LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

I already knew Disney's NEWSIES had developed cult status before I saw the show. Its legions of loyal 'Fansies' have championed it from the very beginning. But even I wasn't prepared for the audience's screams of appreciation for the hard-working boys - and one girl - who form the heart of the curre...

On Monday August 29 actor/singer Kurtis Simmons made his solo cabaret debut at Rockwell Table and Stage to a SRO crowd of adoring fans and well-wishers. Simmons is no stranger to Los Angeles audiences, as he has appeared onstage in such popular shows as Forever Plaid and premiered his musical H...

The thoroughly involving world premiere of playwright Carla Ching's THE TWO KIDS THAT BLOW SHIT UP combines the potent mixture of a witty script with two totally dynamic actors directed in a steady, flowing, non-stop pace of a brisk 90 minutes.  Jeremy Lelliott deftly directs his two brilliantly be...

Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to enjoy an evening of theatre outdoors in one of the area's loveliest and most unique venues - El Molino Viejo, The Old Mill, in San Marino. I'd never been there before, but since I love historic buildings and grew up on Sunday afternoon westerns, I was immedi...

On Monday evening August 22 An Evening of Classic Broadway returned to Rockwell Table and Stage for another resoundingly superb and downright mirthful show. Headed by Brad Ellis and Dianne Fraser, this show really grows on you. I love talent, and you can definitely find it here in abundance. On...

Bipolar disease most often occurs in women creating abnormal behavior patterns, and usually treated with drugs. In the Pulitzer Prize winning Next to Normal, the problem is presented via a wife and mother, Diana (Michelle Lane). Her behavior shows extreme mental instability, and the effects on her ...

Despite boasting one of the most gloriously majestic musical scores ever written for a Broadway stage by Maury Yeston in 1997, Titanic the Musical was, no pun intended, a disaster with lukewarm reception from both audience and critics. Come to think of it, how entertaining can a musical be about t...

Joseph Kesselring's dark comedy farce Arsenic and Old Lace dates back to 1941 and was made into one hilarious film starring Cary Grant and directed by Frank Capra in 1944. Nevertheless, the comedy is timeless, so it still holds up quite deliciously in 2016. One never tires of murder especially whe...

Playwright Peter Lefcourt manages to cram every current political hot topic into DRAMA QUEENS FROM HELL, his two-act dramedy on the proposed re-make of the classic Sunset Boulevard. DRAMA QUEENS FROM HELL's chronicling the beginnings of Gerard, an indie director's quest to cast his remake of the Glo...

Under the light of a turbulent society in which women are having discussions and debates about themselves with other women (and men) every day, particularly on social media, Gionfriddo's play climbs to an even more enlightened height....

CABARET's Tony Award-winning 1998 Broadway revival co-directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, still stands, arguably, as the show's definitive stage iteration. That same vibrant Roundabout Theatre Company production rightly serves as the basis for the newer 2014 revival that is now in the midst of ...

1948's Summer and Smoke was rewritten in the 60s by Tennessee Williams and what resulted was a more clearly structured/themed play with the same central characters entitled The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Music teacher Miss Alma (Ginna Carter), daughter of an Episcopal minister Reverend Win...

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts presents the critically-acclaimed Hershey Felder as Leonard Bernstein in MAESTRO from August 10 - 28. Felder channels the great composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, drawing audiences deeply into the maestro's fascinating life filled with trag...

The ladies of CHICKSPEARE are back for another summer of Elizabethan improv, this year indoors in their new home at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. It's been two years since I saw them perform on their lovely outdoor patio in Hollywood and I wondered how the experience would compare. I'm h...

Director Ken Sawyer cemented his show's success when he cast Valerie Perri as the wily matchmaker and backed her up with a host of exceptional players....

On Sunday July 31 Michael Sterling celebrated 10 years of his cabaret supper club now called Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal with a mega-delightful show headlining the music of his mentor Rosemary Clooney called Everything's Coming Up Rosie. On the bill were two exuberantly talented singers�...

In 1817, 'poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase 'willing suspension of disbelief' and suggested that if a writer could infuse a 'human interest and a semblance of truth' into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgement concerning the implausibility of the ...

I cannot think of a better way to spend a hot summer night than to watch a sizzling stage production of a Tennessee Williams film. Baby Doll, when it first arrived in 1956, was condemned by the Catholic Church for indecency, and because of its lewd poster-sized ad depicting Carroll Baker lying in ...

In the program notes, playwright Laurel M. Wetzork states one of her primary reasons for writing BLUEPRINT FOR PARADISE as, 'It's important that we don't make the same mistakes we've made in the past.' As well-intentioned of Ms. Wetzork to fictionalize the 1941 construction of a Nazi compound in th...

A surprisingly well-done, beautifully-paced production that feels like a truly fresh revival of something many of us have forever seared in our brains, this brand new, Jack O'Brien-helmed national tour of THE SOUND OF MUSIC---now on stage at Orange County's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Me...

One thing you may be sure of in attending a Jeanne Page concert: you will have a good time. The lady is a dynamic singer, giving it everything she's got and really enjoys doing it. She has such fun...

Evenings of short one-acts are the rage at Equity-waiver theatres! In the black box theatre upstairs at Group rep you you are invited to come see Nine Winning One-Acts, plays that stretch a mere ten-fifteen minutes in length. The mini plays were chosen from over 160 entries from across the United S...

This past week I saw two different musicals that have taken their inspiration from classic Jane Austen novels and, while completely different in size and scale, both have considerable merits. The first is in San Diego where Paul Gordon's to-die-for new musical SENSE AND SENSIBILITY is gracing the st...

Prospect Theatre's inaugural production, Bradley Bredeweg's ingenious rock musical  ROMEO & JULIET: LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD, VOLUME 2, simply WOWS with its cast of triple-threat performers singing the hell out of cleverly-chosen pop songs while many times dancing up a storm. Creator Bredeweg tightly ...

Christopher Durang's comedy in which he tosses Chekhovian themes and characters into a blender is not a great play, whether one is familiar with Chekhov or not, but it is typical Durang....