LOS ANGELES THEATER REVIEWS

Priscilla Queen of the Desert the musical/book by Stephan Elliott & Allan Scott/based on the 1994 film distributed by MGM/directed by Simon Philips/Pantages Theatre/through June 16...

Leave it to Kander and Ebb to create The Scottsboro Boys, a monstrously humane musical in the guise of a minstrel show. After all, it's what they are most famous for: taking headline news - the darker, the better - and turning it upside down inside out it with an unexpectedly entertaining structure....

What happens when you cram together the star quality of Barbra, the riffs of Beyonce, Whitney, and Mariah, the sass of Stevie, and the deep, emotional soul of Aretha? You get Broadway star and old-school soul revivalist Shoshana Bean. A gifted powerhouse vocalist, Ms. Bean is one of those entertaine...

In a quite extraordinary way Stephen Sachs' world premiere comedy/drama Heart Song tears down barriers separating life and death across many cultures. There is no finer celebration of the joys and pains of life than performing flamenco dance, which is gut wrenching and intensely theatrical. Boasting...

One of the most stunning, brilliantly-staged productions I've seen in the past few years, Orange County's 3D Theatricals has, once again, outdone itself with its moving, epic-sized revival of Jason Robert Brown's Tony Award-winning musical PARADE. Now playing a limited engagement through May 26 at t...

The Full Monty/book by Terrence McNally/music & lyrics by David Yazbek/choreography by John Vaughan/directed by John LaLonde/Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, Claremont/through June 16...

In Dying City, now in its West Coast premiere at the Rogue Machine Theatre, Christopher Shinn examines the devastating effects of the Iraq War on the American soldiers who participated in it and more urgently on those they left behind. At the core are Kelly (Laurie Okin), the wife of a deceased sold...

As backstage comedies go, Opening Night is not on a par with the farcical Noises Off or with the flamboyant My Favorite Year, but it is a sweet play just the same with uber belly laughs and miles of heart. Now onstage at Theatre 40, a fine cast and steady direction make the play within a play Openin...

Despite having a cast of incredible triple threats, overall, FLASHDANCE: THE MUSICAL---the new, Broadway-bound stage musical based on the popular 80's-era movie of the same name---seems like a well-meant endeavor that needs a serious overhaul in its disjointed execution. The national tour company co...

It is easy to understand why Betty Buckley has been called the 'Voice of Broadway'. To begin, she has an astounding instrument with an incredible range. She can belt out the lyrics from 'Come Back to Me' from On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and then in the next breath bring her voice down to almo...

In 1998 when Jason Robert Brown won a Tony Award for the score of this unusually provocative musical Parade, the opulent Broadway production closed to critical acclaim, but due to excessive costs, the show remained inaccessible until the Donmar Warehouse resurrected it and produced a tight - minus t...

Clare Boothe Luce's satirical classic The Women was a big grossing box-office hit at the movies in 1939....

All of its pieces add up to Shakespeare's Richard III but Zombie Joe's version directed by Denise Devin is certainly an oddball mix. Picture a thin, pale Duke of Gloucester (W. Lochridge O'Bryan) with hollow cheekbones and sunken eyes who looks to be barely out of his twenties, a Lady Anne (Anna Gil...

Chicago/book by Fred Ebb & Bob Fosse/music by John Kander; lyrics by Fred Ebb/directed & choreographed by Ray Limon/Welk Theatre, San Diego/through June 2...

"How this lord is followed!" exclaims a Painter in reference to Timon of Athens early in Act I of the play that bears his name. Director Charles Pasternak interprets the line quite literally by having his throng of greedy hangers-on trail behind Timon as he moves about the stage, billowing en masse ...

I can't help but borrow from the genius of Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse when I affirm it was The Roar of Kritzerland, The Smell of the burgers at the Federal on Sunday May 5 - Cinco de Mayo, no less - as Kritzerland presented its 33rd show in its current home at Sterling's Upstairs at the Fede...

The world premiere adaptation by LaBute of Miss Julie is moment.to.moment chillingly riveting theatre with a brilliant cast of three under the expert direction of Jo Bonney currently at the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater of the Geffen through June 2....

In South Coast Repertory's amusingly naughty World Premiere production of Beau Willimon's THE PARISIAN WOMAN (now playing through May 5), 'Body of Proof' star Dana Delany plays Chloe, a morally ambiguous but undeniably tenacious Washington DC housewife with high political aspirations, especially for...

Currently in its world premiere run at Burbank's Colony Theatre through May 19th, Falling for Make Believe is a 95-minute bio-musical-dramedy chock full Broadway nostalgia, debilitating alcoholism, covert homosexual dalliances and musical fantasy sequences that is often-times bewitching, occasionall...

On Sunday April 28 at Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal, Matt Zarley debuted his new show Broadway to Billboard, celebrating his latest album Change Begins With Me. It won the 2012 OutMusic Award as Best Single and Album of the Year. This guy with his powerhouse voice and delicious, down-to-earth c...

The latest incarnation of the J. M. Barrie classic Peter Pan by Michael Lluberes entitled Peter Pan The Boy Who Hated Mothers, now onstage at the Blank Theatre Company, has stellar production values, including imaginative staging by prolific director Michael Matthews and a delightfully versatile cas...

Playwright Dale Griffiths Stamos is unafraid to delve into the human psyche to search for answers that will perhaps never be found; it makes for a brave new work One White Crow whose deeply human characters with divergent opinions on faith vs. skepticism make us prick up our ears and really listen. ...

Misha Bouvion takes on Shakespeare's epic poem Venus and Adonis in a one-woman theatrical production presented by The New Circle Artists, Saturdays through May 11....

Rumour has it that Coyote Stageworks' current production, which plays through Sunday at The Annenberg Theatre in Palm Springs, is a one of the desert's finest theatrical offerings of the season. I am happy to report - It's all TRU! Coyote Stageworks' founding artistic director, Chuck Yates, stars in...

Annapurna is one of the highest mountain peaks of the Himalayas, considered the most dangerous. Yet that does not stop climbers from risking their lives. Theirs is an extreme form of commitment. Sharr White uses scaling the mountain range as a symbol in his new play Annapurna now at the Odyssey thro...