LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

In this absurd, poignant, uncomfortably funny play written by Academy Award nominated Peter Hedges ('What's Eating Gilbert Grape,' 'Pieces of April,' and 'About A Boy') and directed by Clare Carey (NBC Hit 'AQUARIUS'), stars Sirena Irwin and Sarah Randall Hunt portray two women who despite their ini...

Los Angeles-based comedic writers and performers Josh Lanzet and Lindy Voeltner met performing comedy at The Second City in Chicago. While developing a scene together about relationships, its popularity encouraged them to work it into a full show now entitled DATING: ADULTS EMBRACING FAILURE. Grab ...

What do the 1950s have in common with 1912? Ages of innocence, both. When Meredith Willson wrote his story with Franklin Lacey about a con artist bamboozling an Iowa town in 1912, which formed the substance of his musical The Music Man (1957), the effect became like that of N. Richard Nash's The...

TARZAN THE MUSICAL is the latest winner in a string of ambitious musicals by the Dawson producing team at 3-D Theatricals (Gretchen, Daniel, Jeannette and T.J.). Perhaps it isn't surprising that a family run company would know the kind of heart it takes to bring to life a Disney adventure musical a...

Considered Andrew Lloyd Webber's first official musical in the late 60s, in spite of the fact that it really took off after Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat has within itself a miraculous power to entertain and inspire...especially the young among us who dare t...

On Sunday July 12 the Pink Lady Jackie Goldberg and her producer partners Barbara Van Orden and Amanda Blake Secola presented their unique Senior Star Search competition for the very first year 2015 to a sold out crowd at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Barnsdall Park, Hollywood. It was such a re...

I have to admit I had never seen the 2001 MGM movie, Legally Blonde before seeing LEGALLY BLONDE The Musical at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica. And I am happy to say it is great fun for all ages in every aspect from the effervescent musical numbers presented by the remarkably energetic c...

To those newer generation theatre and movie fans who do not remember 1952's blockbuster hit film Singin' in the Rain, directors Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green and costars Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds all contributed to making it the smash tha...

Adam & Eve and Steve/written by Chandler Warren/musical composer: Wayne Moore/directed by Ronnie MarmoTheatre 68 at/NoHo Arts Center/through August 30 A humorous take on the biblical version of creation as told through the rantings of dueling Beelzebug and God is the award-winning world premier...

The west coast premiere of Aditi Brennan Kapil's Shiv receives a simply gorgeous mounting at the Theatre @ Boston Court. Amazing just how far, with the proper elements, your imagination will allow you to go....

Sandra Tsing Loh grabs her predominantly female audience by the hair (and their accompanying males by their balls) as she commandeers all in her hilarious 70-minute non-stop, continuous stream of consciousness on menopause, better known as The Bitch is Back: An All-Too Intimate Conversation....

All creative components align perfectly in Mike Kindle's Stanley Ann with the primary ingredient of this engrossing one-woman show - the luminous Ann Noble! Using her expressive face, her excellent line readings and her naturalistic miming; Noble allows the audience to actually see all the other cha...

Seeing a play where Shakespeare's unfortunate characters escape the city and seek refuge in the Forest of Arden is even more enjoyable when experienced in the idyllic setting of Theatricum Botanicum's natural outdoor theater. Every time I go, I am reminded what an oasis it is in a city overwhelmed w...

VITAMIN Q, a revue comprised of musical numbers by Eric Lane Barnes, now appearing at Desert Rose Playhouse, is hilariously funny and appropriate for gay-friendly audiences from teenagers on up....

Playwright Wendy Graf totally deceives in naming her world premiere All American Girl. A much more appropriate and honest title would have been Anti-American Girl. All should run from this as fast as the main character did after she planted both bombs....

Oscar Quintero 'nails it' again with his alter ego Kay Sedia in his non-stop, laugh-inducing, thigh-slapping seventy minutes, Kay Sedia in Her Juan Woman Cho: Taco Kisses. Your laugh muscles, whistling lips and clapping palms will definitely get quite a workout experiencing Kay Sedia's Taco Kisses....

The brilliantly creative mind of Michael Keith Allen has worked wonders with a new re-telling of Shakespeare's MACBETH at the Art of Acting Studio by setting the tragedy in a postmodern Scotland where street thugs battle for leadership as well as territory, while cutting the run time to 90 minutes a...

From Cabaret to Chicago, the non-stop hit-parade features unforgettable gems including 'Mr. Cellophane,' 'Maybe this Time,' 'Cabaret' and 'New York, New York', all seamlessly interwoven into a passionate, harmonious, up-tempo evening of musical theatre now onstage at Theatre Palisades, directed and ...

On Sunday June 28, actress/singer Candi Milo brought her one.of.a.kind comedic cabaret to Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal and boy, oh boy, is she funny. 'How funny?' you may query. This little lady grew up in a mental institution - well, her father ran one in their home, so she was exposed to cra...

Neil Koenigsberg' Off the King's Road vividly illustrates the need for patience in dealing with your elders. The talented Tom Bower tackles the challenge of embodying a now single, unapologetic man going through his mundane everyday routines while grappling with continuing life alone without Betty, ...

William Inge's Pulitzer-Prize-winning Picnic depicting a small Kansas town in 1952, its strict code of morality and the inner longings of its people to break away, is perhaps his finest. Now in a stunning production at Antaeus directed ever so lovingly by Cameron Watson and boasting a superlative ...

The wondrous production at the Odyssey Theater begins the moment you walk into the misty other-worldly atmospheric set designed by Keith Mitchell which, along with the dome and water well, has the blind soothsayer Tiresias perched in a woven swing hanging just above the entrance. A large, clear glas...

William Inge's 1953 Pulitzer Prize winner Picnic certainly holds up quite well in Antaeus Theatre Company's expert and streamlined production. Cameron Watson directs his talented cast without any extraneous beats, moments, or gestures. Every little detail quite essential and integral to Inge's tale ...

Certainly most of us have wanted to follow a band around and be a part of their backstage antics when we were young enough to have the energy to do so. In The Load In at 3 Clubs during the Hollywood Fringe Festival, it is quite a thrill to be in on the action of watching The Wax Robots load in for a...

As part of season 36, GMCLA (Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles) outdid themselves in the presentation of their summer show Vegas, Baby! the weekend of June 20-21 at the Alex Theatre, Glendale. It was a fun, fun production like those of yesteryear, which featured much more than just the group's sin...