LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Now presenting an even more over-the-top follow up compared to their first go-round in THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG staged here last February, the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts and McCoy Rigby Entertainment revisit the earnestly bumbling folks at the fictional Cornley Polytechnic Drama Socie...

Co-produced by Independent Shakespeare Company and Coin & Ghost, THE AARON PLAY will engage theater-goers and Bard-hounds as well as those who embrace stories with ideas....

An intermission-less, two-character, conversational-centric play that focuses on a pair of women's specific immigrant experiences—marked with loneliness, hopes, fears, and puzzlements big and small—Pulitzer Prize finalist Lloyd Suh's absorbing, touching, and occasionally (thankfully) very funny ...

After making a splash when it first visited the OC back in 2022, MOULIN ROUGE! - THE MUSICAL—the dazzling, Tony Award-winning 2019 Broadway stage adaptation of Baz Luhrmann's groundbreaking 2001 movie musical—is back full throttle at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa for a limited wee...

What makes this production so enthralling along with Donovan’s tight direction is the immersive effect of feeling involved in the lives of these two lonely people as they openly reveal their fears and feelings as the 90-minute play unfolds....

That a show as powerful as Parade can soar in a small theater is a testament to both the talent of its director and the strength of its cast, of which there isn’t a weak link in the bunch....

Co-written by Oliver and James Clements and directed by Michael Cotey, GUAC embraces its rough-around-the-edges persona without laboring to break new ground.  The 100-minute evening has a narrative sequence and certainly an agenda....

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....

Nominated for 13 Tony Awards, the 2022 musical adaptation SOME LIKE IT HOT is a surprisingly delightful, hilariously fun, and gleefully silly musical comedy that also has an endearingly open-minded new twist that re-contextualizes the movie's main raison d'être into something more empowering and th...

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....

Blessed with undeniable vocal talents and an endearingly charming persona, Tony and Olivier Award winner and Disney Legend Lea Salonga recently returned to Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Center for the Arts for the one-night-only Orange County stop of the North American leg of her brand-new, perfectly-cura...

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....