LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

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...

Fresh off its sit-down engagement at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre, the new(-ish) 2022 Broadway jukebox musical & JULIET is finally making its long-awaited pit-stop an hour south of L.A. at OC's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa through September 21, 2025. Unabashedly gleeful and quite a ...

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....

A truly delightful escape, this must-see production is a bit of charmed magic, a fanciful and evocative whimsy....

The revival of Guirgis’s 2010 play, directed by Jolie Oliver, is equal parts humor, romance and tequila-soaked despair. Led by a muscular trio of performances by Lodric D Collins, Jordan Marinov and Alex Desert, this agile MOTHERFU**KER  is nothing short of compelling....

Reel to Reel is the Los Angeles premiere of an exquisitely evocative new play at Rogue Machine at the Matrix Theatre on Melrose through August 23rd.  Reel to Reel is a stunning anatomy of sound. ...

When it comes to the Hollywood Bowl's Summer 2025 production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber / Tim Rice classic rock musical JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR—which opened August 1 for three sold-out performances playing throughout the weekend—there are just not enough superlatives to bestow upon one of the mos...

It’s clever and smart but not smirking. It’s romantic and sweet, but never saccharine. Everything about SOME LIKE IT HOT fires on all cylinders, gleaming like a brass band....

Jeff Gould’s THE MARRIAGE ZONE, a romantic dramady laced with dose of retro sci-fi, is not particularly deep or penetrating, but that doesn’t make this second LA staging at 905 Cole any less fun....

Overall, A BEAUTIFUL NOISE—now on stage at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa through August 10, 2025—comes off as guaranteed musical candy for Neil Diamond devotees, thanks to its current form as a polished, tidy, nostalgia-baiting jukebox musical loaded with familiar hits, sprinkles ...

THE IRISH CURSE is a moving exploration of masculinity, brotherhood, and how one commonality can erase race, age, and socioeconomic lines to find connection....

Bursting with powerful, beautifully-rendered musical performances and emotionally-stirring characterizations from a terrific ensemble cast, Chance Theater's incredible-sounding, fiercely-acted, deeply searing new production of SPRING AWAKENING is, according to this critic, one of the best, most sati...

Musically entertaining though rather light on narrative heft, Musical Theatre West's otherwise rousing, concert-like new production BUDDY - THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY—now on stage at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach through July 27, 2025—is a straightforward, nostalgic jukebox music...

A tale of community and the frailty of Tinseltown dreams, YANKEE DAWG is given a full-throated production by actors Daniel J. Kim and Kelvin Han Yee under the direction of Jennifer Chang....

David Melville’s performance is a delicious mix-up of romance, hijinks and buffoonery, often overlapping. LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST plays through July 27 in Griffith Park. ...

For the most part, 5-Star Theatrical’s production of Frozen, playing through July 20 at the Bank of America Performing Arts Center in Thousand Oaks, does a fantastic job bringing the beloved Disney tale to life thanks to a bevy of knockout voices, lively dance scenes, and energetic performances fr...

'Beautiful Noise' is a better-than-average jukebox musical about the career of superstar singer-songwriter Neil Diamond, presented as an aged Diamond goes through psychoanalysis with a therapist....

In the 100-minute, decades-spanning duration we spend with this woman who feels so very recognizable, Ziegler, director Maggie Burrows and actors Nadine Malouf, Ryan Vasquez and Michaela Watkins leave us affected, contemplative and more than a little bit heartbroken....