LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical has finally arrived at the Ahmanson Theatre, and it is a sumptuous treat for the eyes, ears and mind. Imagination runs amok in choreography, staging and in reproducing a feast of visual pleasures via ultra riveting set pieces - with scrabble-like words and phrases j...

Dysfunctional families provide delicious humor for stage and film, because most everyone can identify with one or more of the characters. And if they plan a mercy killing? The irreverent humor quadruples. In Howard Skora's new world premiere comedy Miserable with an Ocean View, we come face to fa...

A brilliant production of LES MISERABLES by Theatre Royale appeared at the Fox Performing Arts Center in Riverside. In addition to top-notch performances, the production of LES MIZ features stunning visuals....

Harvey Fierstein's one-act On Tidy Endings, originally part of his 1987 Safe Sex trilogy, holds up very well in the abled reins of director Sara Wagner and her kick-ass cast. Set in a time when gay men only came out of their closets on a need-to-know basis (ex-wives, kids), contracting AIDS equalled...

Rogue Machine produces a stunning mounting of the West Coast premiere of A Permanent Image. Playwright Samuel D. Hunter has created a stripped down, no-nonsense portrait of a family separated by distance, both emotional and physical, and the methods the parents will attempt to manipulate their desti...

This theatrical parody of a TV favorite has Fringe hit written all over it! Get your tickets now because the theater only has about 40 seats and the show is going to sell out. It should. Gus Krieger's writing is smart, compact, wickedly funny, and exactly what you hope it will be when you picture a ...

I confess to being very confused by the production. In this modern twist on Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet, women play men and men play women. Or rather, women play male characters as men and men play female characters as women…I think....

Too damn funny! How generous of co-writers Jamie Franta and Don Colliver to spread the abundance of laughs and good bits around to their entire cast. Each one of the talented troupe achieves their moment to shine in their deserved spotlights....

No surprise that the little musical comedy with a big bang, Murder for Two by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair took off-Broadway by storm in 2013! Described as 'a musical comedy with a dash of Agatha Christie', it actually defies classification. Yes, it has music and a murder mystery plot and is scre...

It's difficult for any production to take on Shakespeare, especially such a beloved classic as Romeo & Juliet, but 'Love Is A Battlefield' is more than up to the challenge....

Let's first get this very necessary accolade out of the way: South Coast Repertory's brand new production of Rick Elice's PETER AND THE STARCATCHER is, hands down, one of the most enjoyable, most thrilling, and most engagingly imaginative plays I have seen all season---a fitting capper to the Tony A...

This very black comedy, The Idiot Box written by Michael Elyanow completely went over this critic's head as laughter never escaped from his mouth. (OK, maybe once.) Scenes in which the actors obviously went for the laughs, punctuated by the cheesy canned laughtracks fell flat. However, scenes played...

The play Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind, which was written in Germany in the late 19th century was censored for a time due to its frank portrayal of masturbation, abortion, homosexuality, rape, child abuse and suicide. Exposing the rocky sexual coming of age of a group of teenagers, its helter-s...

On Saturday May 23 actor/singer Bill A. Jones, known to thousands of cheering fans as Rod Remington of Fox TV's Glee, brought his one-man show Frank, Bobby & Me to the E-Spot Lounge at Vitello's in Studio City. This man is not only handsome with an affable charm onstage, but can truly sing thes...

When Violet first premiered off-Broadway in 1997, it created a stir winning two prizes for Best Musical but didn't make waves until 2014 when it transferred to Broadway in an all new production starring Sutton Foster. It heartfully tells the story of a disfigured girl from Spruce Pine, North Carol...

A sexy cast of beautiful people inhabits Green Day's punk rock opera American Idiot, in a ferocious glory|struck production that opened last weekend at The Vortex. Directors Topher Rhys and Jen Oundjian (who also choreographs) take full advantage of the concert venue space and go for a panoramic exp...

It is refreshing in this day and age to see an attempt to create a new musical. With few exceptions, it appears to be a dying art. If not, we would not be witnessing a raft of old steady revivals on Broadway, off-Broadway and in regional venues across the globe. Doug Haverty and Adryan Russ, no stra...

On Sunday May 17 at Catalina Jazz Club renowned actress/singer Michele Lee made her Los Angeles cabaret debut. Why has it taken this long? She takes her one-woman show Catch the Light on the road regularly and recently played 54 Below in NYC, but has never played a club in her hometown of LA. We...

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

Tim Rice's & Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita has had a thirty-seven year international love affair with the public since it premiered in 1978 in London and in 1979 on Broadway. The latest local reincarnation currently at Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, Claremont until June 28 is lovingly directe...

A safe, inoffensive, cutesy crowd-pleaser for the young and the young-at-heart, the brand new non-Equity touring revival of the Broadway classic ANNIE is eager to please and pretty much does so. The show is, by all accounts, a cute if standard-issue charmer, filled with hummable ear-worm music (via ...

In the Los Angeles premiere of I See You Made an Effort; Annabelle Gurwitch adeptly performs excerpts from her bestselling  book of the same title. Gurwitch possesses a charismatic stage presence while definitively in control of her own storytelling. The main theme of her book/play revolves around ...

The world premiere of Go Figure! The Randy Gardner Story receives a not quite taut mounting in its initial outing at the NoHo Arts Center. Director Josh Ravetch, who co-wrote this with Gardner, allows his star to proceed with his biographical tales, some quite riveting, some very candid, at his own ...

East West Players has done it again with their spectacular production of The Who's Tommy. With an incredible band, vibrant vocals from the entire cast and stunning visuals, this 'little' theatre easily matches and betters many larger house productions. ...

It's been 50 years since Neil Simon wrote The Odd Couple, perhaps the most famous of his early plays. March, 1965. I was a freshman in college, and little did I know that one day I would play Felix Unger in a local production onstage. Needless to say, I was certainly smitten with the crazed charact...