LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Filled with eye-popping visuals, optical trickery, risky stunts, hilarious audience participation, and lots of hammy showmanship (complete with Solid Gold-style background dancers-slash-magicians' assistants), THE ILLUSIONISTS - LIVE FROM BROADWAY is a supremely entertaining if occasionally cheesy s...

To those of us called Baby Boomers, we grew up being entertained by television shows everyone in the family could enjoy together. There was the Ed Sullivan Show, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and many others too numerous to name. I remember watching To Tell the Truth and attempting to guess along with the pa...

With some judicious editing, this Austin Pendleton-directed 95-minute solo SHARON TATE IN HEAVEN (actually Part One in a trilogy) would make a stunning stand-alone one act. Jen Danby has written this fictional interview of an already deceased Sharon Tate chockfull of very interesting celluloid facts...

Now onstage by the Aerospace Players through February 6, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN tells the story of sharpshooter Annie Oakley (Julie Hinton, a natural comedienne who perfectly inhabits the role) and her romance with Frank Butler (Stephen Cathers). Unfortunately, Cathers has no chemistry whatsoever with ...

The world premiere of playwright Stephen Sach's DREAM CATCHER receives a strong mounting at the Fountain Theatre powered by the intensity of its two strong performers Brian Tichnell and Elizabeth Frances. Cameron Watson ably directs this one continuous eighty-minute confrontation  between Roy and h...

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum/book by Burt Shevelove & Larry Gelbart/ music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim/Cabrillo Music Theatre, Thousand Oaks/directed by Lewis Wilkenfeld/choreographed by John Charron/through February 14 A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum is sillines...

'Talking to Terrorists' is a verbatim, word for word journey into the inner workings of the motivations of what makes a terrorist tick and why they do what they do. By going directly to the source, this unflinching play seeks to answer two of the most important questions of our time: why does this k...

Nice workshop presentation of the world premiere of Diana Amsterdam's THE DODGERS. Maybe, joints should have been passed out along with the programs, so that the audience could be on the same plane as the characters in the opening scenes - as Dave Solomon directed - in a most relaxed, lethargic sta...

Nothing is ever quite what it seems. Matthew's wife, Lisa, is having an affair with Adrian, a British theatre director. Or perhaps the affair is part of the play being rehearsed. Or perhaps Matthew has imagined all of it simply to have something to report to Frank, his therapist. Finally, there is C...

Celebration Theatre solidly mounts (as they're always known to do) a stunning production of the Los Angeles premiere of DREAM BOY. All the acting and tech elements flawlessly gel in this intriguing drama, firm-handedly and smoothly directed by Michael Matthews, mesmerizingly guiding you through t...

It's no surprise that a palpable, uproarious reception greeted the opening night performance of EMPIRE - THE MUSICAL, a brand new stage show featuring book, music, and lyrics by Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull---currently having its 'out-of-town' premiere at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing...

EMPIRE THE MUSICAL has been knocking around in the wings ever since Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull began writing it in 1999. Its first fully-staged production took place at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood in 2003 and it has had periodic readings through the years in both Los Angeles and New York. ...

Guys and Dolls/music & lyrics by Frank Loesser/book by Joe Swerling and Abe Burrows/based on stories by Damon Runyon/directed by John LaLonde/Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, Claremont/through February 27...

In his early days circa 1984, when he won 13 consecutive weeks on TV's Star Search, Sam Harris was flatly denied work on TV and in film because he was labeled 'too theatrical'. This quality - and I say quality - is what makes a performer exceptional; it sets him apart from the crowd, separating ...

This Skylight Theatre Company's production of playwright Tony Abatemarco's world premiere of FOREVER HOUSE will be the play I compare/measure all other plays I see this year -- and this is only January! Elizabeth Swain deftly directs her talented cast with never a lag or dull moment; with only time ...

It's been said the bond between sisters goes beyond what words can express. Thank goodness British playwright Gail Louw has managed to overcome any restrictions to that rule and written an exquisite play called TWO SISTERS now enjoying its U.S. Premiere at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills. It centers o...

"The Manor" is by now a Los Angeles/Beverly Hills institution, now in its 14th year and having surpassed its 200th performance in 2014. The show is a roman a clef, a fictionalization based on real events with the actual historical characters given new names. "The names have been changed to protect ...

Much like the opening night performance I experienced at the show's debut at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood last month, I was once again blown away by Menzel's incredible musical gifts with the show's opener at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa (which plays through January 24). Even be...

While certainly far from a perfect show (both in staging and execution), the bus-and-truck version of BULLETS OVER BROADWAY - THE MUSICAL---the quirky and highly-amusing stage musical adaptation of the 1994 big screen comedy penned by Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath---is nonetheless a supremely fun ...

Playwright A.R. Gurney, best known for Love Letters and The Cocktail Hour, has written some very topical plays, among them the lesser known 1988 Another Antigone, on the surface a dispute between a college professor of the classics and a creative student, but on a far greater level, exposing th...

Broadway had one of its greatest commercial hits and the longest running comedy-thriller with Ira Levin's Deathtrap in 1978, and it was later on film in 1982 with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Like Sleuth  before it, Deathtrap makes a game out of murder with plot twists too numerable ...

On Friday January15 internationally renowned jazz vocalist Lyn Stanley brought her CD release party for her latest hit album Interludes to the beautiful Art Deco La Cicada Club in downtown Los Angeles. It was a lush evening of jazz with a fabulous onstage orchestra of seasoned musicians and some...

Playwright Janet Schlapkohl's MY SISTER has the good fortune of having two fine actresses, identical twins Elizabeth Hinkler and Emily Hinkler, in her two-character play. Easy to see why these two won the Hollywood Fringe Festival's Best Acting award in these same roles last year....

Louis Prima and Keely Smith shared a larger-than-life marriage and a groundbreaking Las Vegas act featuring unforgettable songs like "That Ol' Black Magic," "Pennies from Heaven," and "Embraceable You." These songs and many others are featured in the production which has grown from a local Los Angel...

Veteran New York actor and writer James Lecesne portrays every character in a small Jersey shore town as they unravel the story of Leonard Pelkey, a tenaciously optimistic and flamboyant 14-year-old boy who has gone missing. As he interviews the people from Leonard's life, Lecesne transforms himsel...