COSTA MESA THEATER REVIEWS

There is a very good possibility that many of you have seen or heard of the terrific musical collective known as Postmodern Jukebox across one or more of your preferred social media platforms. This group of clever and talented viral-video/YouTube sensations is the brainchild of arranger/pianist/musi...

The Desert Rose Playhouse's production of Terrence McNally's LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! is moving and absorbing. This gay heritage production follows eight men who gather at a lake house over holiday weekends in the summer of 1994....

Hal Holbrook presented his iconic one-man show, MARK TWAIN TONIGHT! , appeared at Riverside's Fox Performing Arts Center for one show on Saturday, January 17th. Mr. Holbrook delighted the audience with Twain's words skewering Congress, misuse of religion, guns, and people's refusal to think before s...

Desert Theatreworks, a nonprofit theatre company in Palm Desert, has served up a delectable production of Neil Simon's LOST IN YONKERS, at the Joslyn Center's Arthur Newman Theatre. LOST IN YONKERS will be presented on January 23 and 24, 2015, at 7 p.m. and on January 24th and 25th at 2 p.m. Tickets...

The ensemble effort of La Mirada Theatre/McCoy Rigby's cast of BILLY ELLIOT is an extraordinary accomplishment and especially resonant in a musical that is all about solidarity and overcoming the odds. It also has the kind of opening night story that wins hearts and shows how a company will rally li...

In South Coast Repertory's excellent new production of Matthew Lopez's captivating play THE WHIPPING MAN---now playing at the Tony Award-winning Costa Mesa theater through January 25---an internal, theological tug-of-war is brewing just as the Civil War has come to an end. The absorbing, character-d...

Like many of us, I love words…and I love to lose myself in a good book. But these days it seems like life moves at such a fast pace that there is little time to relax in the embrace of a good story, lost in a world of new ideas and adventures. The truth is - we're all busy. We all have to-do lists...

When it comes to film-to-stage adaptations, the sassy, Tony Award-winning Best Musical KINKY BOOTS---whose touring company is now on stage at Orange County's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa through January 11---is that rare phenomenon we all wish would happen more often: a stage show th...

In Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, an angel in training named Clarence comes back to earth to earn his wings by helping one man recognize his value in the world. The beloved classic is a reminder to all adults that every man matters and every angel has his own special way of helping those in ne...

Move Over Radio City! Stand aside all you Las Vegas Production Shows!! Live It Up Productions' ROCKIN THE HOLIDAYS, playing now through December 28 at the JW Marriott Desert Breezes in Palm Desert, is the DEFINITIVE holiday extravaganza - and well worth the drive in from San Diego, Los Angeles and a...

Filled to the (vacuum-sealed) brim with naughty one-liners and blush-worthy double entendres, DIXIE'S TUPPERWARE PARTY is a one-woman comedy laugh-fest cleverly disguised as the most outlandish Tupperware party you'll ever experience. It is hosted by the flamboyant, ultra-caffeinated Dixie Longate, ...

I'd have to be, well... a mean ol' Grinch to say anything remotely negative about the new non-equity touring stage production of DR. SEUSS' HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS! THE MUSICAL, so I'll try my best to keep it to a minimum. Honestly though, it's really not that hard, actually, because---surpri...

The 2014 Western tour of ELF: THE MUSICAL stopped for two performances at Riverside's Fox Performing Arts Center before leaving Southern California. The show is fun, but it has flaws....

Prepare to be thoroughly enchanted by Oregon Shakespeare Festival's transfer of INTO THE WOODS newly arrived at the Wallis Center in Beverly Hills. It is, without a doubt, the most inventive and inspiring production of this Sondheim musical I have ever seen. Amanda Denhert's direction delights at ev...

If you've been secretly praying for a good old fashioned love story wrapped up in a delicious Cole Porter score, dazzling costumes, highly polished performances and slick, high-energy production numbers then the current national touring production of ANYTHING GOES, which is docked at The McCallum Th...

The Annenberg Theatre kicked off its' starry 2014-2015 Cabaret Season with four of Broadway's most celebrated leading ladies - Donna McKechnie, Andrea McArdle, Maureen McGovern and Randy Graff - in an unforgettable evening of song and story to a "standing room only" crowd dotted with several other B...

The Desert Rose Playhouse, in Rancho Mirage California, is presenting a hilariously funny sendup of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, SCROOGE IN ROUGE. The plot's premise is that a small music hall on London's outskirts plans to present A CHRISTMAS CAROL. When all but three actors in the twenty-member cast develop...

Broadway's loss is definitely Long Beach's gain now that the big, bright, and buoyant new musical BIG FISH is making a splash as the season opener for Musical Theatre West's 62nd season. Filled to the brim with heart, emotional heft, and colorful storytelling, this slightly flawed but charmingly ima...

The historic reunion---formatted as part talk-show, part concert---featured not only its creators Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine waxing nostalgic about the making of this beloved show, but also had several members of the Original Broadway cast including Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason, Chip Zie...

You'll get no argument from me: Cheyenne Jackson is a powerhouse vocalist and his charismatic quotient is off the charts. It is easy to gush about his vocal prowess, his versatility as a singer and his movie star magnetism. He is a consummate crooner with a vocal ease that is equally adept at the Br...

In the world premiere production of playwright (and creator of NBC's Smash) Theresa Rebeck's ZEALOT---now performing at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa through November 16---Mecca, Saudi Arabia serves as the setting for a volatile tug-of-war that erupts at the start of the 'Hajj,' the holy city'...

Arguably, director Diane Paulus' greatest triumph to date is the spectacular new production of PIPPIN, the 2013 Tony-winning revival of Stephen Schwartz's trippy but winsome musical about the angst-riddled but hyper-aspirational young son of King Charlemagne, and his erratic, sometimes frustrating j...

Admirably directed by 3-D Theatricals co-founder and resident artistic director TJ Dawson, this ambitiously impressive regional revival of RAGTIME: THE MUSICAL, continues through October 26 at its home-base at the Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton before moving north for its set of performances at the...

For 90 solid minutes, Tony Award-winning Broadway icon Brian Stokes Mitchell---under the guise of a showtunes-centric cabaret concert themed around his most recent studio album Simply Broadway---provided his enthralled Costa Mesa audience a virtual master class in musical theater performance. Not on...

The appeal of trading in the hustle and bustle of a 21st Century lifestyle for a 1955 throwback downgrade is the focus of Jordan Harrison's wonderfully intriguing play MAPLE & VINE, now having its Los Angeles/Orange County premiere production at the Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills through October 19...