LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

On Sunday November 27, vivacious Lyn Stanley made her much anticipated cabaret debut @ Sterling's Upstairs @ Vitello's to an enthusiastic crowd. Stanley is a champion ballroom dancer, who at the advice of musician Paul T. Smith, made a dynamic transition to singing. Stanley has just the right style ...

From the top Riverdance is defined as journey...that takes us from land to water and back, or from sky to land and back, from one land to another, even... from one life to the next... oh, what awesome journeys Riverdance enfolds! Incorporating dance, song and music, both traditional and contemporary...

For those who like their theatre, like their literature, deliciously different, look no further than Travels with My Aunt, adapted by Giles Havergal from Graham Greene's novel, now onstage at the Colony Theatre. Packed with internationally political intrigue and perilous crime-laden adventures, ...A...

To my knowledge this is the West Coast premiere of Hollywood Arms by Carol Burnett and her daughter the late Carrie Hamilton, based on Burnett's well written best-selling memoir One More Time. There was a reading at the now Carrie Hamilton Theatre of the Pasadena Playhouse a few years back when the ...

It's always such a wonderful treat to witness a living legend speak candidly and honestly about their experiences, looking back fondly at a multi-decade career that few could even dare replicate. Orange County residents now have such an opportunity with none other than two-time Tony Award winning di...

Almost ten years after its triumphant debut on Broadway, the eight-time Tony Award-winning musical HAIRSPRAY is making quite a resurgence lately, thanks to the plethora of regional theaters across the country that now have licenses to mount their own versions. It's a good thing, too, because the sho...

Peace in Our Time by Noel Coward new adaptation by Barry Creyton directed by Casey Stangl through December 11 @ Antaeus Company...

Bound to create a plethora of discussion and lots of positive and negative opinions, Geoffrey Nauffts' Next Fall, now onstage at the Geffen Playhouse, despite its heavy handed religious themes, boasts a marvelous cast....

With the title Vigil what should one expect? And its graphic with Olympia Dukakis framed by the parameters of a coffin? Death, most assuredly. But will it be funny? Vigil... Waiting For Godot comes to mind. Well, if it weren't for its two actors cavorting and acting silly, that play's tediousness mi...

Sometimes even in disappointment, comes something wonderful, which was certainly the case with the magnificent impromptu showcase that occurred at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa on Saturday, October 29. A mixed blessing if there ever was one, the evening's original agenda...

Hairspray, can't get enough of that Hairspray! 60s girls lacquered up their dos - hair, that is, with oodles and oodles of it until their hair was a sticky, gooey mess; well, the musical of the same name has been seen close to a half dozen times in the last several months, and few seem to tire of it...

On Sunday October 30 Sterling's Upstairs at Vitello's presented a unique treat in cabaret with the dual sounds of Broadway's Randall Phillips and pop singer Jerry Sharell in Together Again. Musical direction was by the wonderful Todd Schroeder on piano with Bill Brendle on keyboard, Jack LeCompte on...

The Mystery of Irma Vep, written by Charles Ludlam in 1984 and a sensation off Broadway and beyond into the 90s, certainly lives up to its subtitle A Penny Dreadful. That's actually a good thing! A Penny Dreadul was a 19th century British fictional publication, usually printed in papers and magazine...

There is a good reason why Twyla Tharp is, well, Twyla Tharp. She's one of the world's most renown, ubiquitous choreographers, and her unmistakable stamp can be found leaping all throughout COME FLY AWAY, a superb new dance-centric musical stage show now playing its Los Angeles premiere at the Panta...

If you mention you're from the Bronx, eyelids rise, as one has come to expect to see the lowest of lowlife. John Patrick Shanley's early one-act Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (The Apache Dance) presents Roberta (Juliet Landau) and Danny (Matthew J. Williamson), two savory characters with rage, hatred ...

The musical The Robber Bridegroom was a phenomenal success on Broadway in the mid seventies and catapulted Barry Bostwick and Patti LuPone to Broadway stardom. It was also one of the first hits for writer Alfred Uhry who would later go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Driving Miss Daisy. Now onstage...

Superb from beginning to end, 4-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald's one-night-only solo concert at the lush Renee & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall on October 15--her only Southern California stop before her return to Broadway in the revival of PORGY & BESS--was a musical testament as to why she's...

When does a one person show click into high gear? Only when the actor in question is up to it. Such is certainly the case with Johnny Legz or John Leguizamo in his autobiographical Ghetto Klown. Klown treats more of Leguizamo's career than Freak, for example, but does trace as well the repercussions...

Where has all the Hollywood glamour of yesteryear gone? Thanks to the resourcefulness of producer, narrator and pianist Greg Schreiner, the revue Hollywood Revisited brings it all back, at least for a few fleeting moments. Revisited has become a resoundingly popular success with audiences over the p...

Like a warm Snuggie on a cold winter night or a decadent dessert to a calorie counter, sometimes we all just want to cater to our own basest pleasure centers that simply crave comforting, entertaining shows full of good ol' plain, silly fun. This same idea explains why macaroni and cheese makes for ...

On Sunday October 2 handsome Broadway tenor David Burnham brought his class-A style and overflowing charisma to an evening called Mostly Broadway at Sterling's Upstairs at Vitello's. The evening was mainly to celebrate Burnham's newest CD One Day, on which he and musical director extraordinaire Mark...

Tuneful and breezy with an avalanche of exuberant dancing could not better describe the family-oriented Seven Brides for Seven Brothers currently receiving a fast paced, energetic production at Glendale Centre Theatre under the expertise of Robert Marra and Lee Martino. From MGM in 1954 the film sta...

No one can duplicate the brilliance of Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, Desi Arnaz and William Frawley, the original stars of I Love Lucy on CBS from 1951-1957; they are irreplaceable. But...oh what fun it is to see what they did and a glimmer of how they did it at the Desilu Studio in 1952 as presented ...

Don't be deceived by the title Pulling Leather! It does not take place in a leather bar. Yes, it does involve sex, but most likely not in the way you think. It is actually an examination of the various aspects of love as experienced through three very different relationships. An original two-act pla...

Hypnotic and gorgeous from start to finish, Cirque du Soleil's thrilling IRIS: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE WORLD OF CINEMA turns celluloid beauty into living stage art. It is arguably the Montreal-based troupe's most artistic rendering of a single thematic motif to date, and is absolutely the perfect show...