LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Tony-nominated playwright Lucas Hnath’s THE THIN PLACE is an eerie meditation on grief, regret and the need for closure, though it is undermined by the lack of a satisfying conclusion despite phenomenal performances....

Zoe Sarnak’s score rocks. It sounds at times like Blondie or the B-52s (I like the B-52s so that comparison is not a dig here), but is so intrinsically connected to the emotional arch of the story being told that it soars like a musical theatre score should....

Simon Levy’s production at the Fountain Theatre is a smartly-acted brain-tickler that makes its points and lands its blows with humor and intellect...

Featuring dynamic choreography from director Casey Nicholaw and new songs from Fey's hubby Jeff Richmond and lyricist Nell Benjamin, this stage adaptation of the cult hit movie (that will also soon be re-adapted into a movie musical) admirably recreates its quote-heavy 'fetch'-ness and anthropologic...

The Pasadena Playhouse has drawn the curtain on its 2023 Sondheim Celebration with a lush and poignant rendering of SUNDAY. Directed by Sarna Lapine, the production is a west coast remount of her 2017 Broadway revival with an entirely new cast, but with the same technical team....

The show varies from insightful to manic, bordering on shrill but never crossing into it thanks to strong performances from well-cast performers and Thayer’s tight direction....

The music takes as a jumping off point the personalities and varied interests of each of the sisters, and we hear trite lyrics explain to us Jo’s love of writing and Amy’s love of painting, but somewhere amidst cutesy rhymes about daisies, butterflies, and taking flight, we lose the distinct dig...

Love may be real and not science fiction.  But Rogue Machine’s attempt at a first musical is so bubble gum, pop-retro, Flash Gordon-y, it’s almost guaranteed to be a runaway hit....

Every time I enter Skylight Theatre, I am completely blown away by the radical transformations designers are able to handle in the space. Stephen Gifford has crafted worlds which elevate the text of the play, the performances of the two actors, and the perception of the evening as a whole....

Director Alina Phelan is a master of visual comedy and everything you see has a punchline if you are willing to look for it. Vangsness’ impersonation is a biting satire that far supersedes anything Lorne Michaels’ could get away with putting on TV....

When the show opened on Broadway in 1991, it made history as the first major musical with an almost exclusively-female creative team. In the current production presented by Center Theatre Group,  whether caused by the lack of women on the creative team or not, the show is certainly missing a lot of...

Huzzahs, most certainly, to New Village Arts Executive Artistic Director Kristianne Kurner not only for having the moxie to program Butterworth’s play in the first place, but also for directing it with the passion, fire and insight that the play deserves....

BASEBALL SKY, directed by James Vasquez, is a message-heavy, odd coupl-y tale that feels like a Latinx mash-up of THE KARATE KID and FIELD OF DREAMS....

'Like any of the heroines I could possibly reference, Kristina Wong embodies all of them in her own fierce amalgamation.  The result is considerably hysterical in the most unpredictable ways.'...

Where the classics are concerned, L.A. doesn’t have any institution stronger than A Noise Within and if director Guillermo Cienfuegos, his wonderful actors and designers are working hard, they sure make it looks easy. From the first glimpse of that rampaged stage to the final dance, this MUCH ADO�...

Given the heightened emotions and nuclear climaxes of Colston’s play, there is something almost operatic in scope about THE FIRST DEEP BREATH....

Endearing and earnest, MTW’s new production of 9 TO 5 - THE MUSICAL---which continues performances at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach through February 26---is a pleasing musical comedy (adapted from the hit film) filled with hilarious dialogue, outrageous silliness, and, of cour...

The friends’ frenetic jumble of revelations and their evening of navel gazing (so much navel gazing) is a powder keg of soap opera cum sitcom tropes....

Alessandra Assaf, who enacts the Hollywood icon in 12 O’CLOCK TALES WITH AVA GARDNER, the play she has written with Michael Lorre, brings out all of the actress’s fire, charisma and messiness....

Now having its California premiere at OC's Chance Theater in Anaheim through February 26, RIDE THE CYCLONE is a must-see, wonderfully odd, yet endearingly touching musical comedy that feels like a thoughtfully bonkers hybrid of The Breakfast Club and It's A Wonderful Life, with room for a dollop of ...

From the moment Rafiki (Gugwana Dlamini) Shaman of the Pride Lands, heralded her recognizably famous opening note, the audience was uproarious.  Even as long as it’s been around, THE LION KING is still a wonder to behold. ...

After its pandemic-delayed pause, the first national tour of FROZEN THE MUSICAL has finally arrived at OC's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa playing thru February 19, 2023. A not-perfect but still enjoyable adaptation, the show, for the most part, is a creative and entertaining triumph o...

After spending 90 minutes with the O’Shea family, we can thank whatever gods we pray to that we A. did not grow up in the early 1970s, B. that we do have the Internet and C. that this loving but dysfunctional family is not our own....

Immersive 'stage reading' of Disney's account of his last days on earth is both frightening and hilarious....

Playwright Mara Nelson–Greenberg smartly and incisively takes on the topic of male toxicity to explosive and thought-provoking results....