Thursday, July 25, 2013
I GET THE PICTURE Pageant of the Masters' The Big Picture is perhaps the most three-dimensional idea from the fertile mind of director Diane Challis Davy. Continuing the 80-year tradition of…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:38AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 24, 2013
THE SHAPE OF THINGS After Bruce Norris's A Parallelogram at the Mark Taper Forum, I overheard a few audience members describe the play has "cute." For all of the play's political incorrectne…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:09PM[SHARE]Friday, July 19, 2013
IT'S TIME FOR A LITTLE HAPPY EVER-AFTERING As San Francisco Playhouse opens a promising and highly anticipated rendition of Camelot this week, I am reminded of T. H. White's The Once and Fut…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:40PM[SHARE]I DO BUT I DON'T With all the adorability, simplicity, cliché and generic tone of a Hallmark Card, I Do! I Do! opened last weekend at the Laguna Playhouse. Starring Broadway stalwarts Davis…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:57AM[SHARE]ALL THE WORLD'S A GLOBE The Old Globe has officially opened the 2013 Shakespeare Festival, now on through September 29. Adrian Noble returns for his fourth and final season as the internatio…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:40AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 14, 2013
IN GOOD COMPANY "It's a revue, but not a revue," Stephen Sondheim said about Company when he was interviewed at Segerstrom last year. This surprised me because the groundbreaking 1970 musica…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM[SHARE]EASE ON DOWN A fascinating phenomenon has occurred recently in the theater world for this critic. Far and away, my favorite theatergoing experiences have been at revivals of musicals, most o…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:58AM[SHARE]Friday, July 5, 2013
IF ONLY IT WENT LIKE THIS MORE OFTEN I can't call Neil LaBute's works timeless, but both his plays and films (In the Company of Men) are a product of our time. As America holds herself to be…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:23PM[SHARE]Monday, June 24, 2013
FOUNTAIN'S FANTASTIC FLAMENCO FIESTA While classic and modern dance seem to be continually reinventing themselves, Flamenco remains a bedrock of the moving arts. As Forever Flamenco! at the …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:24PM[SHARE]Saturday, June 22, 2013
LITTLE MORTAL JUMP TURNS OUT TO BE THE BIGGEST THING OF THE NIGHT The lineup at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion begins with the respected and always impressive Hubbard Street Dance Chicago as …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:16AM[SHARE]Friday, June 21, 2013
PARADISEÂ LILY My fanaticism with Lily Tomlin started with her 1972 comedy album This is a Recording. I immediately felt a kinship with Ernestine Tomlin, Ma Bell's switchboard operator and…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:12PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 20, 2013
MAJESTERIAL MIRREN Although she is a politically neutral monarch, The Queen of England retains the ability to give a weekly audience to a Prime Minister (PM) during his or her term of office…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:30PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 18, 2013
PHALLUS IN BLUNDERLAND Who has been accused of being a Sexual Reprobate? Satirist? Socialist? Philosopher? The precursor to Freudian psychology and existentialism? Woman-hating pornographer?…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:28AM[SHARE]Monday, June 17, 2013
A SHOW OF GREAT IMPORTANCE An anomaly of the Hollywood Fringe Festival has arrived. A gem which alone justifies the Fringe's existence. A nascent troupe named Good People Theater Company is …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:41PM[SHARE]Saturday, June 15, 2013
DON'T COME TO THE CABARET It's the first time I have ever seen someone on stage in flop sweat. Poor Anastasia Barnes had a rough go in her opening of The Ruby Besler Cabaret. One would suppo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:04PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 12, 2013
GIRL, PLEASE! Prior to curtain at Musical Theatre Guild's concert staging of Girl Crazy, we were warned that the Gershwin brothers' 1930 musical was written before "the code" (read: censorsh…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:15PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 11, 2013
BOBBING FOR APPLES While perusing through a Peanuts anthology recently, I found my mind beginning to wander after about 15 panels. Regardless of Schultz' insightful social commentary and uni…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:05PM[SHARE]THE FRUSTRATING LABORS OF A FASCINATING COMPANY It is said that Roman Philosopher and Playwright Seneca's Hercules Furens (c. 54 CE) was never produced but only read in Seneca’s lifeti…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:50AM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 5, 2013
CHICK 'N' SCHTICK THEATER It's no small feat when a play inspires me to do something with my life. While watching Stephen Sachs' Heart Song at the Fountain, I felt compelled to join a Flamen…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:03PM[SHARE]Monday, June 3, 2013
PIXIE DUST TO PIXIE DUST After a funeral many years ago, a group of my buddies all declared their desire to be cremated when the time comes. Shockingly, however, all four of us avowed to hav…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:53PM[SHARE]Sunday, June 2, 2013
AMERICAN TRAGEDY BECOMES MUSICAL COMEDY 1931 was a crossroads in American history. With no economic recovery in sight, the Depression had people edgy, and when Americans are edgy, they are d…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:11AM[SHARE]Thursday, May 23, 2013
FANTASTIC, INDEED Fantasticks may be the longest running musical in America, but Amanda Dehnert's magical production at South Coast Rep should run forever. The backdrop for this timeless won…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:36PM[SHARE]A FRATERNITY OF MASTER THESPIANS At its core, Jeff Stetson's Fraternity is about the two options that face black men in today's society (or, at least, the society of Birmingham in 1987, when…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:02AM[SHARE]Saturday, May 18, 2013
BEDEVILED An off-stage character is tortured by a Salem court in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, a play which dramatizes the Salem witch trials of 1692. As heavy stones are placed upon his che…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:14AM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 15, 2013
NOW THIS YOU GOTTA SEE Of the 32 shows I attended in Chicago recently, the most charming experiences were with four musical revivals, three from Broadway's heyday — the 1930s through t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:16PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 9, 2013
A fascinating phenomenon is occurring in the theater, one which was elucidated by many shows that I saw in Chicago over the past couple of weeks. As the art of playwriting (to wit: storytell…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:34PM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 7, 2013
I REMEMBER THE AMUSEMENT PARK BUT FORGOT WHAT THE RIDE WAS ABOUT The more I think about the Hypocrites' latest theater spectacle, Ivywild, the more entranced I feel about the imaginative pro…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:31PM[SHARE]Sunday, May 5, 2013
CORNOGRAPHY It's been 70 years since Rodgers and Hammerstein ushered in the "golden era" of Broadway musicals with Oklahoma! and some dust has settled on the green corn of the 40s. Well, an …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:58PM[SHARE]Saturday, May 4, 2013
DYING TO DIRECT It turns out that a career as a top literary agent at William Morris and CAA served as a solid stepping-stone for Michael Peretzian's dream job: directing in theater. As an a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:24PM[SHARE]PERFECTED STORIES Ever since Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories premiered at South Coast Rep in 1996, and especially after it hit the Broadway boards starring Linda Lavin in 2010, the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:05PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 30, 2013
LEAVE IT TO CHILDREN’S THEATER TO MAKE THE BIGGEST STATEMENT OF ALL The biggest opening in Chicago last week was the behemoth pre-Broadway spectacle Big Fish, but right across to…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:43PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
