LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

The west coast premiere of playwright David Greenspan's GO BACK TO WHERE YOU ARE has the pleasing benefit of having a strong cast, witty lines and a cleanly gorgeous set. Director Bart DeLorenzo firmly guides his seven-person ensemble in non-chronological, fourth-wall breaking vignettes set in the L...

Perhaps Kander and Ebb's best musical, apart from Chicago, Cabaret has it all: a fine book, deliciously diverse characters, dynamite music and a subtext that will not quit. The subtext being: either compromise or get out if you value your life, the latter, to be sure, the wiser. This is Berlin, c...

The con is on! With plenty of wit, charm, and double entendres galore, Musical Theatre West's new regional production of the 2004 Broadway musical comedy 'DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS' is one enjoyably silly romp. The show which features a book by Jeffrey Lane and music and lyrics by David Yazbeck contin...

The name of the game in show biz is never to settle for greatness, but rather to go that extra mile and make it better. Such is the case with Recorded in Hollywood. In its transferal from a smaller Hollywood space to the Kirk Douglas Theatre,  the show provides a book by Matt Donnelly and Jamell...

Watching Cabrillo Music Theatre's The Little Mermaid on the Fred Kavli stage is an enjoyable treat, almost like viewing the Disney film ... it's so alive and scintillating. All the color and splendor of the ocean is onstage, and that has a lot to say about this production's creative team. All the te...

The Echo Theatre Company's world premiere of playwright Erik Patterson's ONE OF THE NICE ONES showcases Patterson's brilliantly witty and detailed script with very capable actors directed in a swift and smooth clip. How unfortunate that ONE OF THE NICE ONES spends so much time focused on the most ...

Tennessee Williams' KINGDOM OF EARTH receives a visually arresting mounting with a strong cast at the Odyssey Theatre. Director Michael Arabian keeps the tensions steady amongst his able trio of performers....

If there was ever one musical that, on the surface, can translate well as an intimately-staged production in a black box theater space, then A CHORUS LINE---the classic 1975 Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning backstage musical---should certainly qualify as a strong contender. This still dazzling...

True-to-life eccentrics tend to make the most riveting dramatic/comedic characters. In 1975 Albert and David Maysles produced an award-winning documentary called Grey Gardens about Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Big Edie) and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (Little Edie), aunt and cousin respectively...

Not in the least hard to fathom that the Dreamgirls' 35th anniversary concert presented under the auspices of Chris Isaacson Presents Broadway Under the Stars was a sellout. With Sheryl Lee Ralph, Loretta Devine and Jennifer Holliday all headlining, who would not want to be there to marvel at ...

Based on a 1980s film starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is terribly silly and much of the dialogue & lyrics imbued with an overabundance of sexual innuendos, but that's AOK, as this is not Stephen Sondheim, but a jazzy, feel good, laugh out loud type of show. As man...

Talk about quirkiness and how it makes a musical rock! The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is terribly funny in a smart, slick, offbeat manner with prize worthy characterizations of lively eclectic people.It may be a tad long like the actual spelling out of words (that are not to be believe...

How many different ways are there to say how much Angelenos love the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival? Thousands. Ask anyone who's ever parked themselves on a blanket or lawn chair with their family and friends and you'll get as many different answers as there are people in the audience....

Kingsmen Shakespeare Company's production of HENRY V takes its cue from one of Shakespeare's most well-known speeches, 'O for a Muse of fire ,' the prologue to this play. In it, Shakespeare invites the audience to use its imagination in viewing what is about to transpire, to picture the battle scene...

Four Clowns' founder and former artistic director Jeremy Aluma has deftly infused his Four Clowns magic directing his contemporary version of the classic HAMLET just finishing its run at the Lyceum Theater. Eschewing Shakespeare's couplets and metrics, this normal-speak HAMLET could be in any time p...

Exec. Producer Kate Pazakis has assembled another Ri-Dic-U-lously talented troupe of singer/comedians to totally WOW their Rockwell audience in THE UNAUTHORIZED MUSICAL PARODY OF TROOP BEVERLY HILLS. Pazakis & company have a talented knack for picking appropriate movies (Devil Wears Prada, Big Lebow...

Not even a wall can keep these lovers apart. This particular wall happens to be in modern-day East Jerusalem and as Theatricum Botanicum's production of ROMEO AND JULIET commences, chaos ignites at a checkpoint that divides Israel and Palestine. It is a city that has seen struggle for thousands of y...

Piecing together a new mythology is an audacious undertaking, and yet it is an act that is at the very heart of theatre-making: the building of a new world, with its own origins and order, that only becomes fully realised when an audience believes in it. THE FIREBIRD attempts just that, telling a po...

GMCLA never disappoints. Their summer concert Oye Mi Canto, which took place at the Alex Theatre Saturday June 25 and Sunday June 26 featured the small Gay Men's Chorus of Cuba Mano a Mano whose singing skill and artistry blew the roof off the Alex Theatre in Glendale. Combined with GMCLA, the La...

In the opening scene of the jukebox musical Beautiful, Carole King (Abby Mueller) is seated at the piano in concert at Carnegie Hall and is describing to the audience how life takes a turn and what results is unexpected...and beautiful. In this Tony-winning show Beautiful: The Carole King Musica...

The main trouble with Dreamland is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. Billed as the tale of a Midwestern girl who aspires to become an actress and ends up mixing with sordid Hollywood types who show her that dreams shouldn't always come true - what happens on stage only supports this in theor...

Playwright Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer-Prize winning Disgraced is at the core a portrait of an American born  Muslim Amir Kapoor (Hari Dhillon) and a treatise on Islamophobia, but it is first and foremost an entertainment, and as such, its big ideas take less priority. In structure and excitement some...

If you have never seen a production of the Impro Theatre Company, be aware that the play you see is one-time only. With the suggestion from an audience member at the top of the name of an heirloom, the actors take it, title the play, and then create the characters and the play totally from scratch. ...

In MUSICAL COMEDY WHORE, actor David Pevsner has written a most revealing musical autobiography that he performs himself, backed by the able musical accompaniment (and very funny, injecting vocal choruses) of Gerald Sternbach. Randy Brenner smartly directs Pevsner at a smooth, fast clip in this hour...

BUMPERSTICKER: THE MUSICAL conquers the Hollywood Fringe Festival with its terrific triple threat combination making it great for people who don't like musicals and even better for those who do. It's the right show in the right venue with the right cast, and a rousing good time from beginning to end...