LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Much like the opening night performance I experienced at the show's debut at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood last month, I was once again blown away by Menzel's incredible musical gifts with the show's opener at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa (which plays through January 24). Even be...

While certainly far from a perfect show (both in staging and execution), the bus-and-truck version of BULLETS OVER BROADWAY - THE MUSICAL---the quirky and highly-amusing stage musical adaptation of the 1994 big screen comedy penned by Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath---is nonetheless a supremely fun ...

Playwright A.R. Gurney, best known for Love Letters and The Cocktail Hour, has written some very topical plays, among them the lesser known 1988 Another Antigone, on the surface a dispute between a college professor of the classics and a creative student, but on a far greater level, exposing th...

Broadway had one of its greatest commercial hits and the longest running comedy-thriller with Ira Levin's Deathtrap in 1978, and it was later on film in 1982 with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Like Sleuth  before it, Deathtrap makes a game out of murder with plot twists too numerable ...

On Friday January15 internationally renowned jazz vocalist Lyn Stanley brought her CD release party for her latest hit album Interludes to the beautiful Art Deco La Cicada Club in downtown Los Angeles. It was a lush evening of jazz with a fabulous onstage orchestra of seasoned musicians and some...

Playwright Janet Schlapkohl's MY SISTER has the good fortune of having two fine actresses, identical twins Elizabeth Hinkler and Emily Hinkler, in her two-character play. Easy to see why these two won the Hollywood Fringe Festival's Best Acting award in these same roles last year....

2Cents Theatre mounts a tight, thoroughly entertaining DEN OF THIEVES smartly written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis. Eric Augusztiny deftly directs his very talented cast of seven in a machine gun pace. What starts off as a realistic encounter of two members of a klept...

The Headlong, Nottingham Playhouse, and Almeida Theatre Production of/1984/by George Orwell/in a new adaptation by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan/directed by Icke and Macmillan/The Broad Stage, Santa Monica/through February 6...

The National Tour of PIPPIN is, hands down, the finest touring production to land at The McCallum Theatre during my tenure in the desert cities. Passionate. Polished. Near Perfection! It is a glorious spectacle of sight, sound and immaculate storytelling that, despite its mesmerizing visual feast of...

The US premiere of ACT 3...  features the smart, witty writing of David Ambrose and Claudia Nellens performed with the assured talents of Rita Rudner and Charles Shaughnessy. Martin Bergman (Rudner's husband) smoothly directs these two performing veterans as they quite believably essay a modernisti...

As Helen Sinclair (Emma Stratton) holds her hand over playwright David Shayne's (Michael Williams) mouth (picture above), fans of the 1994 film Bullets Over Broadway are bound to chuckle as they remember the famously unforgettable line spoken by the movie's Helen Sinclair Oscar winner Dianne Weist...

Loosely patterned after 'an audition process', this 10th annual fully produced event is geared to discovering new talent between the ages of 18 and 32 for the musical theatre stage. This year the contest is generously sponsored/presented by Princess Cruises....

What can one say about pop/rock living legend Gladys Knight? A 7-time Grammy winner for gospel as well as R&B/pop hits, this lady at 71 years young, still rocks. She looks and sounds amazing! On New Year's Eve, Knight made an appearance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall for two concerts, one at 7 pm ...

The holidays aren't over at Rockwell (nor should they be!) and you have two more chances to catch their current great parody show of the '90s Christmas classic Home Alone. Previous parodies included Scream and Cruel Intentions which brought a flurry of nostalgia for those who grew up in the '90s, bu...

Actor/singer John Lloyd Young, best known for his Tony-winning portrayal of Frankie Valli in the original Broadway musical Jersey Boys and for his performance in the 2014 film, has performed eight record-breaking sell-out headlining engagements at Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal since October ...

The prospect of a new stage musical about the Righteous Brothers is an enticing idea, and with the premiere of That Lovin' Feelin', James A. Zimmerman's new production about the lives and careers of Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley, we ventured into the Valley to take in a performance. The show is bei...

When Faith Prince and Jason Graae first performed their show The Prince and the Showboy at Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal in June, 2012, I wrote, '...there were enough sparks to set Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal on fire as Jason Graae and Tony Award winner Faith Prince seized the stag...

On Tuesday, December 22 exciting singer Laura Dickinson brought her BIG BAND HOLIDAY to the El Portal Mainstage in NoHo. The house was SRO, and Dickinson, needless to say, accompanied by a 17-piece band, knocked it out of the park. When I reviewed her CD release party a year ago at Vitello's I n...

Resourceful Dan Goggin designed a line of greeting cards to honor the nun, then turned the project into a cabaret which finally became a full-fledged musical comedy in 1985. Now Nunsense plays in several languages all over the world. Everyone has a peculiar fascination with nuns. Why? Well, number...

On Saturday December 19 at 3 pm and 8 pm and on Sunday December 20 at 3 pm, the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles (GMCLA) presented its annual Holiday Spectacular at the Alex Theatre, Glendale, this year entitled Brassy, Classy & Sassy! There's always diversity in the shows - it's what I like most - a...

On Friday December 18 the legendary Ben Vereen came to Catalina Jazz Club for his latest one-man cabaret An Evening with Ben Vereen. Backed by three fabulous musicians, musical director David Loeb at the piano, Tom Kennedy on bass and Marc DiCianni on drums, Vereen took the stage for 70 minutes a...

Hollywood with a divine program of entertainment. Among the stellar singers were Joan Ryan, Ruth Williamson, Sharon Catherine Brown, Scott Harlan, Jeffrey Christopher Todd, Walter Winston ONeil, Chelsea Field and producer Dianne Fraser, and a very special treat Tim Curry and one of his original song...

This Troubie Christmas Show Santa Claus Is Comin' to Motown was first presented at the Falcon in 2004, so seeing it again was like seeing it for the very first time. Who could remember details from 11 years ago? And also, the Troubies are known for adding new jokes and gags consistently. New jokes...

Playwrights Horizons in association with The Actors Theatre of Louisville presented Lucas Hnath's new play The Christians this past fall in New York to great acclaim. The controversial  play with contradictory arguments about God and heaven/hell has now docked at the Mark Taper Forum through Janu...

As expected, Tony Award winner and Broadway superstar Idina Menzel drew thunderous applause a mere second into the the start of IF/THEN's opening night performance at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre last Wednesday night. It's no stretch then to say that her mere existence in this very same role she h...