LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Created and performed by Amy Snowden, Casting Confessions from La to LA is an outrageous and comical insight into her formative years in a small town in Louisiana, her move to Hollywood to become a sitcom actress but getting chewed up and spit-out in Hollywood, and her unique secret ways of finally ...

The essence of Latino Theatre Company's monumental production of A MEXICAN TRILOGY: An American Story is beautifully captured in the simple photograph above. In this starry night scene, a family poised on the edge of major change looks to the infinite sky with hope. Quietly, in these few moments of ...

Solo shows written and performed by their authors need to be told with enough personal stage presence to be truly interesting to the audience. Such is the case in Lucy Alibar's world premiere THROW ME ON THE BURNPILE AND LIGHT ME UP in which she enthusiastically and humorously shares journal entrie...

Solo Performance Artist Bonnie Joy Sludikoff has spent the last 2 years performing her 2014 Hollywood Fringe Hit, That's What She Didn't Say: A True Story of Taboo, Redemption, and Musical Theatre. But always feeling she had blown the chance to have dozens of important, meaningful conversations over...

Art-In-Relation (A.I.R.) is an innovative production company focusing on breathing new life into lesser-known plays and musical theater. I have seen their productions at other locations throughout the city, but unfortunately the facilities and cast talent in past productions has been less than stel...

Two years ago this teen musical was one of the best new works to come through Hollywood. Its young writers Julie Soto, Ryan Warren, and composer Will Finan had found a way to tell a story about teen suicide that was relatable to both youth and adults alike. It's a parent's worst nightmare; the thoug...

Right at the start of Robert Schenkkan's mesmerizing Tony Award-winning play ALL THE WAY---now playing in an outstanding new production at Orange County's South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa through October 2---actor Hugo Armstrong is introduced in what would become one of the most powerful, fiery a...

Playwright Robert O'Hara provides the mood-setting intro for the West Coast premiere of his comedy BARBECUE now playing at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood through October 16. And while his very off-color language is shocking at first, I guarantee it will start you laughing and prepare you for the ...

Like all of August Wilson's plays, this one contains more dialogue than perhaps is needed, with the first act seemingly bogged down at times as you listen to four musicians (Damon Gupton as Cutler, Glynn Turman as Toledo, Keith David as Slow Dawg, Jason Dirden as Levee) stuck in a rehearsal room as ...

The very second that Tony Award-winning Broadway Legend Patti LuPone sings---heck, even when she walks out before she belts a single note---you know you're in the presence of someone that deserves the mountains of accolades she has continuously enjoyed through a very long, illustrious career on the ...

Those nostalgic for Three Stooges slapstick or old-time vaudeville will thoroughly enjoy playwright Mark Brown's AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. The very committed cast of five enact 30+ different characters, sometimes within the same scene. Allison Bibicoff directs her talented cast in a relentless pa...

Troubadour Theatre Company's classless clowns of classical comedy go rogue in their latest adaptation at the Getty Villa. Taking generous liberties with the source material (Plautus's Mostellaria) they reinvent the over-2000-year-old play as HAUNTED HOUSE PARTY, A Roman Comedy in their own unique st...

I already knew Disney's NEWSIES had developed cult status before I saw the show. Its legions of loyal 'Fansies' have championed it from the very beginning. But even I wasn't prepared for the audience's screams of appreciation for the hard-working boys - and one girl - who form the heart of the curre...

On Monday August 29 actor/singer Kurtis Simmons made his solo cabaret debut at Rockwell Table and Stage to a SRO crowd of adoring fans and well-wishers. Simmons is no stranger to Los Angeles audiences, as he has appeared onstage in such popular shows as Forever Plaid and premiered his musical H...

The thoroughly involving world premiere of playwright Carla Ching's THE TWO KIDS THAT BLOW SHIT UP combines the potent mixture of a witty script with two totally dynamic actors directed in a steady, flowing, non-stop pace of a brisk 90 minutes.  Jeremy Lelliott deftly directs his two brilliantly be...

Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to enjoy an evening of theatre outdoors in one of the area's loveliest and most unique venues - El Molino Viejo, The Old Mill, in San Marino. I'd never been there before, but since I love historic buildings and grew up on Sunday afternoon westerns, I was immedi...

On Monday evening August 22 An Evening of Classic Broadway returned to Rockwell Table and Stage for another resoundingly superb and downright mirthful show. Headed by Brad Ellis and Dianne Fraser, this show really grows on you. I love talent, and you can definitely find it here in abundance. On...

Bipolar disease most often occurs in women creating abnormal behavior patterns, and usually treated with drugs. In the Pulitzer Prize winning Next to Normal, the problem is presented via a wife and mother, Diana (Michelle Lane). Her behavior shows extreme mental instability, and the effects on her ...

Despite boasting one of the most gloriously majestic musical scores ever written for a Broadway stage by Maury Yeston in 1997, Titanic the Musical was, no pun intended, a disaster with lukewarm reception from both audience and critics. Come to think of it, how entertaining can a musical be about t...

Joseph Kesselring's dark comedy farce Arsenic and Old Lace dates back to 1941 and was made into one hilarious film starring Cary Grant and directed by Frank Capra in 1944. Nevertheless, the comedy is timeless, so it still holds up quite deliciously in 2016. One never tires of murder especially whe...

Playwright Peter Lefcourt manages to cram every current political hot topic into DRAMA QUEENS FROM HELL, his two-act dramedy on the proposed re-make of the classic Sunset Boulevard. DRAMA QUEENS FROM HELL's chronicling the beginnings of Gerard, an indie director's quest to cast his remake of the Glo...

Under the light of a turbulent society in which women are having discussions and debates about themselves with other women (and men) every day, particularly on social media, Gionfriddo's play climbs to an even more enlightened height....

As the eighth production of Little Fish Theatre's 2016 season, THE HOW AND THE WHY written by Sarah Treem, the Emmy-nominated House of Cards writer and producer, continues through September 1, 2016 on select Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8:00pm. The production is directed by Danielle Ozymandies and fe...

Director Gloria Gifford takes her job of inspiring upcoming stars in proper stage presentation, and above all, I must commend her for making sure each actor in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at TU Studios understood exactly what they were saying so audience members could not only understand the words but al...

CABARET's Tony Award-winning 1998 Broadway revival co-directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, still stands, arguably, as the show's definitive stage iteration. That same vibrant Roundabout Theatre Company production rightly serves as the basis for the newer 2014 revival that is now in the midst of ...