Stephanie Kim News

One of the world's greatest classical stars, ANDREA BOCELLI, commences his highly anticipated tour of Australia in 2 weeks. 

On Saturday, Nov. 21 at 6 p.m. PST/9 p.m. EST, Barak Ballet, a contemporary ballet company located in Los Angeles, will host its virtual fall gala, featuring the reveal of “Reclamation,” a 20-minute cinematic ballet by founder and artistic director Melissa Barak. 

Pork Filled Productions has set directors and dates for its third Unleashed festival, a celebration of new plays by POC playwrights. These scripts push past the bounds of conventional theatre to tell exciting new BIPOC-led stories in genres like horror, science fiction, fantasy and beyond.

June 29, 2019 Melissa Barak's Ballet Company, Barak Ballet, is becoming a staple at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. Since 2013, they have been appearing annually and she has continually delivered her talent and creativity to her home town.  A native Santa Monican, she is now one of America's foremost rising female choreographers.  Ms. Barak spent a decade dancing for New York City Ballet and choreographing for the School and Company of American Ballet at age 22. And her tenacity has paid off.

Hailed for its 'compelling and innovative programming (WQXR Radio)," dell'Arte Opera Ensemble today announced its 2018 summer festival dedicated to works by Mozart and Salieri. Starting on August 11, 2018, and running until August 26, the festival features 13 performances of two fully-staged operas, a scenes program, and an intimate recital to be presented in the intimate black-box space of La MaMa Theatre. Currently in its 16th season, dell'Arte has filled the summer lull with fresh productions of well-known classics and rarities, performed by the developmental company's cast of young singers, supported by a fine musical ensemble.

Barak Ballet is a formidable dance company that was created and fleshed out by Artistic Director Melissa Barak, who is a native Californian, and who has performed with the New York City Ballet and the Los Angeles Ballet Companies before forming her own Company. She trained at the Westside School of Ballet in Santa Monica beginning at the age of eight. She has performed the works of such balletic luminaries such as George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon, Eliot Feld and Robert Garland.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage presents Barak Ballet for a program of two world premieres: Cypher (choreographed by Melissa Barak) and Desert Transport (choreographed by Nicolas Blanc), as well as the return of E/SPACE which had its world premiere at The Broad Stage in 2017.  Barak Ballet will perform on Friday, June 29 and Saturday, June 30 at 7:30pm.  This will be the fourth time Barak Ballet has performed at The Broad Stage, although it's the first time The Broad Stage will be presenting the company.

Hailed for its 'compelling and innovative programming (WQXR Radio)," dell'Arte Opera Ensemble today announced its 2018 summer festival dedicated to works by Mozart and Salieri. Starting on August 11, 2018, and running until August 26, the festival features 13 performances of two fully-staged operas, a scenes program, and an intimate recital to be presented in the intimate black-box space of La MaMa Theatre. Currently in its 16th season, dell'Arte has filled the summer lull with fresh productions of well-known classics and rarities, performed by the developmental company's cast of young singers, supported by a fine musical ensemble.

Spanning 28 theater companies and 59 productions, from the largest and most prominent to small, humble and innovative, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards honor as much professional theater as we reviewers can cram into our year.

The 'large theater' productions of ACT Theatre's The Royale and The 5th Avenue Theatre's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying take top honors and the 'small theater' productions of ArtsWest's Death of a Salesman and Washington Ensemble Theatre's The Things Are Against Us take top honors - for most category wins!?

Spanning 28 theater companies and 59 productions, from the largest and most prominent to small, humble and innovative, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards honor as much professional theater as we reviewers can cram into our year.

It's always fun to take a trip back to New Providence providing you can avoid getting on the bad side of the Yao family. Now before you go looking for this vacation spot on some travel website, let me tell you it's not a real place but the fantastical steampunk world created by author Maggie Lee. And if you were lucky enough to catch her pervious melodramatic serial plays "The Clockwork Professor" and "The Tumbleweed Zephyr" then you already know how much fun a visit to New Providence is and how much you need to catch the third installment, "A Hand of Talons" currently playing at Theatre Off Jackson. Same fun, same gorgeous costumes, same suspense and intrigue. It's just always a good time.

For generations, the Yao clan has ruled the criminal underworld in New Providence with an iron fist. But as the family empire threatens to crumble, Wilhelmina Yao must do whatever it takes to win at in a high-stakes game of power and betrayal. Descend into the hazy underground gambling den of the Fortuna Mews to explore the dark world of steampunk noir in this thrilling third installment of the New Providence series.

Sponsored in part by 4Culture, the 2015-16 season of Mirror Stage's popular Feed Your Mind staged reading series continues with The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, on February 6 & 7, 2016 at the Ethnic Cultural Theatre in Seattle's University District. Directed by Suzanne M. Cohen, Feed Your Mind: The Penelopiad features a multicultural cast of 13 women: Miski Ali, Angie Bolton, Ana Maria Campoy, Christi Cruz, Yadira Duarte, Alyssa Keene, Stephanie Kim-Bryan, Sneha Krishnan, Duygu Erdo?an Monson, Meenakshi Rishi, Meg Savlov, Naho Shioya, and Amber Wolfe.

As hearing people we may think that the advancement and availability of cochlear implants would be welcomed with open arms by the deaf community. But what Don Nguyen's play "Sound", getting its world premiere production from Azeotrope at ACT, points out to us, the cultural effects of suddenly being able to hear can be far greater than the medical ones. But while the plight of those in the story was impactful I didn't feel the play itself offered much in the way of a resolution and thereby much of a message.

Two years ago, if you were lucky enough to catch it, we were introduced to the Wild West, steampunk world of 'The Clockwork Professor', a delightful melodrama from the mind of Maggie Lee. Well the denizens of that world continued to have adventures in Lee's mind and now we can all climb on board to 'The Tumbleweed Zephyr' for another thrilling escapade.

Pearl (www.PearlTheShow.com), a new American-Chinese dance-theatre spectacular, inspired by the life of Pearl S. Buck, the first woman to win both the Nobel and the Pulitzer Prizes, will have its world premiere at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for 4 performances only, August 27-30th. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the dancers!