BABY FOOT at Rogue Machine, The Henry Murray Stage At The Matrix Theatre
by Amanda Callas - October 18, 2023

Sexy, gritty, funny, and adult, this recovery drama is a triumph for Rogue Machine playing through November 20...

Review: A Legend is Reimagined in Octavio Solis' QUIXOTE NUEVO at South Coast Repertory
by Michael Quintos - October 17, 2023

On the immediate surface, QUIXOTE NUEVO is a feast for the senses. On a deeper level, the play explores relevant issues, particularly those affecting the Latinx community. Sandwiched in between, however, is a distracting use of sophomoric humor that slightly threatens to counter all of the good mess...

Review: OLIVER! at Kavli Theatre At The Bank Of America Performing Arts Center
by Amanda Callas - October 16, 2023

Don't miss this delightful, gorgeously produced classic musical running through October 22nd...

Review: BISEXUAL SADNESS at Road Theatre
by Evan Henerson - October 16, 2023

By its very title, BISEXUAL SADNESS plays and feels like it should be the topic of a seminar or an article in a clinical journal, maybe even the theme of a discussion group. Which is, in a lot of ways, how India Kotis’s play comes across in its world premiere at the Road Theatre....

Review: ON BROADWAY at Smothers Theatre
by Amanda Callas - October 14, 2023

With a fresh lineup of new musical tunes and favorite classics, it’s pretty much the perfect Broadway concert show.  I’m still humming “Popular” from Wicked and “Razzle Dazzle” from Chicago nonstop, floating in a giddy haze of joy-soaked musical elation....

Review: The Scorching-Hot Rhythm of ON YOUR FEET! Is Gonna Get You at La Mirada
by Michael Quintos - October 12, 2023

La Mirada Theatre’s new production of the Estefans’ aspirational life story reverberates with high-octane, vivacious Latin rhythms presented via enthusiastically-performed dance numbers and beautifully-sung songs—elevated by its terrific, talented ensemble. This engaging production (going on tour so...

Review: TACOS LA BROOKLYN at Latino Theatre Company At LATC
by Evan Henerson - October 11, 2023

A co-production with East West Players, Ulloa’s play makes the case for deeper investigation and against the kind of snap judgments that its hero, Chino, endures and fuels. Engagingly performed and containing plenty of cool visuals, Fidel Gomez’s production is a bit of a group hug. But it plays....

Review: BLOOD AT THE ROOT at Open Fist Theater Company
by Harker Jones - October 10, 2023

Dominique Morisseau’s BLOOD AT THE ROOT is a blistering look at race, prejudice, and the complexity of human relationships, and is provocative without being preachy....

Review: BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA at Odyssey Theatre
by Amanda Callas - October 15, 2023

Birds of North America Is a brilliantly well produced drama with a quiet, luminous, elegiac quality, at the Odyssey Theatre in West Los Angeles. With exquisite subtlety and sensitivity in the writing by award-winning playwright Anna Ouyang Moench, it chronicles the relationship of a father and daugh...

Review: HADESTOWN at Ahmanson Theatre
by Andrew Child - October 06, 2023

Rachel Chavkin’s staging is resourceful and inventive, packing major punches within Rachel Hauck’s deceptively-simple design. David Neumann’s choreography shines in moments of storytelling, defining locales and making electric the mundane act of sitting in a stool, but flounders during more formal d...

Review: Tony Winner Kelli O'Hara Performs Exquisite Concert at Irvine Barclay
by Michael Quintos - October 02, 2023

Tony Award-winning Broadway star Kelli O'Hara has established herself as true theater royalty, one of a handful of go-to leading ladies that have amassed a rabid, fanatic following that can elicit frequent deafening kudos from audiences and critics alike. She brings undeniable evidence of this in he...

Review: THE RAINMAKER at Laguna Playhouse
by Amanda Callas - September 29, 2023

Run, don’t walk, to the Laguna Playhouse’s production of the classic 1954 hit play The Rainmaker. I absolutely love this show. It's impossible to leave the theater after watching The Rainmaker without feeling lifted up by its transcendent joy and restorative optimism. ...

Review: THE UNTITLED UNAUTHORIZED HUNTER S. THOMPSON MUSICAL at La Jolla Playhouse
by Evan Henerson - September 27, 2023

As the singing, dancing, attention-whoring engine of THE UNTITLED UNAUTHORIZED HUNTER S. THOMPSON MUSICAL, Gabriel Ebert gives Thompson the idol treatment. Featuring music and lyrics by BE MORE CHILL’s Joe Iconis and directed by Christopher Ashley, UUHTM blows the doors off the La Jolla Playhouse’s ...

Review: Thunderous LES MISERABLES Tour Storms Back into Segerstrom Center
by Michael Quintos - September 22, 2023

Don't let the show's overall over-the-top theatrics dissuade you from experiencing this visually-stunning, showstopper-filled production which continues at Segerstrom Center through October 1. A boisterous, grandiose spectacle of overtly expressed emotions and overtly belted show tunes, LES MISÉRABL...

Review: THE ANGEL NEXT DOOR at North Coast Repertory
by Evan Henerson - September 19, 2023

Two of Smith’s previous plays have been mounted at the Solana Beach company, and the company commissioned Smith to create a new work to kick off NCR’s 42nd season. That play, THE ANGEL NEXT DOOR, directed by Artistic Director David Ellenstein, is a kick and a hoot. Maybe that makes it a kick-oot....

Review: THE SOUND INSIDE at Pasadena Playhouse
by Evan Henerson - September 19, 2023

when you’ve got a guy like Adam Rapp writing a cerebral two-handed dance between a Yale creative writing professor and her enigmatic new student, and you pepper it with scribes ranging from Dostoevsky to  Anne Tyler, and you give the whole shebang to the Pasadena Playhouse and cast Amy Brenneman in ...