LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

A couple of years ago a winning salute to Frank Sinatra called My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra by David Grapes and Todd Olson was on stage at the Laguna Playhouse. It has gone on successfully to hundreds of productions worldwide. Now the same duo Grapes and Olson present I Left My Heart: ...

On Sunday July 24, actress/singer Kristin Towers-Rowles debuted her one-woman cabaret A Lovely Lineage at Sterling's Upstairs @ Vitello's to resounding success. The amazing singer, who is the grand daughter of legendary MGM musical star Katharine Grayson and Broadway veteran Johnnie Johnston, salute...

Based on the popular children's book series by P.L. Travers that Disney shaped into an even more renowned movie musical, the stage iteration's current touring company has temporarily taken up residence at the Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts in Orange County for an extended four-week limite...

Buoyed by a charmingly droll book penned by Chad Beguelin and the film's original screenwriter Tim Herlihy, THE WEDDING SINGER--playing through July 24 at the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts in Long Beach--isn't just a celebratory collection of 80's era sight gags, though it's chockfull of ...

There are singers...and then there are great singers, the best singers...like soul, R&B legend Freda Payne. This lady is not only a sensational vocalist but on top of that, intelligent, warm and beautiful. Her 'Band of Gold' was a # 1 Bestseller and gold record back in 1970, but what many do not rea...

Gal pals love/hate, hug/spar with equal measure...sometimes simultaneously. It's not a game we're talking about, but true friendship: being yourself in the presence of your best friend, sometimes stepping on toes, or other times, giving gifts... confiding deep desires, sharing secrets; at all costs,...

Never having seen any of the Shrek films, I come totally unbiased - green - to this material. One thing I can say for sure, I love fairy tales and any re-imagining of them, provided the characters remain true to form. In Shrek the Musical, the updating of traditional icons like Pinocchio, the Pied P...

Usually wild, unbridled and cutting edge, as with last year's Avalon outing L'Amour, GMCLA pulled back somewhat this year in TOTALLY...our 80s Show with more subdued, straightforward staging. Always vocally superior, the chorus sounded its usual best essaying the unforgettable hits of the 80s and sh...

Fans of the 1998 film The Wedding Singer, which proved an unqualified hit for its stars Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, will relish seeing the quirky story revisited on the big stage of the Carpenter Center in Long Beach. In 2006 The Wedding Singer was turned into a Broadway musical with the identi...

On Wednesday July 6 Kritzerland at the Gardenia presented a salute to the lesser known music of Kander and Ebb - The Kander and Ebb Album - two of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. Think Chicago or Cabaret, and you need go no further. These two wildly popular shows still receive inter...

Katie Polebaum has created an original piece of theatre that cleverly mixes the innocence of the past with the horrors of the future in D is for Dog now playing at Studio/Stage in Hollywood. What is most intriguing about Dog is its employment of video and puppetry along with the six actors in tellin...

Plays about the world of theatre are forever alluring. Such is the case with the world premiere of Kowalski that presents the initial meeting between Tennessee Williams and Marlon Brando. Kowalski, of course, is Stanley's last name...Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, that is, which offered the ro...

Long before the term dysfunctional family took flight, there was Joe Orton. Long before crude and obscene behavior became the norm ... there was perpetrator Joe Orton. In 1964 Entertaining Mr. Sloane played in a small underground theatre in London, as its portrayal of sexually explicit and violent b...

James Gray and his merry band of cuckoos led by Momma are back for a whole week this year in Firecracker Follies, the campy and irreverent salute to our nation's history. Eric Seppala - does some great meatless recipes, Kendall Rose, and Dena Drotar are joined by special guest tap dancer Rusty Frank...

Since its premiere on Broadway in 1969, the musical 1776 has become as popular as Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music; it seems that people cannot get enough of the show especially around the Fourth of July. After all, why read a history book when you can be entertained by a humorous retelling of ou...

There have been several musical plays based on Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. The first and biggest hit was Lionel Bart's Oliver, which went on to a major film in 1968 and a multitude of Oscars. There has been a gay version as well, also titled Twist, that was nominated for Critics' prizes in New Yo...

Les Miserables, has returned to Los Angeles in a new, "25th Anniversary" production, currently playing downtown at Center Theatre Group's Ahmanson Theatre in a limited run, now through July 31st....

What do you get when a theatre troupe tries to perform a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" without the characters of Blanche, Stella, Stanley or Mitch? A truly original and fun night of theatre in an absurdist delight called "The Method Gun"....

If you love ethnic comedies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding or more specifically comedies about Italians such as Buon Natale or Moonstruck, you will love Moose on the Loose, now getting a world premiere engagement at Theatre West. It boasts comedically keen direction and a cast as tightly knit as the ...

Fun, fun, fun! Think the zaniness of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Brandon Thomas' Charlie's Aunt and then those crazy American stage musical parodies like Little Mary Sunshine and The Boy Friend, and you've nailed the nonstop comical antics of I'm Just Wild About Harry adapted b...

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts (August: Osage County) is heralded for sprinkling a very gritty situation with crisply funny dialogue and peppering it all with an unexpected twist or two. Prepare to be moved, entertained, exhilarated and maybe a little frightened with his West coast pr...

On Sunday June 5 LA's Next Great Stage Star 2011 Judy Mora debuted her cabaret show @ Sterling's Upstairs @ Vitello's. Looking glamorous in a sleeveless pink evening dress the beautiful Mora presented her uplifting journey through life thus far with candor, brevity and elegance. The daughter of a pr...

Let me just say this right off the bat... BURN THE FLOOR is quite possibly the most entertained I have ever been at a dance-centric stage show. From its electric start to its rousingly gangbusters finalé, the show truly lives up to its scorching name. Direct from its Broadway berth, the tour is now...

Politically active playwright Jeff Goode is attempting to stir up further reaction against Prop 8 and the ban on gay marriage in his new world premiere play The Emancipation of Alabaster McGill by presenting homosexuality in a completely different context. He takes us back in time to 1863 and the ev...

Some thirty+ years ago, a young playwright Jim Leonard, Jr. composed a very odd play entitled The Diviners, which has become somewhat of a minor classic. Diviners means prophets or soothsayers, as well as in this context representing those who seek water. It's Indiana during the Great Depression cir...