LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Spring Awakening has sprung once again in Los Angeles, only this time there is a more powerful message behind it. Done as a concert production, Glorystruck's new pared down rendition of the Tony-winning musical about German teens discovering their sexual and personal identity is helping to raise fun...

Making good on his promise to eventually show up in Orange County to speak about his enduring career in the theater, legendary Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim finally made his long-awaited appearance at the Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa for the landmark event STEPHEN SONDHEIM: IN CONVERSA...

It's a pleasure to see an intelligently written play about sexual identity, one that shows how homosexuality has been affected by the American cultural climate over a 40 year period. But, when the piece goes beyond basic issues and delves deeply into raw human emotions, it comes up all the richer. I...

Cabrillo's impressive reproduction of the 1989 Broadway version of Meet Me in St. Loui is so charmingly rendered, that one puts the movie, Judy Garland and company on a back burner... at least for 2 hours....

Actress/singer Karen Volpe has her own CD at long last called Dinner and a fancy dress. This is an album of all new pop country tunes written by Chuck Pelletier. Volpe's first association with Pelletier was his college musical The Green Room, which has received productions internationally from LA to...

SOMETHING OF SILVER, otherwise known as The Merchant of Venice with Music, is Tony Tanner's latest adaptation for Classical Theatre Lab & the City of West Hollywood's Free Shakespeare in the Park....

The funeral of a baby, the grieving parents look for reasons why their child should be taken from them. Finding no reason but the caprice of fate, the couple moves forward to exercise that caprice on those around them. Their hope for immortality through their child dashed, they will live on throug...

Hardly an easy task to successfully mount Ernest Thompson's heartwarming and funny On Golden Pond, with the 1980 film starring Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Jane Fonda so vivid in the mind! Well, the current mounting at Glendale Centre Theatre, despite a few cracks here and there, is indeed a m...

On Friday July 13 and Saturday July 14 Tony Award-winning actor/singer Levi Kreis presented his electric one-man odyssey Up Close and Personal to a packed house at the NoHo Arts Center to benefit both the venue and Independant Music. Consisting mostly of original material from his three albums, ther...

It's quite a shame when a well-written, absorbing play has three strikes against it from the onset. Such is the case with The Exorcist by John Pielmeier. The best-selling novel by William Peter Blatty and the 1973 boxoffice blockbuster film of the same name were so powerfully gripping and unforgetta...

Outrageous in design and color, choreography verging on the acrobatic, spectacle, great singing, offbeat, risque humor and miles of heart are certainly enough attributes to call La Cage Aux Folles top-notch....

Denise Devin deftly directs a fast-paced intermission-less HAMLET with authority and skill at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre; a risk that pays off handsomely as the production explores one man's psychological descent into evil....

No, Martin Casella's The Irish Curse is not about drinking, although it is alluded to. It's about men and another serious issue, namely the size of their willy... and how a tiny penis can and has caused a raft of problems in the lives of many Irish Catholic men. Now onstage at the Odyssey, the play ...

Roger Bean has had such tremendous success with his Marvelous Wonderettes, the musical fable of the all-female singing quartet that began at Springfield High in the 50s and 60s... and, he's done it again. Missy (Misty Cotton), Suzy (Bets Malone), Betty Jean (Jenna Coker-Jones) and Cindy Lou ( Lowe T...

DOMA has a big and bold mission statement: enhancing your theatre experience beyond expectations. Competing with Musical Theatre of Los Angeles, MTW (Musical Theatre West) and Cabrillo, just to name a few, it sounds as if their productions will be of a more memorable calibre than the others. If that...

What revels are in hand in Griffith Park this summer? An abundance of mirth, merriment, mischief, and magic, all part of Independent Shakespeare Co.'s 2012 summer of Free Shakespeare....

Musical Theatre West's latest top-notch production is the hilarious regional premiere of the Tony-winning musical Monty Python's SPAMALOT. Full of silly humor and absurdist gags that will have you laughing throughout the show, the show continues at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach ...

Storytelling on stage is at its theatrical best when all the technical elements utilized blend together so smoothly that you take for granted that they are there at all. Such is the case with the amazing War Horse, based on a children's novel by Michael Morpurgo in which a young boy Albert (Andrew V...

It's been a few years since I have experienced fine dinner theatre in LA, and never have I been part of one presented in a truly intimate setting and that includes one-on-one interaction with the actors throughout. Such is the case with Coast Anabelle Entertainment's Here's Killing You, Kid!, a murd...

On Saturday June 30, Valley Performing Arts Center, Northridge played host to the exquisite Miss Barbara Cook, still radiant at 84, who is perhaps the greatest legendary singer to ever grace a stage. What can one say about this living legend that has not already been said to death? I can only add th...

On Sunday July 1 at Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal Kritzerland presented its monthly salute to a composer, July's being renowned lyricist/librettist Alan Jay Lerner. If you remember, My Fair Lady with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederic Loewe, was one of the most popular musicals in the world...

The McCallum Theatre and singer kd Lang are a match made in heaven. The McCallum theatre has proven, once again, that there is no better venue in Southern California for an intimate, acoustically "pitch perfect" concert --- and kd Lang's impeccable and unrivaled vocal quality fits every corner of th...

Jitney is the eighth play in August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle and recently completed a critically acclaimed run at SCR (South Coast Rep) in Orange County. It has now transferred to the Pasadena Playhouse through July and certainly stands tall as one of Wilson's earliest and best kitchen sink dramas....

Douglas Carter Beane's Tony nominated Best Play of 2007 The Little Dog Laughed, with its satirical take on happiness Hollywood Style, especially in its depiction of gay relationships, is timely, topical and most welcome in LA, where ironically there's still enough animosity and money stacked up agai...

One of the most popular, highly-regarded stage musicals of all time, LES MISÉRABLES is, to put it simply, a moving, overtly theatrical epic. In this rich-looking--and rich-sounding--tour production, the emotional resonance seems more palpable than ever. The beautifully refreshed 25th Anniversary ed...