LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

The Bridges of Madison County was a hit film in 1995 for Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood. The 2014 Broadway musical version with a gorgeous operatic score by Jason Robert Brown and stellar book by Marsha Norman is now playing at the Ahmanson downtown through January 17. When you look closely, there'...

For the last few years the uber talented Lythgoe family have been entertaining us at Christmastime, first at the El Portal in NoHo and now at the Pasadena Playhouse with a British style panto. A panto is an interactive entertainment that starts with a very contemporary retelling of a fairy tal...

In FELIZ NAVIDIVA, Kay Sedia (the self-proclaimed size 2, 18-year-old alter ego of Oscar Quintero) - hysterically regales her attentive audience in a quick one-hour set with her recent childhood stories of Christmases growing up in Tijuana. Kay Sedia's solid vocal pipes get properly utilized and su...

Who hasn't wanted to run away with the circus at some point in their lives? The ephemeral world created under the big top has always managed to entice with the glamour of its imaginary delights. Acrobats and elephants, beautiful people flying through the air, and the side show of unimaginable curios...

The Red Cup Theatre Company's debut production of playwright Dennis Kelly's DNA unfortunately does not gel as a satisfying story. A group of teenage mean girls and bullies cover up a murder of a fellow student to no apparent consequence or laughs. Hard to believe the playwright who wrote the book fo...

Luck has nothing to do with it. Mary Zimmerman's GUYS AND DOLLS is a well thought out, surprisingly fresh reinvention of one of the best golden age musicals ever written. The charming production just concluded a 9-month run at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and can now be seen on stage at the Wallis An...

The amazingly talented performers of THE BLACK VERSION - HOLIDAY SPECIAL rocked the audience at Largo @ The Coronet with their lightning quick improv wit, some incredible vocals and ridiculously sharp rapping. Karen Maruyama directed her six-member cast in a racehorse pacing with just enough tim...

In IMPRO THEATRE'S JANE AUSTEN UNSCRIPTED; seven very talented, quick-thinking members of the Impro Theatre, with only two idea suggestions from the audience, act out (sans script) a hysterical complete beginning-middle-and-end of a tale based on Jane Austen's writings....

There's no finer Christmas entertainment than an original story about home and family that has lots of humor, music and more than enough touches of magic...and of course, several kids and, to top it all off, Santa and Mrs. Claus. That's pretty much it in a nutshell with Home For Christmas, 2015's ho...

1996's mega hit British farce Cash on Delivery is an exceedingly hilarious romp through an unemployed man's out-of-control experiences with social security fraud. Written by Michael Cooney, son of well-known British actor/playwright Ray Cooney, the play builds an affecting series of misunderstandi...

The West Coast Premiere of playwright Neil Haven's WHO KILLED SANTA? features wonderful puppet work and clever re-workings of classic holiday songs. Ronnie Marmo directs his cast of five puppet characters and Santa Claus. Haven wittily sends up some old Christmas chestnuts, like 'Silent Night,' 'Car...

If you go to MACK & POPPY: LET IT SNOW expecting just a cheesy lounge  act for fluffy amusement, you would be selling Mack & Poppy way short. Tod Macofsky and Christopher Graham have created a fine tuned act of calibrated cheese eliciting many hearty laughs accented with actual solid vocal chops ...

The 1946 Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life was based on the short story The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern, published in 1945. Now there is a stage adaptation, a solo show in which actor/co-writer Jason Lott portrays George Bailey and all the characters who surround him in Bedford ...

One of my very favorite Christmas stories of all time is A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote about his boyhood growing up with his eccentric cousin Sook Faulk. Geraldine Page played Sook in a 1966 telefilm, and it was later remade for television in the 80s with Patty Duke. It is the Page version tha...

For one 'wonderfully entertaining' night only, Coyote Stageworks brought to the stage an all-star cast in a tremendously engaging staged-reading of Oscar Wilde's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST -- with a twist! Helmed, and created, by Tony Winner David Zippel, this EARNEST was set in modern day Manh...

In the world premiere of WOOD BOY DOG FISH, playwright Chelsea Sutton has intricately written a very dark re-telling of Pinocchio and his maker Geppetto, fully utilizing the perfect combination of ocean video projections, mood-enhancing  music, modular set pieces, fantastic costumes, and most every...

It's a story that takes too long to tell but the jazz sizzles and Miravel definitely has potential. Billed as a jazz musical by Jake Broder, co-author of the hit musical Louis and Keely, Live at the Sahara, it really falls under the 'play with songs' category, currently more talk than music. Broder'...

Need a pick-me-up from a bad day? Aching to smile heartily through a pleasantly peppy stage musical? Then you need not look further than the rousing, just-launched new touring production of the Tony Award-winning hit 42ND STREET, now currently entertaining audiences at Orange County's Segerstrom Cen...

The Stella Adler Theatre's west coast premiere of AY, CARMELA! boasts the great fortune to have the stellar contributions of renowned architect Frank Gehry (in his first foray into the Los Angeles theatre scene as set designer) and Los Angeles Philharmonic's Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel...

Jazz singer par excellence Lyn Stanley never ceases to amaze. A mere two years ago in 2013 she debuted her very first album Lost in Romance, which became an overnight sensation worldwide. Last year she premiered her second Potions From the 50s and now in 2015 we are more than thrilled to have her...

As art imitates life, dysfunctional family make up the majority of characters onstage nowadays. Life crises consistently prove that no one is perfect. Thank heavens! If they were, there'd be no conflicts, and in the theatre, no drama. In Tom Baum's new world premiere play Front Door Open, the matri...

In his STREEP TEASE, Roy Cruz has created an entertaining, all-male revue of Meryl Streep interpretators using actual (or actual-esque) dialogue from Ms. Streep's many films. With minimal use of props and just a hint of costume enhancements, this talented nine-membered Streepers perform some side-sp...

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) wrote plays more character-heavy than plot-heavy, with unhappy Russians bemoaning their past and current plights. As a result, productions must be cast with actors who understand internal character motivation and insights (or lack thereof). Antaeus' latest production of a C...

John Cox is a definite "fish-out-of-water."  A natural actor (in his late-thirties, I imagine), average-looking, with an average-build, who has eschewed an acting career to continuing working his blue-collar interests, he has written and stars in an absorbing 85-minute intimate history of his three...

It was 25 years ago when South Coast Repertory first staged the World Premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley's dark comedy ABUNDANCE. Fast forward to 2015, and Orange County's Tony Award-winning regional theater saw it fitting to once again revisit the property in a brand new prod...