LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Say what you will about legends, myths and miracles, but Brigadoon has a charm and appeal that can turn a nonbeliever to...well, at least make you rethink your existence as you exult in the lavish musical score by Lerner & Loewe. Now in a lovely production at Sacramento's Music Circus in the Wells F...

More laughter, more beauty, more of everything that makes theatre special is what you'll find in the Actors' Gang's production of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. It is a night of Shakespeare that takes all emotion to the brink and entertains with a vibrancy of invention that would make old Will smile wer...

Akin to a revue, Smokey Joe's Cafe is made up of songs, songs, and more songs without a single word of dialogue. Like the final tune says 'That Is Rock & Roll'; it's the music of Leiber and Stoller who gave us some of the biggest hits of the 50s like 'Hound Dog', 'Love Potion # 9' and 'Jailhouse Roc...

Bob Randall's 6 RMS RIV VU is a charming look at 70s culture through the eyes of two marrieds about to engage in a tenuous extra-marital affair. Yes, it's dated, but still enjoyable summer fare in a rare revival currently onstage at the Sierra Madre Playhouse in Sierra Madre through September 6....

Without a doubt there are scenes in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus that are difficult to watch. Actions that might come across as ludicrous on the page make one shrink with revulsion when viewed in the flesh, and within the confines of a small theater the effect is much like that of a horror show ta...

'Spirit tells me lots of things. It likes to talk.' And talk it did to J.B. Murray, a man who believed that the Holy Spirit came to him in a vision and called him into the service of the Lord. At the age of 70 this illiterate Southern farmer began to paint and write non-semantic script (a kind of wr...

Directed by Adam Shankman and featuring a talented, impossibly photogenic cast that includes Kristen Bell, Hunter Parrish, Benjamin Walker, Amber Riley, Mario, Jenna Ushkowitz and Jonah Platt, the Hollywood Bowl production of the 60's hippie-centric HAIR is lively and unabashedly joyful to the core....

It's all about the love story in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and this one has at its core the epic romance of the ages - Mark Antony and the notorious Queen of the Nile - two dramatic individuals consumed with passion of whom much has been written. It's a perfect choice for Kingsmen Shakespea...

On Sunday July 27 powerhouse vocalist Jeanne Page made a stylish return to Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal for a marvelous evening of standards done her way, entitled Reboot. This lady has a unique brand of humor that is intoxicating and infuses every song she sings with the true colors they dese...

As part of their annual Summer at the Playhouse series in July, which this year also included Joey Luft and Mary Bridget Davies, Pasadena Playhouse hosted Henson Alternative's Puppet Up! Uncensored for 3 nights only. Music, Mayhem, Madness was promised and certainly delivered with six puppeteers, co...

Tennessee Williams' classic A Streetcar Named Desire is revered as one of the greatest plays of the 20th century with Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, two of the most fascinating characters in theatrical history. Written in the 40s, the play does have many dated elements, but given a taut, well...

Intense, riveting tale of two estranged brothers, and as expected with a Neil LaBute script, reveals the darker, deeper secrets of familial loves that maybe should have remained hidden. Yes, LaBute does go there. And how!...

Hang on for the 100-minute ride of your life in the impeccably cast, tightly directed, stunningly acted Los Angeles premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis' very smartly written The Motherfucker With The Hat....

REDCAT opened its eleventh annual New Original Works Festival this weekend with a trio of intriguing pieces incorporating movement, dance, music, and a variety of theatrical elements that push the boundaries of thought and creativity. Together they make up the first of three programs that will be of...

A buoyant, truly impressive local revival directed by Alan Souza, 3-DT's DAMN YANKEES is a true audience pleaser, highlighted by an enthusiastic cast and spirited re-imagined sequences that are truly Broadway-caliber. This all-new production is now playing at the Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton thro...

Actor/singer Scott Dreier is, by self-description, consumed with Doris Day. He has been a fan since a tender age, watching every Doris Day movie and listening to every Day album hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. We all love Day. Who doesn't? She symbolizes all that is sweet and good in life! Bec...

Playwright Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo as well as Leading Ladies) is one of a dying breed of American farceurs. How many presently exist? In the UK, yes, there are many. Farce is their specialty, but not in the US. So, that given, Leading Ladies is a uniquely special ode to the th...

Ah, the rhythms of the 50s/60s! Got 'A Lot of Livin' to Do'! Lee Adams and Charles Strouse wrote the music and lyrics of Bye Bye Birdie to honor a generation of fans who swooned and literally gave themselves over to the rock and roll of Elvis Presley. Conrad Birdie (Austin MacPhee) is an obvious pla...

Once/book by Enda Walsh/music & lyrics by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova/directed by John Tiffany/Pantages Theatre/through August 10...

Lively and electrified by its talented, winsome lead actors, this new admirable local production of the Tony Award-winning IN THE HEIGHTS has just been extended for additional performances in its Anaheim Hills home through August 8---and deservedly so. Overall, this new OC production crackles with a...

"Sing Me Home" is a new musical set to premiere at the prestigious New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) on July 20th but Los Angeles had the honor of hosting its debut at Rockwell on Sunday, July 13th. Featuring a variety of performers, each song was introduced by writing team, Amber Cassell or ...

To set the record straight, actor Michael Urie introduces Buyer & Cellar by stating quite emphatically that what we are about to see is a fiction. He then holds up a copy of Barbra Streisand's book My Passion for Design published in 2010. In it Streisand describes her dream house. This book fed play...

It is a chilling conclusion when Kimberly Scott repeats the text of the prologue again at the end of ROMEO AND JULIET while standing over the dead bodies of the lovers. You can hear the bitter warning in her voice as she slowly looks from one end of the stage to the other at two fathers who have pai...

Belonging to the Golden Age of Broadway musicals, Damn Yankees opened in New York in 1955, winning 7 Tony Awards and was made into a feature film in 1958, starring its original Tony winners Ray Walston and Gwen Verdon. In fact, Damn Yankees sparked the long-time fruitful collaboration between Verdon...

Popular across the country for the past decade, Always Patsy Cline celebrates country/pop superstar Patsy Cline, her music and her warm down.to.earth persona. Endearing from the get go it stars the very funny and endearing Sally Struthers as Texas housewife Louise Seger and Carter Calvert as Cline. ...