LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

The beauty of this revue is that it can be done in whatever style chosen by the director, either as just a collection of show tunes or songs interconnected to tell a story of how love makes the world go 'round. The current production at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, directed by Fred Helsel ...

For those who like their black comedy extremely black, The House of Yes just might be the perfect show for you! The House of Yes' ideal for those with the combined acquired taste for incest, mental illness, and unsympathetic characters....

Groundlings Kung Fu Battle Island, the latest in The Groundlings' continued, well-oiled, laugh-filled Friday & Saturday night shows, just keeps the fine-tuned physical comedy and the hysterical jokes flowing....

It is rich yet rare to find a new American play that is at once terribly funny, terribly real and utterly demanding of one's attention. Immediate Family is such a play; it's fiercely original way at looking at an American black dysfunctional family is both heartwarming and completely enjoyable. In...

The creation of Arthur Miller's now classic The Crucible about the Salem witch trials of 1692 was influenced by the McCarthy era of the 50s. It provided an intensely ferocious perspective on the unjust distortion and destruction of human life. In Salem, Massachusetts it was a religious issue - did...

Each summer in Griffith Park, Independent Shakespeare Co. presents fully-produced large scale performances for hundreds of people on a nightly basis. Instead of the expensive dinner and a movie scenario, families flock to the park for a more neighborly picnic and a play. It's friendly, affordable (t...

Kritzerland's Berlin to Rome's theme unintentionally became 'generations,' as the youngster and the senior stole the show from the others of the talented line-up of singing pros. ...

Turning a profit in the theatre business is challenging at best but it isn't surprising that MOTOWN THE MUSICAL easily recouped its initial investment during its run on Broadway, or its outlay for the First National Tour, now playing at the Hollywood Pantages. The popularity of the Motown sound is u...

The West Coast premiere of Dominique Morisseau's Sunset Baby provides a wonderful star vehicle for the very talented Nadege August. As the title character, August wholly embodies Nina, the troubled daughter of her recently deceased mother Ashanti X and her estranged father Kenyatta (who deserted the...

Director Denise Devin knows how to set a mood. Her one-hour Shakespeare adaptations condense the Bard's source material into compact, efficient theatre capsules that are perfect for those who want their Shakespeare short and sweet - or in this case, dark and bloody - with enough time left after the ...

Two famous brothers. One historic collaboration. Gershwin. Theirs was a name that would forever represent the early twentieth century music of the Jazz Age by capturing the heart and soul of the American people. Music drove George, the charismatic life-of-the-party musician who created sophisticated...

The musical Side Show played Broadway in 1997 for 91 performances and was Tony nominated but never got the recognition it deserved. A revamped version went to Broadway in 2014, but it, too, closed early. Like Jason Robert Brown's Parade, another noteworthy Broadway miss, it's worth the attention,...

David Mamet's curious one-act The Anarchist, which bombed on Broadway in 2012 after a mere 17 performances, was called by critics 'a slip of a play'. True, it does come in at 70 minutes, but who cannot be riveted by Mamet's intriguing exploration of salvation? Yes, religious salvation that erupts du...

South Coast Repertory's latest offering, MR. WOLF---now on stage in Costa Mesa through May 3---is a high-quality presentation of an intriguingly audacious if not quite fully-gestated new world premiere play from Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph, the playwright behind the celebrated BENGAL TIGER ...

The Theatre's Co-Artistic Director, Michael Michetti skillfully directs his two brilliant actors (Ed F. Martin and Michelle Azar) in a streamlined, no-fat depiction of two lonely souls possibly finding their ultimate purpose in life....

Harold Pinter's 1978 Betrayal gets an inventive re-mounting by director Aaron Craig as he augments Pinter's dialogues with musical interludes using jazz versions of Motown tunes....

On Sunday April 19, actress/singer Alexandra Billings brought her new show I'm Still Here...Still! to Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal to overwhelming success. It was a packed house of adoring friends and fans who have come to love Billings for what she brings to the stage -passion, a passion for ...

Mary Poppins/book by Julian Fellowes/music by The Sherman Brothers/new songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe/directed by Lewis Wilkenfeld/choreographed by Cheryl Baxter/Cabrillo Music Theatre at the Fred Kavli Theatre of the Thousand Oakes Civic Arts Plaza/through April 26 only...

On Friday, April 17 Barbara Minkus brought her new one-woman show An Evening with Barbara Minkus 'It's All About Love' (the good, the bad, the funny, the sad) to Saint Mark's Episcopal Church in Glendale as a fundraiser for the Sacred Arts Ministry. Affable Ron Barnett served as musical director and...

Surprise! This brand new, non-equity national tour of GUYS AND DOLLS---currently onstage at Orange County's Segerstrom Center for the Arts for a limited week-long run through April 19---is a winning, nicely-nicely done charmer. Of course, it helps a lot that this traveling production comes equipped ...

So. Cal audiences should check out Musical Theatre West's rather admirable regional production of LES MISERABLES, which continues its limited run at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach through April 26, 2015. This highly-commendable, local production features a superb-sounding 30-pers...

World premiere of playwright Stan Rich's Loopholes: A Pain In The I.R.S. benefits from a very game cast of talented actors performing his fun, pun- galore, shtick-filled musical. The troupe's overall enthusiasm and commitment really pull off this 90-minute piece which possesses a very Judy Garland-...

Filled with relatable humor, wit, and plenty of fiercely sarcastic dialogue and gasp-lite melodrama, OF GOOD STOCK explores the layered, often contentious relationship between a trio of sisters who have decided to gather together at their family's gorgeous ocean-side summer home for a little weekend...

Satire on religion can be fun to watch. Take The Book of Mormon, for example, with its ferocious attack on innocence and man-made intervention. On a much smaller scale, Smoke on the Mountain is an intimate up close theatrical experience that comes to life via its bluegrass-style gospel musical numbe...

The now classic musical A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum is silliness personified from its zany characters and inane plot contrivances to its corny yet witty dialogue. It is clever farce set to music. Mistaken identities, zippity fast exits and entrances...it has no rhyme or reason but...