LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

We tell a lot of stories in the theatre. Here in Los Angeles, however, we don't often tell stories that are authentically home-grown. FIGHTING SHADOWS is that rare exception, a deeply personal story of a Mexican-American boy who grew up in east L.A., survived abuse, gangs, prison, and drugs, ultimat...

The battle of the sexes. The battle of sex. Maybe, even, the battle for sex. However it's termed, men and women have scrambled to make sense of their insidious attraction versus spectacular confusion with each other since the Big Bang (ahem)....

For those adverse to sitting through cult orientation lectures, the world premiere of playwright Jesse Mu-En Shao's THE END TIMES might be ninety minutes to avoid. Shao vividly recreates the militaristic recitation of a cult's teachings which all members continuously repeat, either to re-enforce the...

The Los Angeles premiere of playwright Elizabeth Irwin's MY MAñANA COMES receives a very detailed mounting at the Fountain Theatre. Armando Molina quite ably directs his very talented cast at a quick clip with Irwin's very words-heavy dialogue flowing non-stop from the quartet. Ingenious scene chan...

2Cents's Acting Out INK Fest is back for its 3rd exciting year, organized by its Founding President and Artistic Director Kristin Boule. The Fest is being held for 3 days this weekend at the Hudson Theatres in Hollywood, right in the heart of Theatre Row and the LA 99-seat community. INK FEST 2016...

Above the Curve Theatre successfully mounts Francisco Castro's ANYTHING SERIOUS. Its two perfectly cast leads, and the five strong players supporting them, winningly perform Castro's smart, witty script. Joe Lorenzo sure-handedly directs his talented troupe at a fast clip, making sure all receive th...

Following in the footsteps of La Cage Aux Folles, Billy Elliott and Priscilla Queen of the Desert, all foreign films turned into Broadway musicals, Kinky Boots, the 2013 Tony Award-winning Best Musical, brings its spirited message of 'Just Be Who You Wanna Be' in a return to the Pantages for two...

On Tuesday April 12 I eagerly returned to Rockwell Table and Stage for the third time to see An Evening of Classic Broadway. The show comes to Rockwell for one evening every couple of months. Why do I keep coming back? Produced by Dianne Fraser and musically directed by extraordinarily talented Br...

ComicCon, the media-saturated annual juggernaut of promotion and sci-fi excess that puts celebrities and their costumed super-fans together in the same breathing space is the setting for playwright Eliza Clark's engaging new play FUTURE THINKING, now having its world premiere performances at Orange ...

The Echo Theatre Company's west coast premiere of playwright Ruby Rae Spiegel's DRY LAND needs to come with an advisory warning. Those partial to the sight of profuse bleeding, as in an induced abortion, might think twice about seeing DRY LAND. This particular scene contains graphic bleeding and con...

Idly Bent's world premiere of playwright Reed Arnold's ALL IS FAIR (OR OBLIVION WROUGHT) presents an intriguing perspective of a love triangle wrong on so many levels. With some judicious editing and a stronger directorial hand, this two-and-a-half-hour two-act would make a sleek, entertaining 90-mi...

About eight months ago, actress/singer Kathleen Wilhoite began performing the first Monday of every month at the E-Spot Lounge, formerly Upstairs at Vitello's, with a show entitled Wilhoite's Living Room. It is described as an evening of music, poetry reading, guest stars and comedy. I was curi...

With a title like THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF TOLUCA LAKE: THE MUSICAL you wouldn't expect to see high art, but I at least thought this new musical would kill it in the comedy department. Instead, it trades on desperate humor, trite songs, stereotypical characters, and a storyline you've seen before. Wh...

Indie Chi Productions presents the world premiere of playwright Andrea Lepcio's DINNER AT HOME BETWEEN DEATHS a bit undercooked; with lighting cues missed, the stumbling over lines, and an integral plot incident causing unintentional laughter. Stuart Ross does smartly direct his committed, obliging ...

Something interesting happens when you remove race as the primary motivator in Shakespeare's OTHELLO. The play's message about the progression of evil becomes even more universal. What was a story about a man destroying another man because of the color of his skin is now part of a larger more enigma...

You cannot beat the Old Globe Theatre for its audacity in mounting the challenging musical Rain, based on a short story by W. Somerset Maugham. Rain was made into three separate films, a silent in 1928 starring Gloria Swanson, and then in 1932 starring Joan Crawford as Miss Sadie Thompson, and fi...

?VARLA JEAN MERMAN'S BIG BLACK HOLE triumphantly returns to The Los Angeles LGBT Center's Renberg Theatre with her sci-fi homage to Star Wars as only Varla Jean can do. Varla Jean emits an almost continuous stream of consciousness of observations (some double-entendre, most risque) on some current c...

The Actors' Gang's Artistic Director Tim Robbins deftly directs his extremely talented cast as they fluidly impart the Orwellian tale of total Big Brother domination in ORWELL'S 1984. Originally viewed as sci-fi when written back in 1949, ORWELL'S 1984 complements as a fitting addition to The Actors...

Now playing at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, the new McCoy/Rigby Entertainment production of the Tony Award-winning 1981 Broadway musical DREAMGIRLS is pretty much a faithful carbon-copy of the recent 2009 national touring production---which happens to also be directed and choreogra...

After Hours Theatre has produced a kick-ass production of Jonathan Larson's TICK, TICK... BOOM!. Rebecca Kenigsberg astutely directs her ultra-talented cast of three at a quick, proficient pace wringing out all possible laughs and pathos out of Larson's autobiographical piece. Any theatre lover wit...

Playwrights Phil Scarpaci and T.L. Shannon are from opposite sides of the pond. Scarpaci is American and Shannon, British. When they wrote Baby Oh Baby, they decided to leave the setting England, as the British are expert farceurs and know a thing or two about delivering comedy. Surprisingly, the p...

Winner of 4 Tony Awards in 2014, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder is a devilishly clever musical sendup of the British aristocracy circa 1909. Production-wise it's a class act all the way, and for its adult audiences, it's a delicious odyssey of. nonstop laughter. Now at the Ahmanson through...

The Blank Theatre's world premiere of Aliza Goldstein's A SINGULAR THEY successfully pulls off a mesmerizing mash-up of uncomfortable situations teenagers have to deal with. Christopher J. Raymond smoothly directs this engrossing seventy-five minute one-act eliciting fully-formed performances from h...

On Tuesday, March 22 Alexis Gershwin brought her cabaret show to the Catalina Jazz Club for one night only to a sold out audience. The show entitled Gershwin Sings Gershwin was a delightful evening of many of the priceless standards that made George and Ira Gershwin two of the best composers of al...

What happens to us when we die? Do we all make it to 'heaven,' regardless of our faith? This question is thrust front-and-center in playwright Bekah Brunstetter's pleasing world premiere play GOING TO A PLACE WHERE YOU ALREADY ARE, which continues performances at Costa Mesa's Tony Award-winning Sout...