LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

On Tuesday, March 22 Alexis Gershwin brought her cabaret show to the Catalina Jazz Club for one night only to a sold out audience. The show entitled Gershwin Sings Gershwin was a delightful evening of many of the priceless standards that made George and Ira Gershwin two of the best composers of al...

What happens to us when we die? Do we all make it to 'heaven,' regardless of our faith? This question is thrust front-and-center in playwright Bekah Brunstetter's pleasing world premiere play GOING TO A PLACE WHERE YOU ALREADY ARE, which continues performances at Costa Mesa's Tony Award-winning Sout...

Harvey Fierstein's Casa Valentina won a deserved four Tony nominations in 2014 when it played on Broadway. This is a fine example of an unusual play, one of surprising depth, that goes out of its way to hit a nerve or two. Although comical, Casa Valentina is a drama at the core, with some shades...

Musical geniuses of yesteryear like Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart or Bach ... ah, a chosen few who left an unparalleled legacy...but not without bitter resentment and treachery from rivals, some talented, some not... Remember Amadeus by Peter Schaeffer? Salieri stopped at nothing to thwart Mozart's succ...

The West Coast premiere of DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY by Rich Orloff is currently playing to uproariously laughing audiences at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro, directed with a clear vision by Holly Baker-Kreiswirth in which much homage is paid to classic gangster movies. Directing in the most over-the-...

The Rogue Machine Theatre's West Coast premiere of Bryony Lavery's DIRT, a precautionary dissertation of the lethal hazards of commonplace chemicals humans come in contact with, benefits from its strong talented cast. Bravo to all the actors for their commitment to their respective roles, some requi...

It was indeed an auspicious occasion at Chapman University on Saturday night where over a thousand guests gathered for the much-anticipated official opening of the Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts. The black tie event featured a concert performance by luminaries of the opera worl...

CRE Outreach was incorporated in 2007, serving at-risk students, the visually impaired and military veterans through theater-based arts programs. Utilizing theater as a means to enhance self-esteem, encourage self-expression and empower individuals to overcome the challenges in their lives, CRE Outr...

In all facets of the creative arts, it is an unfortunate reality that every artist needs to balance his/her artistic vision with the need to be commercially successful in order to survive financially, which in turn will allow you to follow your vision. But where do you draw the line? Of course eve...

Orange County was once again gifted a compact, intermission-free version of Broadway superstar Kristin Chenoweth's 'Coming Home' concert on Saturday, March 12, 2016 at Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Center for the Arts (she performed a version of this concert last year at the Walt Disney Concert Hall). As ...

How often do you see an American western onstage? Especially one that was a famous John Ford film in 1952 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Both the film and the stage play are adapted from a short story by Dorothy Johnson about the American west in 1890-1910. The names of the characters in the fi...

On Friday March 11 Kirk Frederick's new book Write That Down! The Comedy of Male Actress Charles Pierce was launched at ONE the Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries on North Adams in downtown Los Angeles. The sellout event was a benefit for ONE Archives. There were scrumptious hors d'o...

The battle between the sexes has always been a favorite topic for all types of literary works. With the onslaught in today's media of how women should look to attract men rather than being true to who they really are, playwright Sheila Callaghan has taken a very personal stand in her madcap new pla...

Playwright Theresa Rebeck's smart and witty THE UNDERSTUDY provides an intriguing vehicle for a most unsympathetic barely working actor to vent. Fortunately, two other much more congenial characters interrupt his incessant kvetching. Laura Henry ably directs her talented cast at a fast clip making t...

Caryl Churchill's 1982 Obie Award-winning CLOUD 9 receives a hilarious, yet heartstring-tugging revitalization from the always reliable Antaeus Theatre Company. Casey Stangl expertly directs her very talented cast as they skillfully navigate the complexities of each undertaking dual roles. What an i...

The world premiere of Robert Allan Ackerman's BLOOD receives a sturdy full-on, large theatre mounting by The Garage in the tiny space of The Complex. Ackerman's smart, in-depth script has adapted the actual 1980s events of a government conspiracy to sell HIV-contaminated blood products into an invol...

Tennessee Williams published Summer and Smoke in 1948 and revised and rewrote it in 1964 as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Summer and Smoke is the popular, much revived version despite the fact Tennessee himself among many critics considered the second version to be the most lyrical rep...

The iconic music of Elvis Presley inspired writer Joe Dipietro to create ALL SHOOK UP, a musical set in 1955 utilizing the rock 'n roll star's songs. The bottom line with Elvis's music is that it makes a lot of people very happy, even 50 years after it was recorded. And Dipietro thought, what other ...

Ruskin Group Theatre's Los Angeles premiere of Gary McNair's A GAMBLER'S GUIDE TO DYING winningly delivers a mesmerizing, quick-paced 65-minutes of vividly descriptive storytelling. The combination of McNair's extremely illustrative narrative, directed quite proficiently by Paul Linke, and totally e...

A recipient of the Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, THE BLESSING OF A BROKEN HEART arrives precisely at the time when it is most needed to help heal our communities in the wake of a deluge of local and national tragedies involving innocent children. It is a story about resilience and the...

When it comes down to it, trying to convince rabid or even casual fans of the hit Broadway blockbuster WICKED into seeing the show again (and again… and again) when it comes to their town really doesn't take much of a struggle. No matter how many times over the years that the Broadway blockbuster ...

No one writes a story song like composer Ryan Scott Oliver. Known for his clever lyrics and the ability to create in a wide variety of musical styles, his is an exciting voice in the current musical theatre landscape. Broadway insiders marvel at the way he plays with musical language and captures a ...

'Tale as old as time' nails the complex simplicity of Beauty and the Beast the quintessential story of true love, the most difficult to obtain and sustain.  Disney's adaptation of the fairy tale with its sweepingly imaginative spectacle won over even the hardest of hearts. The animated film was...

While she may not be as recognizable as Beatrice, Viola, Lady Macbeth or many of his more popular leading ladies, Margaret of Anjou is nonetheless a significant presence in Shakespeare's history plays - specifically the first tetralogy of the War of the Roses. In this 4-part series (Henry VI Parts 1...

Dan Frischman quite ably directs his witty script of SEX, FAITH AND JASON WEXLER keeping his likeable cast and plot moving at a snappy pace. Robert Werner and Lira Kellerman have cute, flirty, credible chemistry as Jason and Faith....