LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Too damn funny! How generous of co-writers Jamie Franta and Don Colliver to spread the abundance of laughs and good bits around to their entire cast. Each one of the talented troupe achieves their moment to shine in their deserved spotlights....

No surprise that the little musical comedy with a big bang, Murder for Two by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair took off-Broadway by storm in 2013! Described as 'a musical comedy with a dash of Agatha Christie', it actually defies classification. Yes, it has music and a murder mystery plot and is scre...

It's difficult for any production to take on Shakespeare, especially such a beloved classic as Romeo & Juliet, but 'Love Is A Battlefield' is more than up to the challenge....

Let's first get this very necessary accolade out of the way: South Coast Repertory's brand new production of Rick Elice's PETER AND THE STARCATCHER is, hands down, one of the most enjoyable, most thrilling, and most engagingly imaginative plays I have seen all season---a fitting capper to the Tony A...

This very black comedy, The Idiot Box written by Michael Elyanow completely went over this critic's head as laughter never escaped from his mouth. (OK, maybe once.) Scenes in which the actors obviously went for the laughs, punctuated by the cheesy canned laughtracks fell flat. However, scenes played...

The play Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind, which was written in Germany in the late 19th century was censored for a time due to its frank portrayal of masturbation, abortion, homosexuality, rape, child abuse and suicide. Exposing the rocky sexual coming of age of a group of teenagers, its helter-s...

As traveling salesman Willy Loman's fears of failure envelope him, his wife Linda's unwavering love and support never falter, even as the disillusionment of their sons Happy and Biff send the family into an emotional tailspin. As Willy sinks deeper into schizophrenia, his ongoing delusions and hall...

Martin Thompson directs Rupert Holmes' intriguing murder mystery ACCOMPLICE at Theater 40 with reverence to actors and what they go through to put on a play as well as to put up with each other. The first act seems like a fairly normal British offering with four characters all seemingly trying to o...

John Douglas Thompson gives a tour de force multiple-character solo performance in SATCHMO AT THE WALDORF at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. It is easy to see why the New York Times described Thompson as one of the most compelling classical stage actors of his generation after ...

On Saturday May 23 actor/singer Bill A. Jones, known to thousands of cheering fans as Rod Remington of Fox TV's Glee, brought his one-man show Frank, Bobby & Me to the E-Spot Lounge at Vitello's in Studio City. This man is not only handsome with an affable charm onstage, but can truly sing thes...

When Violet first premiered off-Broadway in 1997, it created a stir winning two prizes for Best Musical but didn't make waves until 2014 when it transferred to Broadway in an all new production starring Sutton Foster. It heartfully tells the story of a disfigured girl from Spruce Pine, North Carol...

A sexy cast of beautiful people inhabits Green Day's punk rock opera American Idiot, in a ferocious glory|struck production that opened last weekend at The Vortex. Directors Topher Rhys and Jen Oundjian (who also choreographs) take full advantage of the concert venue space and go for a panoramic exp...

It is refreshing in this day and age to see an attempt to create a new musical. With few exceptions, it appears to be a dying art. If not, we would not be witnessing a raft of old steady revivals on Broadway, off-Broadway and in regional venues across the globe. Doug Haverty and Adryan Russ, no stra...

On Sunday May 17 at Catalina Jazz Club renowned actress/singer Michele Lee made her Los Angeles cabaret debut. Why has it taken this long? She takes her one-woman show Catch the Light on the road regularly and recently played 54 Below in NYC, but has never played a club in her hometown of LA. We...

For many, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie remains his finest play. Semi-autobiographical, the play takes place in St. Louis during the Depression and depicts the relationships between a restless alcoholic factory worker, wannabe writer, his overbearing mother and his psychologically defici...

Tim Rice's & Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita has had a thirty-seven year international love affair with the public since it premiered in 1978 in London and in 1979 on Broadway. The latest local reincarnation currently at Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, Claremont until June 28 is lovingly directe...

A safe, inoffensive, cutesy crowd-pleaser for the young and the young-at-heart, the brand new non-Equity touring revival of the Broadway classic ANNIE is eager to please and pretty much does so. The show is, by all accounts, a cute if standard-issue charmer, filled with hummable ear-worm music (via ...

In the Los Angeles premiere of I See You Made an Effort; Annabelle Gurwitch adeptly performs excerpts from her bestselling  book of the same title. Gurwitch possesses a charismatic stage presence while definitively in control of her own storytelling. The main theme of her book/play revolves around ...

The world premiere of Go Figure! The Randy Gardner Story receives a not quite taut mounting in its initial outing at the NoHo Arts Center. Director Josh Ravetch, who co-wrote this with Gardner, allows his star to proceed with his biographical tales, some quite riveting, some very candid, at his own ...

East West Players has done it again with their spectacular production of The Who's Tommy. With an incredible band, vibrant vocals from the entire cast and stunning visuals, this 'little' theatre easily matches and betters many larger house productions. ...

It's been 50 years since Neil Simon wrote The Odd Couple, perhaps the most famous of his early plays. March, 1965. I was a freshman in college, and little did I know that one day I would play Felix Unger in a local production onstage. Needless to say, I was certainly smitten with the crazed charact...

The beauty of this revue is that it can be done in whatever style chosen by the director, either as just a collection of show tunes or songs interconnected to tell a story of how love makes the world go 'round. The current production at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, directed by Fred Helsel ...

For those who like their black comedy extremely black, The House of Yes just might be the perfect show for you! The House of Yes' ideal for those with the combined acquired taste for incest, mental illness, and unsympathetic characters....

Groundlings Kung Fu Battle Island, the latest in The Groundlings' continued, well-oiled, laugh-filled Friday & Saturday night shows, just keeps the fine-tuned physical comedy and the hysterical jokes flowing....

Farce is a very difficult type of comedy to do well. It takes the ability of actors to present real characters in outrageously unreal situations so that we care about what happens to them. Just using over-the-top mannerisms and loud vocalizations does not accomplish this, and what you wind up seei...