Amanda currently writes as a drama critic for Broadway World and Discover Hollywood Magazine, covering live theatre in Los Angeles. Her focus is on connecting arts and culture with the vibrant local community. She is a passionate theatre evangelist, hoping to inspire everyone to discover the kind of intimate, indispensable storytelling and luminous magic that can take place in person.
An award-winning writer, Amanda’s work on arts, culture, music, travel, and parenthood has been published on many platforms including Hollywood Revealed, The Tour Guy, Parenthood Adventures, and Lickhouse Worldwide. She has worked as a storyteller in film, podcasts, books, and by engaging diverse digital audiences.
Amanda’s films have played, and won awards, in Vienna, Lisbon, Belfast, Iran, Scotland, Mexico, Australia, Bolivia, Capri, Palm Beach, and Los Angeles. She has done science writing for NASA, reconstructed Egyptian papyri, worked as a sushi chef, and played a nervous elf bride on a sitcom.
Drawing from her literary and film background Amanda brings an eye for cultural criticism and relevance to her discussion of theatre and its unique and vital pleasures. She is particularly interested in engaging children and new audiences in the connection of immersive live storytelling, exploring theatre for the first time, digging into the rich, elevating pleasures of the classics, and discovering a bold new work they never thought they would enjoy. Amanda has a B.A. from UC San Diego and an M.Phil from the University of Cambridge in classical literature, art, philosophy, and drama.
May 21, 2025
Annie is a charming classic musical at the Dolby Theatre through May 18th. This touring production of Annie has a fantastic cast, iconic songs, and a soaring optimism and pure-heartedness that feel rejuvenating.
May 15, 2025
Fostered is a must-see world premiere comedy at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice. The spirit of silliness and fun is bubbly and infectious. How often do we get to enjoy something sexy, smart, funny and effervescent, like a classic, delicious Woody Allen sex comedy? The roars of audience laughter and applause never let up, and personally, I laughed so hard, I almost fell out of my chair.
April 28, 2025
Corktown ’39 is a new play that feels like a classic, the kind of intelligent, thought-provoking drama that you can imagine a playwright like Aaron Sorkin or Henrik Ibsen might have written.
March 25, 2025
BIG HAIR: A Rad and Wild Love Affair is a thoughtful, poignant, laugh out loud funny one woman show, a bittersweet slice of nostalgia and a heartfelt homage to the gorgeous, offbeat love story between iconic comics Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner.
March 10, 2025
Founded in 1968, Honey Cone is like drinking sunshine. The debut of iconic girl group Honey Cone at the famed Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood on Oscars Night was unforgettable magic. Next up on their live tour is Oscar's in Palm Springs on April 11.
February 26, 2025
Broadway World talks with T.J. Wilkins and Shanice of 44, The unOfficial, unSanctioned Obama Musical, at the Kirk Douglas Theatre through March 23rd. Actor and singer T.J. Wilkins has performed with Stevie Wonder, The Jacksons, John Legend, and Beyoncé, shined on NBC’s The Voice, and been nominated for a Grammy for his song in Disney’s The Lion King. Shanice performed with Ella Fitzgerald at age 11, has collaborated with Kenny Loggins, Kenny Babyface Edmonds, Justin Timberlake, and Josh Groban, been nominated for Grammys for her bestselling, chart-topping albums, and starred in her own reality show on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
February 26, 2025
44, The unOfficial, unSanctioned Obama Musical, is a comedy starring award-winning film, theatre, and TV actor and singer Chad Doreck as Joe Biden. You can see Chad Doreck starring on Dead Ringers (recurring opposite Rachel Weisz), HBO’s Grey Matter, Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood and the hit Netflix sitcom The Upshaws. 44 runs at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City through March 23rd. Chad Doreck talks with Broadway World about playing former president Joe Biden.
February 25, 2025
44 The Musical, is an award-winning comedy produced by Monica Saunders-Weinberg, a devoted philanthropist, international property investor, and film and theatre producer. 44 runs at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City through March 23rd. Monica Saunders-Weinberg shares her journey producing 44 with BroadwayWorld.
February 25, 2025
Eli Bauman talks about the musical comedy he wrote, composed and directs, 44, The Unofficial, Unsanctioned Obama Musical, playing at the Kirk Douglas Theatre through March 23rd.
February 22, 2025
Unconditional, A Musical Memoir is a must-see new world premiere at Skylight Theatre in Los Feliz through March 9th. Unconditional is utterly heartbreaking, explosive with tenderness and the irresistible bittersweetness of memory.
February 16, 2025
Bacon is the West Coast premiere of a simmering new drama at Rogue Machine on Melrose running through March 30th. Brawny, raw, savagely intimate, Bacon is a spare two-person play by Sophie Swithinbank that grabs us hard and never lets us go, even for a second.
February 11, 2025
TICK TICK...BOOM! is an inspiring hit musical at the award-winning Chance Theater in Anaheim through February 23rd. Set in New York City in 1990, this is a poignant love letter to Jonathan Larson, composer of the Broadway mega-hit musical Rent. Surprisingly for something that is grounded in real life and in real struggle, there is so much reach-for-the-sky, genuine optimism in TICK TICK...BOOM! that it feels restorative.
February 7, 2025
A smash hit at Rogue Machine already, many performances are already sold out. Evanston Salt Costs Climbing is a strange, satirical, darkly funny meditation on loss, anxiety, and depression. Among other things, it touches on our universal creeping feeling of dread, the vastness of the problems facing humanity such as climate change and environmental devastation, our struggle with our own bitter destructive natures, our fear of closeness and our desperate need for it.
December 13, 2024
Little Women Ballet is the world premiere of a charming new ballet at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Mid-Wilshire. This is a lavish, romantic, nostalgic, family-friendly night of dance that is not to be missed.
November 20, 2024
Written by acclaimed actress and playwright June Carryl and produced by Imagine Theatre, this light-hearted, fantastical voyage through the savanna is inspired by folktales and origin stories from South Africa. There is a charming Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland feeling of whimsy and adventure afoot in this production.
November 5, 2024
This production feels contemporary and fresh, with an edgy, f-you, punk rock rebelliousness. Yet it also feels profoundly truthful to the original grittiness of A Streetcar Named Desire, how it was received when it premiered — its New Orleans funk and grime, its rough, perverse sexiness and sweatiness.
October 25, 2024
Vibrant, colorful, and charming, this Inland Valley Repertory Theatre production of the Academy Award winning 1989 animated Disney film is a delight. Looking around the enthusiastic opening night audience, I see everyone from seniors and date-night couples to toddlers on laps completely enraptured by the music, dazzling costumes, and effervescent performances.
September 26, 2024
This is a small-scale, intimate human story that feels like a slice of life, entertaining, touching, and deftly told with wildly abundant, delicious humor. Mostly Demolition is a comedy, observant, delightful, laugh-out-loud funny. There is a thoughtful drama lingering here too — slowly, astutely, whisper-quiet, unpeeling the skin of everyday things.
September 23, 2024
The Skin of Our Teeth is an astonishing production of the classic play at A Noise Within through September 29th. It is insatiably alive with sharp-fanged wit, whimsical thoughtfulness, and improbable wonder. The Skin of Our Teeth is audaciously satirical, but also earnest its incandescent meditation on the eternal human cycle of apocalypse and overindulgence.
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