Our Los Angeles Critics
View All »
.jpg?format=auto&width=100)
.jpg?format=auto&width=220)
BWW Reviews: Geffen's SUPERIOR DONUTS Is...Superior
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...
.jpg?format=auto&width=220)
BWW Reviews: Judy Mora Gives a Splendid Debut @ Sterling's
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...
BWW Reviews: BURN THE FLOOR Scorches the O.C.
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...
BWW Reviews: Curious EMANCIPATION OF ALABASTER MCGILL in NoHo
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...
BWW Reviews: HumanArts Give Masterful Flavor to THE DIVINERS
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...
BWW Reviews: New American Theatre's Consummate I NEVER SANG FOR MY FATHER
Fathers and sons, whether a fit or a mismatch, forever struggle in some manner, opening up endless dramatic possibilities. Robert Anderson's memorable play I Never Sang For My Father (1968) depicts an iron-willed, unyielding patriarch in his declining years. Tom Garrison (Philip Baker Hall), a forme...
BWW Reviews: SCR Revives THREE DAYS OF RAIN
There is perhaps a certain truth in the adage that we as adults are simply the end product of a combined cocktail of biologically-inherited traits, as well as the many environmental factors that invade our lives as young children that are carried into maturity. By this logic, is it fair to ask... if...
BWW Reviews: iGhost @ Lyric Theatre Has Much Potential
If you enjoy the flavor of an intelligently written literary work translated skillfully into a stage musical, like The Secret Garden or more recently The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, iGhost will simultaneously stimulate your mind and tug at your heart, especially if you're a hopeless romantic.This productio...
BWW Reviews: Dennis McNeil in Great Cabaret Debut @ Sterling's
On Sunday May 22 Irish tenor Dennis McNeil made a spectacular debut into the world of cabaret @ Sterling's Upstairs @ Vitello's. A former opera singer, McNeil has sung for Presidents and in concert venues, including stadiums, around the world, but never in an intimate setting. With the unfailing con...
BWW Reviews: Stunning AFTERMATH Reopens @ Matrix Theatre
Writer Elliot Shoenman's book Nobody's Business depicts the pain felt by a family whose father committed suicide. It was his very own father. Now in his stage play entitled AfterMath in a return engagement at the Matrix Theatre, Shoenman returns to the topic of suicide showing in great emotional det...
BWW Reviews: OC's 3D Theatricals Revives ALL SHOOK UP
Using almost all of the same cast and elements from their initial 2010 production of the Elvis musical ALL SHOOK UP (at its former home in the OC Pavilion in Santa Ana), the Orange County-based 3D Theatricals is once again mounting a newer, more rousingly-amplified revival in their new home at the P...
BWW Reviews: Macha Offers Original One Act LAVENDER LOVE
Hardly a heavyweight, fascinatingly exotic drama as was the case with Odalys Nanin's Garbo's Cuban Lover, the one-act Lavendar Love, now on stage @ the Macha Theatre, still has enough Hollywood nostalgia, sensuality and camp going for it to call it enjoyable.
...
BWW Reviews: Alan Ayckbourn's Life of Riley Makes US Premiere @ Old Globe
UK playwright Alan Ayckbourn is revered internationally as a virtuoso at penning highly comedic plays. Ayckbourn, like Neil Simon, writes funny one-liners and creates very humorous characters, but uniquely manages to surprise his fans each and every time with a new and compelling artifice. In his br...
BWW Reviews: Comic Actor Dan Frischman Turns to Cabaret @ Sterling's
On Sunday, May 15 comic actor Dan Frischman debuted a cabaret act @ Sterling's Upstairs @ Vitello's to a very enthusiastic crowd. Distinctly different from the normal fare @ Sterling's, which is usually a program of Broadway pop singing, Frischman's eclectic gig included magic, comedy and playing th...
BWW Reviews: West Coast Ensemble Makes a Daring Turn with Gypsy
Revered as one of the greatest book musicals ever written Gypsy, based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, and with collaborators Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim is rarely performed except on Broadway due to the demands of the role of Mama Rose, which has been played first by Ethel Me...
BWW Reviews: Revamped '9 TO 5' Musical Makes It Work
First introduced to locals here in Southern California back in 2008 during its pre-Broadway tryouts at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, the 1st National Tour of the retooled 9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL has arrived in Orange County for a week of shows ending May 10 at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. ...
BWW Reviews: Reprise's KISS ME KATE Is Wunderbar
Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate is a delightful musical romp that can be seen again and again. It's timeless and an overblown, yet joyous account of two egotistical actors, once married to each other, who adore one another but just cannot be around each other very long without catastrophic, calamitous re...
BWW Reviews: Illusionist Ivan Amodei is a Class Act @ the Beverly Wilshire Hotel
World class magician, comedian and illusionist Ivan Amodei is settling into an extended engagement at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel with his hit show The Magic of Ivan Amodei, Intimate Illusions. Accompanied by virtuoso cellist Irina Chirkova, who musically underscores everything Amodei says and the ap...
BWW Reviews: THE TEMPERAMENTALS Explores 50's Gay Activism
In Jon Marans' thought-provoking bio-play THE TEMPERAMENTALS--now playing its West Coast Premiere at the Blank Theatre Company's 2nd Stage Theater in Los Angeles through May 22--a little-known bit of history is unearthed: More than a decade before the infamous Stonewall Riots marked the defacto star...
BWW Reviews: Cirque du Soleil's QUIDAM Still Wows
Internationally famous for their fantastical, imaginative circus shows, the Montréal-based troupe's brand of whimsy and jaw-dropping acts are in full display in QUIDAM, one of several Cirque du Soleil shows now touring the globe. First produced in 1996, QUIDAM's Southern California stops continue a...
BWW Reviews: Williams' Eccentricities in Rep @ A Noise Within
1948's Summer and Smoke was rewritten in the 60s by Tennessee Williams and what resulted was a more clearly structured/themed play with the same central characters entitled The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Music teacher Miss Alma, daughter of an Episcopalean minister, was passionately in love wi...
BWW Reviews: Hershey Felder Brings Back Gershwin to Pasadena Playhouse
Actor/singer/musician/author Hershey Felder's multi Award winning depiction of composer George Gershwin in George Gershwin Alone is now on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse for a limited run through May 8 celebrating a ten year anniversary. Felder fills the space with his virtuoso musicianship and cre...
BWW Reviews: CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN @ Kirk Douglas Theatre
As I watched Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan, some painful recollections surfaced from my childhood about Ireland and its people. My mother was second generation Irish, her parents Irish immigrants who declared quite emphatically that they were happy in America and never wanted to return ...
BWW Reviews: MTW Presents SUMMER OF LOVE
Roger Bean has delighted audiences cross country with The Marvelous Wonderettes, Winter Wonderettes and Life Could Be a Dream. Weaving the 50s, 60s and 70s hits together into a playful scenario is his specialty, and if only Hair had never existed! For, his latest endeavor Summer of Love, now onstage...
BWW Reviews: THE ESCORT is Fine Food for Thought @ the Geffen
Three things may be said quite frankly about Jane Anderson's plays. First of all, the subject matter is never boring. In fact, what you see is bound to create controversy especially amongst those possessing middle class values. Secondly, the protagonist is a mixed bag of strength and insecurity, but...
Videos
|
The Most Happy Fella North Coast Repertory Theatre (6/03-6/28) |
|
Millennials Are Killing Musicals Colony Theatre (4/30-5/17) |
|
Melt : The Play The Marilyn Theatre at the Lee Strasberg Institute (6/11-6/13) |
|
Amazing Graves Broadwater Second Stage (6/05-6/23) |
|
Lustily Ever After: The Musical Broadwater Black Box (6/09-6/23) |
|
Pacific Jazz Orchestra Presents "Miles & Trane at 100" at The Wallis, 5/28 Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (5/28-5/28) |
|
LOVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF DEATH: A TRILOGY The Zephyr Theatre (6/07-6/26) |
|
A Faery Hunt Adventure and Their Animal Friends Kindred Spirits Care Farm (5/24-5/24) |
|
MICTLÁN Plaza de la Raza (6/05-6/05) |
|
Lend Me A Soprano Scripps Ranch Theatre (4/23-5/17) |
| VIEW ALL SHOWS ADD A SHOW | |
Get Los Angeles's #1 Theatre Newsletter
Get the best news & discounts for Los Angeles Shows & beyond.
