Sunday, December 30, 2012
Sometimes in life, it's the last Christmas present we open that makes up for all the lousy ones we unwrapped before. In what is truly the most dismal season of holiday-themed shows, I…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:53PM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 19, 2012
LET’S BE FRANK The dictionary has two main definitions for the word "bash": One is "a thoroughly enjoyable, lively party," which is undoubtedly what the producers of Christmas My Way "…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 15, 2012
ALEXANDER THE GREAT…CHARMER, THAT IS When I first heard Cortés Alexander sing in 1992, he wasn't alone. He was part of a group named The Tonics, and they performed a jazzy rendition o…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:57PM[SHARE]Friday, December 14, 2012
STUCK IN THE DESERT Don't the powers that be at Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum understand that casting is roughly 80% of a play's success? Don't they understand that any play, includi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:30PM[SHARE]Saturday, December 8, 2012
BOB'S HOLIDAY OFFICE FIASCO Bob's Holiday Office Party, now in its 17th season, is basically a fifteen-minute Carol Burnett Show-type sketch stretched out to about 100 minutes. And unless a …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:52PM[SHARE]RECIPE FOR A CHRISTMAS STEW I sent this recipe to a friend, who will let us know how this Christmas Stew turned out: This is a family favorite, cooked up every holiday season. There are a lo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:21PM[SHARE]Sunday, December 2, 2012
SECOND CITY OFFERS A LUMP OF COAL Scene 1"INTERIOR OF SPOOGE AND FARLEY'S CRITIC HOUSE (EVERWHEEZER SPOOGE, an irascible, irritated editor-in-chief and theater critic, is hunched over his la…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:52PM[SHARE]Saturday, December 1, 2012
LAMC SHINES IN A HISTORICALLY INFORMED PERFORMANCE OF MONTEVERDI'S VESPERS OF 1610 After Los Angeles Master Chorale's (LAMC) astoundingly successful performance of Claudio Monteverdi's Vespe…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:50AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 27, 2012
BEST TO LOOK AT THE QUILT AS A WHOLE, NOT THE INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS Intimate Apparel is a delicate but persuasive play about Esther (Vanessa Williams), a gifted black seamstress in 1905 who be…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:12PM[SHARE]Monday, November 26, 2012
GREAT F. SCOTT! REDCAT'S GOT GATZ A phenomenon is arriving at the Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theatre (REDCAT) this week in Los Angeles. I promise that once its 9-performance run is over on…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:58AM[SHARE]Sunday, November 25, 2012
CHRISTMAS ISLAND With the superfluity of Christmas-themed theater descending upon America like a Biblical plague, there is one play which is opening this week that has intrigued and even exc…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:44PM[SHARE]Friday, November 23, 2012
CALL ME SLACKJAWED It's amazing what critics and audiences alike are willing to forgive when they're in the presence of a true star. Regardless of some bouncy and hummable Irving Berlin tune…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:41PM[SHARE]Saturday, November 17, 2012
AN OPENING NIGHT SURPRISE It's one of those instances that may just be talked about in the San Francisco opera circle for years to come. In Act One of Puccini's Tosca (1900) at San Francisco…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:17PM[SHARE]Thursday, November 15, 2012
AÂ DREAMY BEDTIME STORY Theater critics often speak of "universal themes" in the theater"these are topics to which people in any place and at any time can relate. One of the main reasons t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:36PM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 14, 2012
THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHER WAY When Anna Ziegler's world premiere play Another Way Home began, it seemed that the thrust of the play would revolve around Joey (Daniel Petzold), a 17-year-old sp…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:37PM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 13, 2012
FAR FROM WILD Thornton Wilder, especially as a playwright, looks to the commonality of all people to demonstrate the value in appreciating life, especially when the death of a loved one is i…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:03PM[SHARE]Friday, November 9, 2012
THE HAT'S JUST KEEP ON COMIN' Billed as the world's longest running musical revue, Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon is a flamboyant, frivolous, and frothy burlesque that takes a jab at p…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:56PM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 7, 2012
AN IMAGINATIVE STORY AND SPECTACULAR VISUALS MAKE UP FOR CALCULATED FAMILIARITY It's quite an accomplishment for Disney that the multitude of elements in Wreck-It Ralph don't collapse in on …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:46AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 6, 2012
HOW TO LAUGH AND CRY AND BE UNMOVED AT THE SAME TIME Playwright Bill Cain, after discovering his mother, Mary, had six months to live, moved into the family home in Syracuse, New York. Like …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:35PM[SHARE]Monday, November 5, 2012
AN AUGUST PROJECT In many ways, playwright August Strindberg's influence in the theater has been far more significant than his public reception. While theater historians and scholars speak o…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:26AM[SHARE]Saturday, November 3, 2012
THAT’S AMORE I hope San Franciscans actually know how advantaged they are to have a company like 42nd Street Moon, which presents fully staged productions of rarely-seen musicals. Whil…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:39PM[SHARE]Friday, November 2, 2012
RED AND BROWNÂ IS THEATRICALÂ GOLD Los Angeles is usually the last major theater city in the states to see productions of playwrights whose works have received praise in their world prem…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:19PM[SHARE]ATTENTION MUST BE PAID Bootleg Theater continues its run of the world premiere of Death of a Salesgirl, an absurdist tragicomedy with integrated media, about one woman's struggle to fr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:11PM[SHARE]Sunday, October 28, 2012
THE MADNESS OF SITE-SPECIFIC THEATER Back in 2010, First Folio presented David Rice's site-specific theater piece, The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe: A Love Story. If any show should be heaped …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:52PM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 24, 2012
I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE TITLE MEANS Every once in a while, a theater company falls in love with a script and simply must stage it. I can't imagine any other reason that Seanachaà decid…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:48PM[SHARE]Monday, October 22, 2012
A DEATH OF FRESH AIR During the height of WWII in Germany, a recently orphaned adolescent girl named Liesel is taken in by a poor couple in The Book Thief, now receiving a world premiere pro…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:33PM[SHARE]Sunday, October 21, 2012
THE DANGERS OF TECHNOLOGY " ON STAGE AND OFF Playwright Jennifer Haley is definitely onto something in her play Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, now receiving its Chicago premiere at Str…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:16AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 17, 2012
AFTERGLOW It's with good reason that Chad Beckim's After has been extended at Profiles Theatre. Yes, Beckim's script undoubtedly tries to cover too much territory as he tells the tale of Mon…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:42PM[SHARE]Friday, October 12, 2012
YOU DEFINITELY WANT TO MEET THESE FEET I was led to believe, based on having seen both the original Broadway version of 42nd Street and the humongous Broadway revival, that the slight jukebo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:09PM[SHARE]Thursday, October 11, 2012
THE LANDSCAPE OF THE SOUL Those who were lucky enough to witness the Joffrey Ballet's Spring Desire program this year were treated to what may well have been the greatest dance program…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:28PM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 10, 2012
A STORY TO TELL Writer/Actress Dael Orlandersmith has many stories to tell in her one-person show at the Goodman, but they all encompass the same theme: abuse. Specifically, involving boys a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:28PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
