LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

During the recent opening night performance of Musical Theatre West's vibrant new production of the 10-time Tony Award-winning 1964 musical HELLO, DOLLY!, the enthusiastically appreciative audience might as well have chanted 'Hello, Tami!' judging from the reactions during the show's finalé bows. M...

Clowning meets catharsis: Julia Masli’s hit HA HA HA HA HA HA HA turns audience problems into performance art at the Pasadena Playhouse....

No form of artificial intelligence will be able to recreate the experience of sitting through Lauren Gunderson’s ANTHROPOLOGY, and specifically what Rogue Machine Theatre’s John Perrin Flynn has accomplished with it for the play’s North American premiere at the Matrix Theatre....

The current fragile state of, arguably, one of our country's most important founding documents—and whether or not some of our current leaders are legally following it—seems to be top of mind these days, which bodes well for the timely arrival of Chance Theater's latest production, playwright Hei...

Trepany House has never shied away from pushing buttons and boundaries, and its latest project, writer-director Amit Itelman’s STRINGS, does both to wild effect....

JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING, completing a mini tour of regional theaters at the Mark Taper Forum following an acclaimed New York run in the fall of 2023, is a tender and humorous snapshot of a community and also a plea for community....

If life were a Renaissance Faire, things would be…well, different, certainly. You might share your days and nights with sword-wielding, costumed individuals who share your love of a different time, maybe not even necessarily the Renaissance. Faires have been known to draw cos-players. So Wolf Boy,...

From start to finish, Hernandez and Vargas are to be commended for their tour-de-force performances, often taking on other roles in the brothers’ lives, be it their ancestors, employers, or the cop who changes the course of both their lives forever....

DOG OF CARNAGE is an incisive, contemplative fever dream about relationships, perspective, and the unique and deeply resonant love of a dog....

Director MacQueen keeps the action moving along at a steady pace, a much-needed component of a 2.5 hour play offering so much information to absorb about the history of women's suffrage. Highly recommended....

Still quite a rousing crowd-pleaser—offering empathy and kindness as its main endearing ingredient— La Mirada Theatre's brand new, 'non-replica' production of the Tony-winning musical COME FROM AWAY is a superb, rather enjoyable new Broadway-caliber production that is as every bit as appealing a...

Adolescent Salvation is the kind of play that is challenging to review because I absolutely hate it, while loving what Rogue Machine does with it....

One of the great pleasures of attending Inventing/Inviting: Trans Songs of Change is that brilliant producers Socks Whitmore and Tanner Pfeiffer have managed to do something quite rare: assemble not only a choir and solo artists with jaw-dropping, stunning vocal talent, but also composers, songwrite...

When the iconic ‘Prologue’ begins to simmer, the gang of Jets loitering about the stage in Jessica Jahn’s contemporary streetwear, bedecked in tattoos and bomber jackets may immediately perturb any purists in the audience....

That lovely melodious “ka-boom!” you may be hearing down the 210 freeway emanates from the collision of strong wills, good intentions and a progressive ideology of five very conflicted characters....

What Fallen Saints does so well is create worlds of horror that are only a few steps from where we are in the world ourselves, offering a mirror to the underside of our own lives....

Told in the style of a late-night talk show which the brothers share online from their mother’s kitchen, what makes this two-hander starring Geraldo Navarro as BQ and Noé Cervantes as his brother DJ, is the incredibly unique way Navarro brilliantly portrays his Abuela Julia as a hand puppet – o...

Staged with take-no-prisoners verve by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott, Richard Bean’s romp of a play is a joyride through a 60s England in which would-be actors ham it up gleefully, blondes are dizzy, would-be lovers are temporarily thwarted, and positively everybody is ready to cut loo...

Bold, fresh, relentlessly entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny, Into the Woods is a special treat.  I loved every second of its delicious sense of irony, its glorious Y2K, Toys “R” Us aesthetic, and its fun-loving playfulness, with visionary direction and design from Brayden Hade. ...

Roxana Ortega’s, one woman show, AM I ROXIE?  is absolute magnificence.  No need for lead-in or build-up.  The statement is consummate fact....

Regular attendees of the Getty Villa’s annual summer show are in for a change of pace this season. LA’s own Troubadour Theater Company has infused the drama of Oedipus with their zany brand of irreverent fun and the music of Elvis Presley....

Broadway star Thomasina Gross more than plays Eartha Kitt — she summons her, like a conjuring magic trick, with all her kittenish playfulness, her intelligence, her elegance, her distinctive breathy voice, her crisp, entirely self-constructed Anglo-Euro accent, her biting humor and confident, joyo...

While SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER still holds up, more assured direction would help this production rise to its source material...

Broadway's corniest musical comes to Hollywood! 🌽 SHUCKED at the Pantages is stuffed to the ears with puns from racy to ridiculous....

& JULIET proves rather emphatically that nobody really needs an original idea or song when you can just as easily get folks rocking out to Britney Spears or Katy Perry....