LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

The American Songbook, in its Broadway musical form, is often sung with varying degrees of interpretation from singers in nightclubs and symphony halls across the country, yet rarely has the genre sounded so regal as when the magnificent soprano Deborah Voigt lends her glorious vocal styling to the ...

Transforming such a momentous story into a staged musical, as bookwriter Marsha Norman has done with The Color Purple, could not have been an easy task. What has ended up on stage more closely resembles a Disney spin on history, rather than a gritty realization of historical abuse. Yet, it strikes...

Time to order a whiskey, straight up, because the ice might melt, it's that hot. Okay, clichéd lines aside, there is something heartening going down at the Wilshire Theatre, as showbusiness's three greatest crooners are on display in all their glory......

Quality of Life remains highly relevant leading up to next years presidential elections, and the enormously talented cast treats the work with utmost sincerity. Metcalf and Williams have the most dynamic characters to develop, as both come to terms with the others choices and their roller coaster e...

Growing up in a coastal community, dreams of swashbuckling and great sea adventures floated around throughout my adolescence, and thanks, in part, to Disney recently giving a much needed boost to the pirate adventures series, tales of the high seas are back in vogue. Subsequently, what was once the...

There has been a recent influx of Stephen Sondheim shows back in the East, with intriguing revivals of 'Sweeney Todd' and 'Company,'but for Los Angeles fans of Sondheim tuners, there is one show that stands as perhaps the most sophisticated from the composer, 'A Little Night Music,' now on stage at ...

Only a handful of performers can claim the ability to captivate an audience from the opening notes through the resounding ovation of an appearance on stage, and the always lovely Rachel York can indeed count herself among such a select few......

As if stuck in Los Angeles traffic at the height of rush hour, it has taken 'Avenue Q' a long, long time to finally make its debut in the City of Angels. But like any journey, when you finally arrive at your destination, you are thankful and happy to be there. ...

That roar of applause heard from UCLA's Freud Playhouse is a two-fold result of the top-notch production of On Your Toes as part of Reprise! Broadway's Best as well as a note of approval for the smash up job from the company's newest artistic director, actor Jason Alexander......

If you closed your eyes last night,you would have thought you were back in New York even though you knew you had just valeted your car in West Hollywood. Yes, Broadway came to Hollywood to a new, beautiful new supper club called Eleven for 'Changed for Good: An Intimate Evening with Stephen Schwar...

Stepping into the La Jolla Playhouse, it is easy to immediately be transported into an abstract world of delightfully foreign art, thanks to the staging of Pierre Marivaux's classic La Fausse Suivante, completely re-imagined as The Deception......

A show that started out in this city nearly eight years ago, Gershwin Alone tickles its way back into Angelenos' standards loving hearts with a run at the Geffen Playhouse......

Sterling's upstairs at Vitello's restaurant marked its one year anniversary this past Saturday night with Three of a Kind......

Producer David Stone sought to capture magic in a bottle twice with his Tony Award winning musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, reuniting the entire original cast for the show's Los Angeles premiere, and judging Sunday's opening performance, his plan was a S-U-C-C-E-S-S......

Yellow Face often blurs the lines between fact and fiction, with many of Hwang's personal travails making their way into the play, yet never fully emphasizing what is truth. Even with such ambiguities, the play is a scathing rebuke of minority critics, especially journalists, which get their fair s...

Although Graae's Anatomy is making its West Coast debut at the El Portal Theatre, Los Angeles is no stranger to the musical and often comedic styling of star Jason Graae. And that is Graae, like 'blah,' not like that hit ABC show about dysfunctional doctors in Seattle......

The return of Superman was given star-studded treatment befit for royalty, as the Man of Steel resurfaced on stage in a concert-staging of It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, as part of Reprise! Broadway's Best Marvelous Musical Monday series on May 14. This musical rarity, last seen on Bro...

In Fat Pig, which is making its West Coast debut at the Geffen Playhouse, LaBute goes deep into the psyche of insecure characters, as the subject of weight is discussed, actually argued over when a good-looking guy becomes attracted to a fat chick. Though, the variable phrases scattered throughout ...

'ShowBusiness' follows four hotly discussed musicals during the 2003-2004 Broadway season, 'Wicked,' 'Avenue Q,' 'Caroline, or Change' and 'Taboo,' as they develop from a fledgling workshop production into Tony Award contender......

Fame, that glorious accolade that is so rarely attained, and once tasted, is constantly yearned for again. It is a tale as old as time here in Hollywood, where Gloria Swanson roams the hills in a dilapidated mansion, and gawkers flock to place a hand in some long ago imprint in front of Grauman's C...

Lost Angels Theatre Company has infested the Coast Playhouse with the disturbingly enjoyable Bug, an off-Broadway thriller making its Los Angeles debut......

There is a praise-worthy effort afoot at Musical Theatre West, as the Long Beach company is putting on quite a show with the regional premiere of the Off-Broadway smash, Altar Boyz. Gaining the rights to a still running production, not to mention also being on a National Tour, is a feat in its own ...

Retro farce, if done well, can prove laugh out loud funny, and playwright Frank Salisbury has accomplished just that in his comedy Balancing Act, in its American debut at the Falcon Theatre......

If a hero should be regarded as a model or ideal figure, than Gerald Sibleyras' Heroes is sorely lacking any such characters. This American premiere at the Geffen Playhouse sets out with the best of intentions, but sadly disappoints in its final form......

Though hard to recollect is the sentiment of a country thrown into a just and strongly supported war, such a time did once exist in America. And as the current situation is so starkly opposite, a look back at such a time period seems all more affecting today when watching The Cover of Life, current...