COSTA MESA THEATER REVIEWS

What I found so utterly engaging about the world premiere of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's new musical BRIGHT STAR is its complete unpretentiousness. Certainly its musical style --American bluegrass with a heaping helping of laid back mountain charm -- has the kind of lilting homespun ease that m...

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire's thoughtful, riveting character study GOOD PEOPLE continues at the La Mirada Theater for the Performing Arts through October 12. Buoyed by impressive performances, this excellent regional production of the Tony Award-winning play shines the spo...

Most of the time, when you go to the theater, you pretty much know what to expect. Though the subject matter and delivery varies, when you buy a ticket to a play or musical you basically know what kind of show you're going to see. Well here's one for those of you that want something that is truly di...

Director Michael Arden gives the word discovery new meaning in a spectacular production of Steven Sater (book & lyrics) and Duncan Sheik's (music) Spring Awakening based on Frank Wedekind's 1891 expressionist play. Arden, who has had a long partnership with Deaf West that goes back to Big River, whi...

Something completely enchanting is happening right now on a stage in Costa Mesa. Kicking off its 51st season, South Coast Repertory---in association with the American Repertory Theatre and the Smith Center---is currently staging the remarkable, re-envisioned new take on William Shakespeare's classic...

Lovers of Shakespeare are in for a real treat when Shakespeare's Globe Theatre brings its all-male Original Practices production of Twelfth Night to local cinemas beginning September 22. Starring award-winning actors Mark Rylance as Olivia and Stephen Fry as Malvolio, the film gives audiences an exc...

BILLY SHAKESPEARE is a spicy little independent film by Deborah Voorhees that imagines what might happen if William Shakespeare tried to make it as a writer in today's Hollywood rather than Elizabethan England. Quirky characters, compromising situations, and the kind of deadpan humor made famous in ...

Going above-and-beyond your typical museum diorama or theme park animatronic showcase, WALKING WITH DINOSAURS - THE ARENA SPECTACULAR is a dino-lover's dream: a wondrous feat of technology, theatrical magic, and imagination---bringing to (virtual) life those figures that continue to scare/fascinate ...

The world premiere of PSYCHE: A Modern Rock Opera is undeniably impressive, especially when you consider the scope of the author's vision and the level of detail that has gone into its execution....

Subtle and, at times, molasses-slow in execution---yet ultimately powerful in impact---ONCE is a beautifully-staged, soul-searing musical that interchanges romantic entanglement for creative fulfillment---and how the line that separates these emotions are often blurred. The eight-time Tony award-win...

When you've been given the privilege to watch and, of course, listen to legendary Tony winner Jennifer Holliday sing live---in that signature inimitable style---it's practically akin to a religious experience. She is, to put it mildly, still one of the world's most treasured, gifted musical voices. ...

It is always great when a theatrical event meets your expectations. It is even better when it exceeds them. TOP ROCK at The Hard Rock Hotel Palm Springs did just that. Live It Up Production's TOP ROCK rivals the best production show on the Las Vegas strip with a tremendously talented and charismatic...

On the surface, GHOST, the ultra-romantic 1990 Oscar-nominated box office hit, seems every bit the perfect motion picture to be repurposed into a flashy stage musical. Unfortunately, the musical that eventually emerged (now playing at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts through August 10) is a chaoti...

Directed by Adam Shankman and featuring a talented, impossibly photogenic cast that includes Kristen Bell, Hunter Parrish, Benjamin Walker, Amber Riley, Mario, Jenna Ushkowitz and Jonah Platt, the Hollywood Bowl production of the 60's hippie-centric HAIR is lively and unabashedly joyful to the core....

REDCAT opened its eleventh annual New Original Works Festival this weekend with a trio of intriguing pieces incorporating movement, dance, music, and a variety of theatrical elements that push the boundaries of thought and creativity. Together they make up the first of three programs that will be of...

A buoyant, truly impressive local revival directed by Alan Souza, 3-DT's DAMN YANKEES is a true audience pleaser, highlighted by an enthusiastic cast and spirited re-imagined sequences that are truly Broadway-caliber. This all-new production is now playing at the Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton thro...

Lively and electrified by its talented, winsome lead actors, this new admirable local production of the Tony Award-winning IN THE HEIGHTS has just been extended for additional performances in its Anaheim Hills home through August 8---and deservedly so. Overall, this new OC production crackles with a...

There is no redemption in OTHELLO. Shakespeare has provided no late opportunity to undo what has been done, no chance to make amends for the terrible wrongs lavished upon the innocent, and no way for the audience to feel anything but horror for the treachery that has filled the stage for two and a h...

Yes, it takes a village. Shakespeare Orange County has pulled out all the stops, and even enlisted a not-so-secret weapon, to accomplish an extraordinarily beautiful debut in its first official production under new artistic director John Walcutt...

So what's the big selling point for this new national touring production of JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, which continues its three-week stop at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood through June 22? Well, how about a pair of better-known American Idol alums in the lead roles... a pair t...

First to take on this brave task of bringing a regional production of the hit musical LES MISERABLES to the L.A./O.C. area is McCoy-Rigby Entertainment, that regional theater powerhouse that has consistently and successfully put on some magnificent, Broadway-caliber productions at their home base at...

An Idaho film festival reunites a pair of estranged screenwriters in the new musical DOG AND PONY by Rick Elise (Peter and the Starcatcher, Jersey Boys) and Michael Patrick Walker (Altar Boyz). As Mags (Nicole Parker) and Andy (Jon Patrick Walker) rehash memories from their 13-year partnership, we q...

It was only natural that former Los Angeles Times writer and current Deadline|Hollywood contributor Diane Haithman would one day turn the tables on the town she has covered with such precision for the last 25+ years. A writer after my own heart, she also knows her Shakespeare Ps and Qs....

Love and Pizza…and Shakespeare! That's what authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes have cooked up Chicago-style in ANYONE BUT YOU, book three of their popular Twisted Lit series for young adults. Each of the stand-alone books takes a classic Shakespearean story and spins it into a modern tale that is fr...

After being on the road for almost two years now, the hilarious Tony Award-winning Broadway musical hit THE BOOK OF MORMON has finally made its way inside the OC... And, man, it's about frikkin' time. All that hype and hyperbole about just how amazing this show is isn't an exaggeration; every accola...