Thursday, July 14, 2011
PAST TO THE FUTURE To be honest, I was not a fan of Rogue Artist Ensemble's Hyperbole at [inside] The Ford last year. Their current work, D is for Dog, clearly elucidates what was lacking in…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:54PM[SHARE]IN PRAISE OF LITERATURE Saving the "What is Literature?" and "Are Plays Literature?" arguments for another time, allow me to unequivocally state that there is a starvation for new drama as l…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:38AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 10, 2011
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES Our planet is overpopulated and sick. Wars are raging. People are telecommunicating so rapidly that we are losing the art of communication. Leaders and visionaries a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:26AM[SHARE]Friday, July 8, 2011
THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD BOY YET I couldn't think of a better way to pop my Hollywood Fringe Festival cherry than with Steve Ochs and his solo outing, Life in the Middle Ages, which has right…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:10PM[SHARE]ENTERTAINING, BUT HARDLY INTRUSIVE When Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to an "interloper" in his writings, it was most assuredly with a negative connotation, for in the 1800s an interloper was…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:10PM[SHARE]Friday, July 1, 2011
WHO'S CHEATING WHOM? The spookiest image of Death (with a capital "D") is that of a tall, hooded, scythe-carrying figure. It merely points with bony finger towards that ultimate location to …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:19PM[SHARE]A TWIST OF LEMON Tony, a frantic theatre critic, calls John, his editor, in the middle of the night. John: [sleepy] This better be good. Tony: What's happening to the theatre? [sobbing now] …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:35PM[SHARE]NO TROUBLE HERE I vividly remember the first time I heard William Finn's March of the Falsettos, Adam Guettel's Floyd Collins, Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party, and Jason R…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:47PM[SHARE]THE BEGINNING AND THE END Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years is contextually brilliant: it is a two-character musical that starts at the end of a five year relationship for the woman, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:08PM[SHARE]WORKING WITH WHAT THEY'VE GOT theTRIBE's simplistic production of an updated revision of Working " Stephen Schwartz' soapy musical adaptation of Studs Terkel's book " actually left an emotio…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:45PM[SHARE]Sunday, June 5, 2011
PLENTY OF TALE " VERY LITTLE CITY The much-anticipated Tales of the City just opened at A.C.T. in San Francisco. Although the libretto (by Avenue Q's Jeff Whitty) splices together the first …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:48PM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 25, 2011
WHAT THE FUNK? When giving feedback at High School theatre competitions, adjudicators are reminded to encourage, not discourage young performers: negative criticism, however accurate, may da…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:03PM[SHARE]SHE MAKES IT LOOK EASY With Let Me Down Easy, Anna Deavere Smith's powerful, engrossing and resonant solo outing, you may feel inspired to have a meaningful conversation with friends and fam…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:10PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 19, 2011
BY GEORGE, I THINK THEY'VE GOT IT; THE SCRIPT, HOWEVER… A friend of mine is an Alan Ayckbourn fanatic, owning dozens of the prolific playwright's scripts, yet he can count on one hand the …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:39PM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 18, 2011
HOT AUGUST PLAY NEEDS EVEN MORE HEAT It was impossible not to have any expectations prior to The Old Globe's production of Tracy Letts' Pulitzer Prize and Tony© Award-winning three-act bl…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:54PM[SHARE]Saturday, May 14, 2011
IT'S NOT THE SIZE OF THE PLAY THAT MATTERS Say what you will about Voice Lessons, Justin Tanner's shockingly uproarious one-act play, now receiving an encore presentation at Sacred Fools The…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:21PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 12, 2011
A CRITIC WHO RHYMES? IT'S A SIGN OF GOOD TIMES. I tell you, there's no place that I'd rather be in, than a theatre where actors become Jacobean. A classical company, Antaeus by name, has cre…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:35PM[SHARE]Sunday, May 8, 2011
DISAPPEARANCE ACT After the opening night performance of Fin Kennedy's existential and enigmatic drama How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, someone remarked that, while film is ab…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:26PM[SHARE]Monday, May 2, 2011
MASTERS OF AUTOSCHEDIASM I was so blown away by Impro Theatre's Shakespeare Unscripted that I had to check out Unscripted Rep at the Odyssey, where the inimitable company is having fun in…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:44PM[SHARE]Saturday, April 30, 2011
THE WILD, WILD BRECHTIAN WEST The Chinese Massacre (Annotated), Tom Jacobson's rousing new play, is like a fun day at Disneyland. Jacobson chronicles the 1871 lynching of 18 Chinese men by a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:22PM[SHARE]A SHOW IN HOT WATER The Chance Theater is the best and most enterprising small theatre in Orange County; under the guidance of managing director Casey Long and co-founder and current artisti…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:56AM[SHARE]Friday, April 29, 2011
FOXY TROT There are three reasons to attend Burn the Floor " the heart-pounding Ballroom Dance Sextravaganza now throbbing and thumping on the boards at the Pantages: one, the sexiest bodies…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:15PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 26, 2011
I SING THE THEATRE ELECTRIC Any mental notes I had regarding I Never Sang For My Father at The McCadden Place Theatre disappeared just after curtain call. I was haunted by thoughts of my own…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:46PM[SHARE]Sunday, April 24, 2011
HOW THE HELL DO THEY DO IT? Ah, celebrity. If you think that the headlining of television stars in Broadway musicals is a new phenomenon, check out the action in the early 1960s: brassy redh…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:45PM[SHARE]THE ACTOR AND THE ARTIST: TWO MASTERS AT WORK AND PLAY What a joy it is to watch the Los Angeles Theatre Center roar back to life. Once considered a dodgy neighborhood, the Historic Core has…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:58AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 21, 2011
WHAT AN ABSURD WEEKEND: EXISTENTIALISM 101 You're watching a play but you have no idea what's happening. There is no plot, the dialogue is gobbledygook, and characters are filled with despai…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:40PM[SHARE]NOT SO WILD ABOUT HARRY Real-life gay activist Harry Hay and the West Coast Premiere of The Temperamentals — a play based on his story — have much in common: fascinating but pecu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:46PM[SHARE]Wednesday, April 20, 2011
THE PLAY'S NOT THE ONLY THING Reinterpreting the setting of Shakespeare's plays for modern audiences will always be a subject for debate: purists believe that a play's relevance lies in the …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:45PM[SHARE]AN EVENING OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVENESS It was one of those magical nights in the theatre: a confluence of activism, sterling talent, and magnificent playwriting, made all the more joyous …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:49AM[SHARE]Sunday, April 17, 2011
SHOO SHOO BABY "How do you review The All Night Strut?" my theatre companion asked as we left The Colony Theatre. Well, you don't. This short Cabaret-style evening of songs (culled from the …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:07AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 14, 2011
UNCOMMON GRACE In order to validate his experience of a play, a reviewer should dissect and probe the components of a production, but once in a while a show comes along which catapults the h…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:05AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
