LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

The Southern California premiere of playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig's THE GOLDEN DRAGON  benefits from the sturdy, first-rate technical production values The Theatre @ Boston Court has earned their deserved reputation for. Kudos to GOLDEN DRAGON's color-blind, gender-blind, ageist-blind casting. ...

Attempting to produce all of Shakespeare's plays would be daunting task for any theatre company but one young group of actors has continued to stay the course. Over a ten-year period, the Porters of Hellsgate have produced twenty of the playwright's thirty-eight plays, steadily working toward their ...

If you ever wondered what the kids on Glee did during their summer vacation, the answer might be Disney's Camp Rock, The Musical. With space unavailable at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts, Panic! Productions booked a road trip featuring its cast of chiefly Ventura County teens, staging the show at...

To be completely honest, my first exposure to the mostly sung-through, modern rock musical AMERICAN IDIOT (during its initial national tour stops in Southern California) was, at best, like seeing a really cool rock concert performed by some incredibly talented musical theater actors, surrounded by s...

For many, Tennessee Williams' first play The Glass Menagerie remains his finest. Semi-autobiographical, the play takes place in St. Louis during the Depression and depicts the relationships between a restless alcoholic/shoe factory worker/wannabe writer, his overbearing mother and his psychologicall...

My association with Scott Dreier dates back to a cabaret for his first album named aptly Scott Dreier.  I was exceedingly impressed with his fine voice, boyish charm and affability.Then followed his show Doris and Me, which I reviewed once in Escondido and later in Los Angeles. The show about Do...

The Coachella Valley is quickly becoming a mecca for exceptional theatre. And Dezart Performs' THE OUTGOING TIDE is no exception. Under Michael Shaw's skilled and measured direction the three actors bring tremendous honesty and poignancy to dialogue that could have easily waded into "made for televi...

Playwright John Pielmeier's Agnes of God, written in 1982, was based upon a real life police case of a novice nun in Boston, accused of murdering her baby. Coyote StageWorks just closed a stellar 10 performance only run of the play at the Annenberg Theatre in Palm Springs. Under the direction of ve...

Once in a great while an extraordinary performer comes along, one that not only moves us, but also affects meteoric changes within our culture. Peter Allen, born Peter Woolnough in 1944 in Tenterfield, New South Wales, Australia and who died young in 1992, was one such mega-talented singer/dancer/mu...

Kristin Idaszak's SECOND SKIN receives a strong and novel mounting on the sands of the Santa Monica Beach. Fueled by the powerful performances of Sarah Halford, Claire Kaplan and Susannah Rea-Dowling, Idaszak weaves the mythical bedtime stories and real life tales of a daughter and her estranged mot...

Four Clowns' world premiere of playwright David Bridel's LUNATICS & ACTORS wonderfully succeeds as a loving spoof of the acting process. It's to the credit of all involved that what could have been a five-minute Saturday Night Live skit has evolved into 70 minutes of enthralling wit and engaging art...

On Thursday April 21, Prime Time Players presented their second of three Magical Musical Matinees at the Whitefire Theatre. It was a delightful show full of talented people 60 years young or older. There was dancing, singing and comedy all wrapped up with a pink bow in the name of Jackie Goldbe...

Playwright Phil Olson, who is best known for his outrageous Don't Hug Me musical comedies, is taking a look at a typical American family on Thanksgiving Day in A Nice Family Gathering, currently onstage in the black box theatre of Group rep in Noho through May 29....

Adorable, utterly romantic, and thoroughly winsome, this stage adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's CINDERELLA is, admittedly, a wonderful surprise---filled with dazzling stage ingenuity; a dreamy, sweeping classic score by two legendary titans of musical theater; a revised, 21st-Century-tinged n...

AGNES OF GOD is challenging theatre at every level. It demands a lot of its audience. It demands its audience be engaged and active at every turn. It is both emotionally and intellectually stimulating and provocative. It is ninety-plus minutes of thought provoking dialogue with minimal action. One m...

Wham! Pow! Boom! Up and away, it's Superman! Growing up in the 50s I couldn't wait for the next weekly adventure-filled installment of Supie and Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White and the Daily Planet on the small television screen. It was thrilling to see a man go into a telephone booth and change...

The longest running musical in the world The Fantasticks is always at its best when produced and performed with simplicity. When I first saw it in New York in the 60s, it was performed in a cabaret space against a brick wall, with the suspension of a paper moon above. You can't get much simpler th...

Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks has the uncanny ability to get under your skin and really make you feel the turmoil and misery of the black soul. In her latest play, now onstage at the Mark Taper Forum through May 15 entitled Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3), Par...

More than ever, Americans are living in a state of fear. Such is the subject searingly explored in playwright Julia Cho's intensely jarring new play OFFICE HOUR which continues its exceptional world premiere performances at Orange County's Tony Award winning regional theater South Coast Repertory in...

Strong vocals, sharp comedic timing and stunning visuals mark Dutches Theatre's world premiere of THE STORY OF ALICE. Michael Cormier has updated the classic Alice in Wonderland book. Cormier's most clever lyrics appear in 'Keep Your Temper' sung by the charismatic Santino Tomasetti as Admiral Pilla...

The world premiere of playwright Terry Ray's ELECTRICITY's perfect for those rarefied romantics out there who still believe true love can be found, whatever the obstacles. With a three-decade time span, audiences must check their need for plausibility at the theatre front door in order to accept two...

Occasionally we venture beyond the borders of Ventura County to see what is going on in Los Angeles, and on this occasion, we couldn't resist taking in a performance of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, which is currently playing at the Ahmanson Theatre downtown. The 2013 show won Tonys for Be...

The destination for girls' night out in Southern California this month is definitely Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton. That's where 3-D Theatricals' revival of David Yazbek and Terrence McNally's THE FULL MONTY kicks into high gear for the next two weekends....

If it was possible to like... or rather, LOOOVE... the Broadway musical KINKY BOOTS even more so than one already does, the lovable, fresh-faced cast of the musical's current first national tour is certainly making a really good case for it. An all-around spectacular stage show in every sense of the...

Though that comedy device of rewritten song lyrics is (unfortunately) not utilized for the film's musical stage adaptation, still, much of the spirit and basic plot architecture of the original movie remains in SISTER ACT - THE MUSICAL, which features all-original songs by composer Alan Menken and l...