LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

If every theatre review compared each show to the last presentation by the same company, we would be lost beyond the already limited capabilities of “thumbs up vs thumbs down” or “three and a half stars”....

The thing about Lindsay Joelle’s Trayf, now playing at the Geffen Playhouse, is that it has really excellent dialogue. In every sense of the word. The opening patter between two Chassidic teenage boys fizzes like a sketch comedy routine and the rhythm carries like a current through a lot of sillin...

Three men stand on a stage for over three hours, trekking through 150 years of history in The Lehman Trilogy and it's the most invigorating evening imaginable. Directed by Sam Mendes and written by Stefano Massini—and adapted by National Theatre dramaturg Ben Power -- the play is a remarkable jour...

The script is amusing, moving with sparkling briskness. The characters are defined and distinct, and the performers bring them to life in energetic and well-modulated ways. And while the meaning of life isn’t necessarily unveiled, it is sought and the intertwining relationships do find both unique...

Playwright Pearl Cleage's WHAT I LEARNED IN PARIS---now on stage at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa through March 19, 2022---takes place during the historic win of Atlanta's first black mayor in 1973 and focuses on a romantic triangle between a young campaign staffer and two much older men she w...

Rogue Machine Theatre’s latest offering, the American premiere of Welsh playwright Daf James’ On the Other Hand, We’re Happy opens in a cloud of cliches....

Los Angeles’s East West Players has a long and vibrant history with the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, making it hardly a news flash that the company would both take a – er – shot at the composer’s controversial 1990 work, ASSASSINS, and end up bringing it off so splendidly....

Accompanied by her music director Matt Hinkley, Broadway and West End theater favorite Caissie Levy's lovely, powerful, stunning vocals were live and on display for her rapt audience, who were treated to an acoustic, no frills, intimate, candlelit show that was essentially a musical résumé of her ...

POWER OF SAIL is a smart firecracker of a play getting a blistering production at the Geffen Playhouse directed by Weyni Mengesha. Presenting itself initially as a debate masquerading as dramatic fiction, SAIL quickly pivots and deepens, morphing into a tale that is part character study, part thrill...

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL undeniably has at its center, a butterfly-in-waiting and a marvelous performer waiting to take her on. From leading lady Erika Soto to company stalwart Deborah Strang, Nike Doukas’s solidly entertaining production of ALL’S WELL boasts a particularly strong core of wo...

Unquestionably, we all should listen...and talk...and occasionally laugh, and sometimes we should even be screaming until our lungs are on the brink of explosion. And we can be doing some of this to a Rihanna soundtrack....

Teenage Dick, a current streaming option from Pasadena Playhouse, filmed as a coproduction with the Huntington Theatre of Boston and Woolly Mammoth Theatre of DC is perfectly translated from the stage to the computer screen....

What better way to ease ourselves back (again) to live theater than with a tried-and-true bonafide hit like the musical WICKED, the 19-year-old global stage phenomenon now back for a nice, long stay in Orange County's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa through March 6, 2022. Still as vibr...

12-time Tony Award-nominated, 'A Little Night Music' made a decided splash at the Greenway Court Theatre with the highlight of being a non-traditionally gender cast production. ...

If a playgoer knows anything about Shakespeare and/or musicals, then for sheer inventiveness, sweetness and curtain-to-curtain smiles, SOMETHING ROTTEN! has you covered....

SINGING REVOLUTION is a contemporary production designed to inspire American youth with the ideas that peaceful resistance, social justice, and acts of kindness can change the world....

“It was just what we needed!” Ahmanson Theatre audiences' response to the opening night of EVERYBODY LOVES JAMIE was absolutely joyous and triumphant....

While most Southern California theatergoers are likely more aware of the 'big deal,' direct-from-Broadway production of Charles Dickens' classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL now playing in Los Angeles featuring big star names in its roster, many should not necessarily bypass the other, less star-studded mounti...

Directed by Thomas Caruso from the original production helmed by Matthew Warchus, the L.A. production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL is delightful if not magical, certainly enough to scratch anybody’s holiday itch and maybe a little bit more....

The smash hit LOVE ACTUALLY LIVE sparkles like a tree full of ornaments on Christmas Eve at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts....

Charles L. Mee’s rumination on the foibles of love and the love of foibles is enjoying a gloriously self-indulgent revival at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre through December 19. The Les Waters-directed production is every inch an old home week occasion at Berkeley Rep, featuring l...

Based on a 2007 movie and a premise that you wish actually happened (even though it didn’t), the musical, directed by David Cromer, is a gentle ode to open minds, tolerance, wrong turns and – sure – faith. ...

PARADISE BLUE, a play that contains music, begins with the sound of a sublime note issued by a trumpet and concludes, a couple of riveting hours later with an equally beautiful strain…followed by a far more discordant sound....

If you are a person who enjoys a good “out of sync,” then you belong in the turbulence-riddled realm of Arcadia by way of the Pasadena Playhouse where kings are queens, handmaids love above their station and amazons are…well, lots of things to a lot of people....

Originally scheduled back in September, the wait was worth it to hear Laura Benanti sing selections from her roles on Broadway and a few tracks from her 2020 self-titled studio album in her debut Cabaret at the Center which was part uproarious stand-up comedy act, and part beguiling Broadway/Jazz co...