Sunday, August 7, 2011
THE FANTASY FIZZLES Since 1933, Pageant of the Masters has been a Southern California must-see for tourists and locals alike. The professionalism with which they stage tableaux vivants (l…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:23AM[SHARE]A LIBERTY BELL OF A SHOW STILL RINGS TRUE Strength. Courage. Character. Fortitude. These are traits that have inspired Americans, both in our leaders and in folklore. The 1968 musical 1776, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:49AM[SHARE]THE SAME OLD RHYME I herewith invite you to check out The Troubies (especially those who may call yourselves Newbies). Though their antics are puerile You'll smile for a while With this asso…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, August 6, 2011
MARK ME DOWN AS MILD ABOUT HARRY What's a critic to do when he desperately wishes to support Los Angeles theatre, but also desires to hold theatre to a higher level? During the intermission …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:39PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 28, 2011
I'M IN THE NUDE FOR LOVE The main reason that the Groundlings company remains L.A.'s number one improv training and performance space is their emphasis on character work. When actors come to…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:18PM[SHARE]THANKS FOR THE MEMOIRS If there were an award for "The Best Idea for a Theatrical Entertainment," the winner surely would be Celebrity Autobiography, in which celebrities read the actual mem…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:53PM[SHARE]LOW PLATELETS In his vision of a new translation of Frederico Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding, director Jon Lawrence Rivera offers a diverse cast and updates the original 1933 setting in Spain …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:33PM[SHARE]Sunday, July 24, 2011
A TERRIFIC STORY AND EVEN BETTER MAGIC SHOW; BUT THE TRICK IS BEING ABLE TO SEE IT Suave and debonair Guy Hollingworth is not only a full-time British barrister (specializing in intellectual…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:06AM[SHARE]WHEN GOOD ENOUGH IS NOT ENOUGH The Los Angeles Times needs to be a player on the world stage and therefore assigns Critic-at-Large Charles McNulty to review plays in NYC and London. While th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 17, 2011
HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FESTIVAL REVIEWS 2011 [Editor's Note:Â Our either amazing or insane (you decide) theater correspondent Tony Frankel saw what is believed to be in the area of 40 Fringe sh…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:05AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 16, 2011
THEY'VE GOT MAGIC TO DO It simply cannot be avoided: with Fun Family Festival of Tragedy, L'Enfant Terrible, a startlingly brilliant new theatre company, is poised and ready to take over the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:03PM[SHARE]YOU WILL LIKE IT VERY MUCH INDEED Credit adapter and director Tony Tanner for As You Like It " The Musical; he freely adapted Shakespeare's Forest of Arden comedy into a text that contains t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:37PM[SHARE]A PLAY THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN VISITED IN THE FIRST PLACE I was already angry after the opening of Revisiting Wildfire at the Odyssey Theatre (bad theatre will do that to you) when some wr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:05PM[SHARE]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…
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