LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

The Groundlings is bringing back THE GALE, their sold-out LGBTQ-focused improv from last year, scheduling at least five evenings of gay gaiety for 2018. THE GALE, 90-minute improvisations of much hilarity by the troupe The Gale, created by Chris Eckert, feature gay and lesbian Groundlings members, a...

Golden Globe winner Melanie Griffith can now be seen on stage playing pop culture's most famous cougar, Mrs. Robinson---the infamous 'mom of a certain age' who uses her predatory sexuality to seduce a recent college graduate into entering a torrid affair---in a new production of THE GRADUATE, which ...

What made the Hot List? A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE at Theatre @ Boston Court, ALLEGIANCE by East West Players at the Aratani Theatre downtown, A WALK IN THE WOODS at Actors Co-op, and JACKIE UNVEILED at The Wallis. Check out the latest buzz below and go see a show! Reviews by BWW Sr. Editor Ellen Dost...

In Act 1 of JACKIE UNVEILED, Tom Dugan's new solo play about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, she repeats a single phrase over and over. 'I'm no good alone.' The chain smoking, alcohol indulging former first lady has just learned that her brother-in-law (and secret lover) Bobby Kennedy has been assassina...

No one painted love like Marc Chagall. He once said, 'In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.' On Chagall canvases, couples sweep each other off their feet and up into the air. They soar over cities, arm in ...

The SRS Production Wing is currently reviving playwright Noah Haidle's 2005 hit MR.MARMALADE. Wondering what changed from that hit production to this current most nonsensical, two-hour puzzlement. Wanted so much to buy into the conceit that Lucy, a four-year-old (played with much commitment by the p...

CSUF's Spring 2018 production of Taking Steps brings audiences all the laughter....

TRUMP IN SPACE is a combination of Star Trek and Avenue Q meeting Trump, a musical battle of good vs. bad and ideals vs. opportunism, with tons of sex and profanity thrown in for fun. This original musical is an epic space adventure filled with all the sci-fi tropes we love and all the politics we l...

Featuring outstanding performances from a cast led by Laura Michelle Kelly and Jose Llana, the beautiful and exquisite national tour production of Lincoln Center Theater's Tony Award-winning revival of the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein classic THE KING AND I leaves audiences utterly spellbound by its...

If you struggle with managing your busy schedule, making it to the gym, while you just can't say no to that giant chocolate chip cookie with your name on it, you aren't alone! Under the direction of Matthew E. Silva, WAISTWATCHERS THE MUSICAL with Book and Lyrics by Alan Jacobson and music by Vince...

It can be a wonderful adventure to watch two people falling in love, particularly when they themselves don't realize it's happening. When the adventure takes place on stage - as in John Caird and Paul Gordon's musical two-hander DADDY LONG LEGS - the audience has an advantage because they get to see...

Actors Co-op Theatre Company presents the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award nominated drama A WALK IN THE WOODS, written in 1988 by playwright Lee Blessing. The witty two-hander concerns a relationship between two arms negotiators, one Russian and one American, and what happens when they step out of t...

The combined creative genius of director Michael Michetti and dramaturg Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni have re-imagined the Tennessee Williams' classic A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE into a stunning, relevant update to present time. With a very talented cast of many racial backgrounds, Williams' words of insult a...

Yazmine Reza's 2009 Tony Award winning play GOD OF CARNAGE centers on two sets of parents, unknown to each other until their 11-year old sons, Benjamin and Henry, get involved in an argument in a public park because Benjamin refused to let Henry join his 'gang'. In their altercation following the sn...

World premiere of playwright Jeff Dinnell's WICKED PAGAN GAYS showcases Dinnell's clever quips, as well as, his natural acting style portraying the main character Jeff, an atheist. Kiff Scholl ably directs his accommodating cast at a smartly quick clip with punchlines and disses coming fast and furi...

The third and final play, THE HAPPIEST SONG PLAYS LAST, is being presented by the Latino Theater Company, directed by Edward Torres with the heart and soul of Latino culture brought into crystal clear focus. Set to the joyful sounds of traditional Puerto Rican folk music beautifully played onstage ...

One must applaud Tim Robbins and his Actors' Gang troupe for their passionate, timely presentation of the immigrant plight in their struggles to reach a better life in America. Currently world premiering at The Actors' Gang, Robbins and his cast of twelve performers have created twelve characters th...

As you relax at cocktail tables with drinks in hand, chatting amicably with others seated near you, singer Marian Frizelle, who we later learn is the director's ex, steps onto one of the two platforms in the room to entertain us with a sexy rendition of "It Was Just One of Those Things," which happe...

First of all, kudos to director James Esposito for discovering the musical DESSA ROSE, based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Sherley Anne Williams. This awe-inspiring musical received its New York premiere at Lincoln Center in 2005 and it's a wonder no other theater group has decided to produc...

The small house at T.U. Studios quickly filled as 8 p.m. ticked closer. The set was reminiscent of a small-town restaurant and bar set in the Midwest: Minnesota Viking banners adorned the walls and bar, a mounted deer head peered over the coat rack, and beer propaganda took up all other open spaces....

By the time Shakespeare gets to the last of his history plays concerning the Wars of the Roses, HENRY V, the party boy who would be king has become a man. Gone are the indiscretions of youth seen in the earlier HENRY IV plays, which follow young Prince Hal on his escapades with Falstaff and the East...

A quieter, more down-to-earth musical-but done so with a bellowing musical prowess thanks to book writer and lyricist Brian Crawley and composer Jeanine Tesori-VIOLET explores the multiple layers of feelings associated with being and living life as an 'other' within an environment that promotes (and...

Quiara Alegria Hudes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who wrote the book for the Broadway musical "In the Heights," which received the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical and was a 2009 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her Pulitzer-nominated and winning trilo...

Cole Porter's 'High Society' sparkles with wit, glamour, and music in Musical Theatre Guild's concert version of the 1998 Broadway musical....

Now playing at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, the 80-minute play IRONBOUND by award-winning playwright Martyna Majok recounts the hard luck life of Polish immigrant Darja and the men she chooses to have in it. Moving between 2014, 1992, and 2006 - but not necessarily in that order - this wry dra...