LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Love transcends the limitations of language in Casa 0101's charming production of Disney's ALADDIN Dual Language Edition/Edicion De Lenguaje Dual and that uplifting message is a takeaway that never loses its luster. The simple story of Aladdin (Daniel Martinez) and his magic lamp overcoming the vill...

Quirky and surprisingly unexpected, playwright Jen Silverman explores a delightfully fresh and edgy new take on the formulaic 'opposite personalities that live together' paradigm in the new dark comedy THE ROOMMATE, now continuing its West Coast premiere performances at Orange County's Tony Award-wi...

Composer Christopher Reiner serves up a sixty-minute set of original songs and prose selections at ZJU Theatre Group that demonstrates the unique range of programming found at Zombie Joe's North Hollywood establishment. The company's niche is live horror and they have gained tremendous popularity wi...

Chromolume Theatre at the Attic has produced Tim Acito's very cleverly written  ZANNA, DON'T! with very mixed results. Major sound glitches opening night marred the ability to clearly hear all of Acito's very witty lyrics set in a fictional high school where gayness is the norm and heteros are shun...

Upon learning that part of Segerstrom Center for the Arts' holiday programming this season was to finally bring a national tour production of ELF - THE MUSICAL---the 2010 Broadway stage musical adaptation of the popular Will Ferrell holiday movie---to its stage, I was pretty ecstatic. For the most p...

???????A very fun, irreverent spoof on a Christmastime charity fundraiser, A HARMONY BOYS' CHRISTMAS: LIVE IN CONCERT!, features the harmonious quartet with their mellow four-piece, back-up band and supporting cast hilariously performing at their annual 'Force Feed The World' charity concert. Clever...

On Friday December 9 and Saturday December 10 Chris Isaacson Presents brought us the incomparable R&B recording artist Melba Moore with her CD release party for 'Forever Moore' at Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood. Moore is no stranger to Broadway audiences who remember her Tony-winning portrayal ...

When MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG opened on Broadway in 1981, no one anticipated that it would be a flop. With a score by Stephen Sondheim and direction by Hal Prince, it should have been the next success in a series of highly successful collaborations by the two kings of musical theatre, following such ga...

Humorist David Sedaris' Christmas classic THE SANTALAND DIARIES receives a successfully fun mounting by the Santa Monica Playhouse. Sedaris fills his one-man show with loads of different characters, which a charismatic Patrick Censoplano effortlessly handles. Censoplano seamlessly morphs and delinea...

The world premiere of playwright John R. Lacey's GARDEL'S TANGO serves as a unabashed showcase for Anibal Silveyra, who's allowed complete free rein in his portrayal of real-life, turn-of-the-century, international film star Carlos Gardel. Silveyra easily commands centerstage in this cast of six wit...

The Los Angeles premiere of THRONES! THE MUSICAL PARODY receives a full-throttled, laugh-filled mounting from a very talented cast and its off-stage creatives. John Flynn nimbly directs his committed performers at a smooth, swift pace from laugh to laugh to even more laughs. The combined comic geniu...

Everyone deserves to see a great production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC in their lifetime. For those who attended the Jack O'Brien production last night at The McCallum, who have never seen one before, they are still waiting. It is a gorgeous, lavish production. The sets and costumes are beyond incredible...

The revival of playwright Stephen Sach's BAKERSFIELD MIST features two stunning performances from Jenny O'Hara & Nick Ullett. O'Hara whole-heartedly grabs her role of the manic, desperate Maude. Ullett imbues his Lionel with a haughty air of condescension upon entering Maude's trailer home. Ullett's...

Aficionados of jazz, blues, or just good music; RUN, don't walk, to experience the world premiere of playwright Carol Eglash-Kosoff's WHEN JAZZ HAD THE BLUES. A stunning combination of musical talents converge to sing, dance and emote the hell out of Eglash-Kosoff's story of jazz pianist/lyricist/ar...

For the most part, brilliantly written classic plays make their locale the main character of the piece. Think of Tennessee Williams. All of his plays take place in the American South; poverty-stricken New Orleans sets the background for Streetcar among other plays. In Martin McDonagh's The Beauty...

The East West Players' West Coast premiere of playwright Leah Nanako Winkler's KENTUCKY stuns and enthralls with its highly dramatic, polarizing emotions emoted by its almost perfect cast. Winkler has written a most involving piece of theatre that walks a razor-thin tightrope between knee-slapping ...

In a theatrical touchdown for the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, stage and screen star Darren Criss has agreed to reprise the notable title role he stepped into last year on Broadway: as Hedwig in the just-launched national tour of the rousing 2014 Tony Award-winning reboot of the glam rock musical ...

With the popularity of film screenings paired with live symphony orchestras at an all time high, I'm glad one of the many to get the treatment is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first installment of the 8-film movie franchise adapted from JK Rowling's worldwide best-selling books. What an...

Broadway actress/singer RENEE MARINO made her feature film debut in 2014 in Jersey Boys as Mary Delgado, Frankie Valli's tempestuous wife. She was seen in the role on Broadway by film director Clint Eastwood, and because of her magnanimous talent, was hand picked by him to repeat the role on fil...

For the second year in a row the Pink Lady Jackie Goldberg presented an attention-grabbing Senior Talent Competition. This year's show was very different, as it had two contests on two separate days, one on Saturday November 5 and the other on Sunday November 6 at the Wadsworth Theatre in West LA,...

The annual dysfunctional family Christmas gathering? Oy! This family lives in Minnesota. Double oy!! Issue at hand: not one of the family members is anywhere near to being happy. Mom (Belinda Howell) is in denial, keeping her breast cancer a secret, her doctor son Michael (Patrick Burke) has been my...

Lovingly skewering the not-so-subtle art of telenovelas, Karen Zacarías' winning play DESTINY OF DESIRE---now being performed at Orange County's South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa through November 13---compresses an entire series' worth of over-the-top melodramatic goodness into a two-act play tha...

I had the absolute pleasure of seeing two things last night that I had never seen before. A production of Harvey Fierstein's CASA VALENTINA and a sold out, standing room only crowd at The Pearl McManus Theatre. Brava to Dezart Performs on both counts!! CASA VALENTINA is the premiere performance of...

The InterACT Theatre Company's production of playwright Jerry Sterner's OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY has an extended, very nice, exploratory prelude before the definitely-worth-waiting-for sizzling action dominates the stage with the equally matched, passionate Alexandra Wright and explosive Rob Shapiro as...

When it comes to the theatrical art of farce, Ken Ludwig's hilarious 1986 stage play LEND ME A TENOR certainly qualifies as a perfect example of the genre. Amusingly cheeky throughout, the 9-time Tony Award nominated comedy has been revived locally with a posh new production under the direction of A...