LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

After surviving a tumultuous election season and, let's face it, a pretty scathing couple of years of anger, hatred and division, sometimes you just need to grab a couple hours of joy wherever you can find it. Last night I found my joy at The McCallum Theatre as The Ten Tenors opened a six show stre...

Out-of-the-box creativity, fantastic agility, flexibility and control describes the Jacob Jonas Dance Company. From the first few movements in their first piece of the evening, it was clear this was going to be a visual treat. There were five different dance pieces presented; all World Premieres. Th...

Can you recall the last time you were truly enamored by a stage musical? Well, that is exactly what transpires while watching the all-together endearing hit Broadway musical WAITRESS, which continues its national tour stop at Orange County's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa through Novem...

Both one-acts in this masterful and memorable double-billing, directed by Steven Robman, are reflective and confessional in nature, with each of the main characters portrayed by masterful actor Brian Dennehy sharing tales of their lives in an attempt to make sense of the way it has turned out for th...

The writing team of Kurt Koehler and Oscar Quintero have hilariously expanded their Chico's Angels' episode CHICO'S ANGELS 5-O WAIKIKI CHICAS from its usual cabaret form into a full-stage production. Koehler smoothly directs these three spot-on Latina drag performers inhabiting the three Chico's Ang...

It is Bo's hard-learned lesson about romance and respect that keeps BUS STOP in the forefront as one of the great classic American romance stories. And thanks to the talented cast and director Ann Hearn Tobolowsky's attention to detail and effective use of freeze framing cast members while others sp...

Los Angeles Opera presented the premiere performance of HANSEL AND GRETEL. The opera's original libretto is steeped in nineteenth century culture but Richard Sparks' translation, originally for the 2006 LA presentation of the opera, brought the text up to date and made it most appealing to contempor...

SAFEHOUSE '77 is a site-specific interactive show with a mixture of historical and pop-cultural influences in the exciting world of spy movies. The evening begins after parking in a Bank of America lot a few blocks away from the party house where Connie (Ashley Jones, decked out in high-waisted bell...

Kirsten Vangsness has a most fertile imagination. Her creation, a new play called Cleo, Theo & Wu, is a wild and crazy spaceship-ride through the annals of time as a way for her character Lucy to empower her own life back on earth. The World Premiere, Directed by Lisa Dring, and written by Kirs...

The infectious spirit of living life to its fullest is the message in 'Zorba,' the 1968 musical that starred Herschel Bernardi. Musical Theatre Guild's staged concert version of the musical starred Michael Kostroff in an exuberant display of hedonism that is welcomed after the tragic Borderline shoo...

I cannot even think of enough accolades to share about the current production being staged by Greenway Arts Alliance (Whitney Weston and Pierson Blaetz, Co-Founders and Co-Artistic Directors) at the Greenway Court Theatre (544 N. Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles) through December 9. The totally entertain...

Performance artist extraordinaire John Fleck owns the Odyssey Theatre stage with his one-man Gothic horror piece BLACKTOP HIGHWAY. Framed as a screenplay being shot through the camera lens of a movie director, Fleck makes maximum and inventive use of his talent for animal mimicry, pre-recorded vigne...

Formidable actress Betsy Moore brilliantly portrays Alice as an adult who questions whether or not to end her life due to personal and professional road blocks. Her mind wanders, creating a visit from Mira, an extraterrestrial "star caller" from one of Tiptree's stories, portrayed by Megan Rippey, p...

The 1936 Hungarian play PARFUMERIE by Miklos Laszlo has the humble distinction of living in the shadow of the more famous movies (and Broadway musical) that it inspired. In fact, Hollywood has cashed in on the play not once but three times - the first adaptation was the 1940 Ernst Lubitsch romantic ...

Hard to compare any other performance to this one. "Revisited," meaning reverse role changes that were made in the casting of this, putting another dimension into significance from the original version, plus updated costuming and scenics, and "Rejoiced," because it was performed, live, in front of y...

As our divided country hurtles towards the all-important mid-term elections, it is becoming increasingly harder not to feel even a bit disenchanted with it all, as we surrender to the feeling that our political system seems to be unfairly rigged. Right smack at the center of the action are people wh...

Inspired by a 1970 Federico Fellini film, OLD CLOWN WANTED centers on three aging clowns who compete for a job in a room with no windows and very little furniture, in which theater and circus arts are intertwined in an absurdist, cynical, tender and very funny look at aging and man's fear of useless...

New work is the lifeblood of the theatre and it is also the sole focus of LA-based SkyPilot Theatre Company. Going one step further, SkyPilot's niche is 'producing only original plays, created by LA playwrights,' which they have done consistently since 2010....

The year was 1918. We were four years into World War 1. Anti-German notions swept across the country and preyed upon German-Americans, calling them spies, traitors, and as President Wilson once said, "hyphenated Americans" because their loyalty was divided....

The musical is a send-up of the cult classic movie and other sci-fi films and TV shows of the 1950s, melded with plot elements from "The Tempest" along with dialogue bits from multiple Shakespeare plays. That was part of the fun for me, catching so many Shakespearean quotes perfectly placed in the d...

On Sunday October 28, 2018, Pacific Opera Project (POP) presented Giuseppe Verdi's well-loved opera, LA TRAVIATA to a full house at Occidental College's Thorne Hall in Pasadena. Director and Designer Josh Shaw presented a traditional production with a unit set that spoke of flowers and the beauty of...

The Addams Family, whose Broadway run was clouded with negative reviews and less than powerful performances from its two  talented stars Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth, is receiving a handsome revival at Candlelight Pavilion.. Director Chuck Ketter puts the kooky Addams Family through their diliri...

A CELEBRATION OF LIFE The Los Angeles Memorial/Tribute for Alan Johnson at The Performing Arts Center October 14, 2018 Alan Johnson was truly a man of many talents. On Sunday, October 14th, 2018, friends, all of whom are either dancers, choreographers, directors or actors, or all combined, tha...

Kate Pazakis, executive producer of the UNAUTHORIZED MUSICAL PARODY OF series, continues her successful streak of hysterical musical parodies of cinematic pop favorites with THE UNAUTHORIZED MUSICAL PARODY OF STRANGER THINGS. Pazakis' most witty script cleverly utilizes pop songs to advance the narr...

Carl Theodore Dreyer and Christian Jul wrote VAMPYR, basing it on aspects of Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 publication, IN A GLASS DARKLY, a collection of five short stories of mystery and the supernatural. Subtitled THE DREAM OF ALAN GREY, the movie tells of a young man's strange experiences in the Nort...