LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Great to see TV veterans (of 1980's hit dramas) Bruce Weitz (Hill Street Blues) and Christina Pickles (St. Elsewhere) really enjoy themselves treading the stages of the Colony Theatre....

If you grew up in the '90s, you know exactly how Alanis Morissette impacted music. She burst onto the scene with her hit single 'You Outta Know' and followed it with hit after hit all from her album Jagged Little Pill. Alanis shaped an entire generation of strong women and her powerful voice, attitu...

Described as 'modern vaudeville,' Clockwork Follies at Rockwell manages to take a classic, almost-forgotten form of entertainment and transform it for today's audience. The show is comprised of a mixture of performers - a musical comedy troupe, beautiful dancers, a comedian, a magician, a French cha...

There is no redemption in OTHELLO. Shakespeare has provided no late opportunity to undo what has been done, no chance to make amends for the terrible wrongs lavished upon the innocent, and no way for the audience to feel anything but horror for the treachery that has filled the stage for two and a h...

Within the courtyard of the historic Pico House in downtown LA, the Downtown Repertory Theater Company is in the midst of offering its sixth season of classical works. Led by artistic director Devon Armstrong, they have taken on Chekhov, Marlowe, Odets and numerous plays by Shakespeare, all while en...

At first I thought, 'Oh, finally a tribute to Annette Funicello! It's about time.' Wrong!! Without Annette - without a net - is about an improv class with a mixed group of actors ranging in age from old to young, consummate pro to no experience, manic to laid back - you name it, that person is there...

The Manor/written by Kathrine Bates/directed by Flora Plumb/Theatre 40 at Greystone/select performances through August 16/(consult www.theatre40.org)...

Yes, it takes a village. Shakespeare Orange County has pulled out all the stops, and even enlisted a not-so-secret weapon, to accomplish an extraordinarily beautiful debut in its first official production under new artistic director John Walcutt...

Over the past ten years, Independent Shakespeare Co. has staked its claim on the city of Los Angeles with its 'of the people, by the people, for the people' brand of Shakespeare. Built from the ground up by two regular people (Melissa Chalsma and David Melville) who love what they do, they have crea...

It was a pleasure to return to Kritzerland Sunday July 6 for its 47th show saluting Off-Broadway shows: Kritzerland Goes Off-Broadway. Featured were stalwart hits: Hair, Ruthless!, Little Mary Sunshine, Dames at Sea, Falsettos, The Fantasticks and more recent hits such as Floyd Collins, Jason Robert...

Very witty script, without one false note, by Ian MacAllister-McDonald; even strong-handed direction by Elina de Santos; and executed by a very abled cast of five make for a wonderful 90-minutes of very strong entertaining theatre....

In Theatricum Botanicum's ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, the action begins and ends with a song. At rise it is the somber lamentation that accompanies a funeral procession and at the play's conclusion, an uplifting madrigal 'Sing We Enchant It.'...

It never ceases to amaze me how effectively the members of Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre Group can create an atmosphere in their incredibly intimate - make that tiny - black box. You would think a small space might limit their options but they have proven, over and over again, their innate abilit...

A short and sweet informative narrative directly from the mouths of earthquake survivors comes to fruition in Munted (A New Zealand slang for 'busted, destroyed, ruined')....

Chekhov aficionados open to the humanizing of his high-brow archetypes will delight in playwright Aaron Posner's smartly written and irreverent take on Anton Chekhov's classic The Seagull....

Christina Bianco is best known for her cover of 'Let It Go' that went viral at the height of Frozen frenzy. In the video, she impersonates everyone from Barbra to Celine from Bernadette to Alanis and at her show titled 'Diva Moments' at Rockwell on Sunday, June 29th , she brought those divas and mor...

Ghost the Musical/book & lyrics by Bruce Joel Rubin/music & lyrics by Dave Stewart & Glen Ballard/directed by Matthew Warchus/Pantages Theatre/through July 13...

I have to say...I really loved this crazy new rock musical. In my book, it's the kind of show that embodies all that is best about the Fringe, with its unconventional characters, sly direction (by Aaron Lyons), pert choreography (by Michelle LaVon), and wicked twist on a relevant message....

Playwright Kenneth Cavander's found the ideal collaborator in The Antaeus Company for finessing his original two night's worth of performances into its current smartly-written, easily comprehensible, two-and-a-half hour narrative....

'S Wonderful/Sandy Sings Ira Gershwin/Sandy Bainum at Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal/musical director: Lanny Meyers/director: Bruce Kimmel/Sunday June 22...

'...He Wrote Good Songs'/Littlechap. A Life of Anthony Newley./written & performed by Jon Peterson/directed by Gwen Hillier/musical direction by Joshua Eli Kranz/Asylum Lab Theatre/selected performance as part of Hollywood Fringe 2014/remaining performance: Saturday June 28 at 5:30 pm...

As a huge fan of The Twilight Zone TV show, I enjoyed seeing the different mash-ups of episodes as well as being able to catch references to many other episodes (ie: Willoughby, Hitchhiker, To Serve Man Diner). It was also fun to see clips from many original episodes played on a large TV monitor on ...

AFTERLOVE: LOVE LIFE IN THE AFTERLIFE, written by and performed by Ron Hanks and Betsy Reisz is one of the most brilliant and inventive shows I have seen at this year's Hollywood Fringe Festival. In the dating pool of the afterlife, there are a LOT of choices, and this show presents 8 couples of pub...

Can just imagine the excitement going through the minds of the four actors when they realized they would get the chance to work with a Tony Award winner's script and be directed by a multi-award winning director in its Los Angeles premiere ....

The title of Jacob Sidney's futuristic Hamlet refers to the Dane's dead father Maximus, a character who never appears live on stage but only materializes as part of Hillary Bauman's black & white anime projections on a screen behind the actors. The audience sees the ghost fade in and out behind them...