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BWW Reviews: Kritzerland Scores Again with Schmidt & Jones
Another wonderful evening of song from Kritzerland, Bruce Kimmel's production label, at the Gardenia on Wednesday August 3, this time saluting the music of Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, and congrats are in as this show marks Kritzerland's 12th consecutive show in its series at the Gardenia! Schmidt ...
BWW Reviews: Catalina Welcomes Masterful Ann Hampton Callaway
Ann Hampton Callaway jokes about her Diva of America status in the music world, but it is a well known fact that this lady is a singer's singer. Like Barbara Cook in the world of theatre, although many, many years her junior, Callaway is the top in the world of jazz/pop and all singers flock to hear...
BWW Reviews: SPIDER's WEB - Keeping Mystery Alive at Theatre 40
Lovers of mystery find magic in the works of Agatha Christie, who not only knows how to weave together detailed clues to a juicy crime but more importantly how to make it into a sophisticated, classy entertainment. Like The Mousetrap, one of the longest running plays in UK theatre history and last s...
BWW Reviews: The Colony's Triumphant Return to Ernest Thompson's ON GOLDEN POND
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 still so vivid in the mind! Well, I'm here to say that the current mounting at the Colony Theatre is of 5 star calibre all the w...
BWW Reviews: Cabrillo's SOUND OF MUSIC Is a Winner
Perhaps the best known musical of all time - and perhaps the best - Rodgers' and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music has remained a family favorite since the 50s. Number one, the score is to die for; secondly, the book is dramatically fulfilling with a real life family being torn asunder by the ravages...
I LEFT MY HEART Pays a Meaningful Tribute to Tony Bennett
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: ...
BWW Reviews: Kristin Towers-Rowles Makes Impressive Debut @ Sterling's
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...
BWW Reviews: MARY POPPINS Tour Flies Into the O.C.
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...
BWW Reviews: MTW's THE WEDDING SINGER Revisits the '80's
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 ...
BWW Reviews: Freda Payne Sings Her Heart Out @ Catalina Jazz Club
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...
BWW Reviews: WILDFIRE Revisited @ Odyssey Theatre
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,...
BWW Reviews: Get in the Green and Go to SHREK the Musical
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...
BWW Reviews; GMCLA Give Straightforward Meaning to the Music of the 80s
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...
BWW Reviews: MTW Scores with THE WEDDING SINGER
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...
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BWW Reviews: Bruce Kimmel Does It Right Again @ Kritzerland at the Gardenia
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...
BWW Reviews: Bizarre D IS FOR DOG Will Be a Curiosity at Studio/Stage
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...
BWW Reviews: Electrically Charged KOWALSKI Bows @ Two Roads Theatre
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...
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BWW Reviews: ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE - A Definitive Joe Orton Production @ the Actors Company
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...
BWW Reviews: Slam Bang Go the FIRECRACKER FOLLIES
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...
BWW Reviews: Fine 1776 @ Glendale Centre Theatre
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...
BWW Reviews: TWIST Moves and Grooves @ Pasadena Playhouse
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...
BWW Reviews: LES MISERABLES Storms the Barricades in LA
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....
BWW Reviews: THE METHOD GUN Hits the Bullseye in LA
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"....
BWW Reviews: Theatre West Has a Hit With MOOSE ON THE LOOSE
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 ...
BWW Reviews: Crown City Rocks with I'M JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY
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...
Videos
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The Most Happy Fella North Coast Repertory Theatre (6/03-6/28) |
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Millennials Are Killing Musicals Colony Theatre (4/30-5/17) |
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Melt : The Play The Marilyn Theatre at the Lee Strasberg Institute (6/11-6/13) |
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Amazing Graves Broadwater Second Stage (6/05-6/23) |
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Lustily Ever After: The Musical Broadwater Black Box (6/09-6/23) |
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Pacific Jazz Orchestra Presents "Miles & Trane at 100" at The Wallis, 5/28 Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (5/28-5/28) |
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LOVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF DEATH: A TRILOGY The Zephyr Theatre (6/07-6/26) |
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A Faery Hunt Adventure and Their Animal Friends Kindred Spirits Care Farm (5/24-5/24) |
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MICTLÁN Plaza de la Raza (6/05-6/05) |
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Lend Me A Soprano Scripps Ranch Theatre (4/23-5/17) |
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