COSTA MESA THEATER REVIEWS

Riding the wave of renewed interest in August Wilson's 10 play, American Century Cycle, South Coast Repertory has one particular Wilson drama on their sonar at the moment: GEM OF THE OCEAN, the riveting, epic-sized 2003 drama now continuing at the Costa Mesa theater through November 11. An exquisite...

Peter Quilter's unfiltered, devastatingly intense play, END OF THE RAINBOW, recounts the final months leading up to the death of one of the world's most iconic, treasured stars, Judy Garland, in her lowest depths of despair as she attempts a 'comeback' on the London stage. Now back in Southern Calif...

Lin-Manuel Miranda's first Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical, IN THE HEIGHTS is now on stage in a brand new Broadway-caliber regional production presented by Musical Theatre West at the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts in Long Beach through November 5. Told as a series of interweaving vi...

In Rachel Bonds' beautifully-acted and cleverly written new play CURVE OF DEPARTURE---now finishing up its too-brief World Premiere run at Orange County's South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa through October 15---characters are confronted with unexpected events that forces them to make such choices f...

In its admirable Orange County premiere production directed by Marya Mazor, Chance Theater presents an intimately-staged version of Nina Raine's thoughtful, award-winning 2010 play TRIBES, now playing through October 22, 2017. This comedic drama which centers around a young deaf man caught between h...

Thousands of souls have their final resting place in Altadena's Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery but, once a year in the fall, the living invade the domain of the dead. That's when Unbound Productions' WICKED LIT takes over the grounds and creates a site-specific theatrical experience based on c...

In 1970, Maria Callas posed for Blackglama's iconic What Becomes a Legend Most ad campaign. The famous black and white Richard Avedon photographs shot against a simple gray background captured the glamour and allure of black mink featuring some of the most iconic faces in the world. It was indeed ...

In a new, incredibly enjoyable regional revival of the Tony Award-winning AIN'T MISBEHAVIN' - THE FATS WALLER MUSICAL SHOW, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts is presenting one of the most rousing, rip-roaring iterations of this musical treat, under the informed direction of one of the show's...

The Old Globe has opened a window and let in a beautiful breath of fresh air in its latest world premiere musical, BENNY AND JOON, by bookwriter Kirsten Guenther, composer Nolan Gasser, and lyricist Mindi Dickstein. Based on the 1993 MGM film starring Johnny Depp, Mary Stuart Masterson and Aidan Qui...

Though the Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of writer/director John Carney's well-liked indie film ONCE is a musical that this reviewer has liked quite a bit from past productions, it took seeing South Coast Repertory's brand new regional production---now on stage in Costa Mesa through Septembe...

While watching Crystal Sep lveda perform during the opening of Pacific Standard LA/LA's Condemned To Be Modern exhibit, I couldn't help but think of a quote by Frank Lloyd Wright: 'Space is the breath of art.' Poetic in its simplicity, it is an observation that is particularly eloquent when consider...

A cross between a murder mystery and a psychological drama told with a high-tech showmanship flair, the intriguing touring production of Simon Stephen's Tony Award-winning play THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME now in Costa Mesa at Orange County's Segerstrom Center for the Arts throu...

It's official. I have a new favorite thing, and it is called MUSE/IQUE. You would too if you'd been in the audience for GLOW/TOWN, the third in a 3-part series celebrating Motown and its roots Saturday night at Caltech. From the structure of the program to the sophistication of the environment, Arti...

If you're looking to get a definitive Janis Joplin biography/musical (in the vein of the Carole King musical BEAUTIFUL), then you may be disappointed with A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN, the short-lived 2013 Broadway musical. More akin to a tribute concert rather than actual musical theater, a new region...

Riveting, powerful and beautifully poignant at every step, FUN HOME—the Tony Award-winning musical based on Alison Bechdel's 2006 autobiographical graphic memoir—is one of those rare, great stage musicals that represents an astonishingly unique point-of-view that is somehow miraculously universa...

Every theatre production comes with its share of backstage drama. One Hit Wonderland, the Broadway musical comedy depicted in Gary De Leon and Greg Lisi's indie film OPENING NIGHT is no exception. Sex, drugs, and crazy characters collide in this rousing tongue-in-cheek comedy full of splashy produc...

Arguably one of musical theater's more enjoyable jukebox musicals, the crowd-pleasing, ABBA-centric musical MAMMA MIA! aims to entertain its audience, all while trying to provide a much more interesting way to experience the ubiquitous pop catalog of one of the most successful pop music groups of th...

To open its historic 97th season, Orange County's Laguna Playhouse is presenting an admirable new production of the Tony Award-winning 2002 hit musical comedy HAIRSPRAY, which via popular demand has now been extended through August 5. Filled with spirited performances, memorably cheeky songs, and an...

It is nearly impossible not to be emotionally affected by the events depicted in PARADE, the stirring, Tony Award-winning 1998 musical inspired by shocking actual events surrounding the trial of a man accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl. It's certainly a heavy, morose subject to wrap ...

Disney/Cameron Mackintosh's stage adaptation of MARY POPPINS, the closing production of Musical Theatre West's 64th season is mostly jolly good fun. Full of palpable joy, wonderfully-performed songs, and smile-inducing moments, MTW's buoyant, crowd-pleasing production of the London-set musical conti...

Fittingly, as most of the world celebrates Gay Pride month, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills is presenting an absorbing, beautifully-poetic production of playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell's drama THE PRIDE, which continues its Los Angeles-area premiere through July 9...

What a difference one decision makes. Turn a corner, say hello, say nothing, leave - even the smallest of choices has the power to alter our future. In CONSTELLATIONS, Nick Payne's exquisite play for two, now on stage at Geffen Playhouse, we watch the various stages of a couple's relationship play o...

Up until the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida a year ago, the deadliest known attack on a gay club in U.S. history happened more than 40 years before at the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans, Louisiana. The events prior to and following that deadly, still unsolved 1973 blaze make up t...

First, let's get this out of the way: while sitting through the national tour production of THE BODYGUARD---the stage adaptation of the late Whitney Houston's 1992 film that boasts the best-selling soundtrack of all time---one thing is absolutely for certain: chart-topping recording artist Deborah C...

To close out its historic 51st season, East West Players is presenting a bold and emotionally-packed production of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Broadway musical NEXT TO NORMAL, which continues performances at the David Henry Hwang Theater at the Union Center for the Arts through June 11...