Monday, October 29, 2018
IMAGINATIVE PHANTASMAGORIA DOESN’T PLUMB THE DEPTHS OF PLUMMER’S HISTORY One of the most bemusing, bewildering affairs in recent memory, Señor Plummer's Final Fiesta is an inc…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:49PM[SHARE]Friday, October 26, 2018
CREEPY FUN, BUT NOT AS BLACK AS IT COULD BE Pasadena Playhouse's production of The Woman in Black is a delicious, handcrafted thriller of the classic style, at once dingy and disturbing. …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:58PM[SHARE]GOING, GOING, VIETGONE Prior to last night's L.A. premiere of Vietgone, the actor playing playwright Qui Nguyen tells us that his 2015 play is about his parents (“who this play is abso…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:50PM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 23, 2018
A SHOW FOR FOREVER That songwriters and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul — critical darlings for La La Land (film), Dogfight (Off-Broadway), and A Christmas Story (Broadwa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:22PM[SHARE]Thursday, October 4, 2018
HERE’S SOME GOOD NOOSE FOR YOU Amid the jukebox musicals and feel-good issue plays of the moment, thank the macabre heavens for two grippingly disturbing entertainments. The first is E…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:52PM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 3, 2018
IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS If anyone should dislike the confrontational and cynical aspects of Echo Theatre’s knockout L.A. premiere of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Gloria, I assert it…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:57AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 26, 2018
THE PUZZLE BOX OF THE SOUL Sharr White's riveting and affective play, The Other Side, concerns Juliana, a neurologist and holder of a billion-dollar patent, whose life suddenly starts crumbl…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:38PM[SHARE]Saturday, September 22, 2018
A SURE(GUN)FIRE HIT The team of Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow, the most famous robbing, murdering, loving couple in U.S. history, is as unlikely a subject for a musical a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:43PM[SHARE]FECKIN’ GREAT While the horror and suspense aren't as palpable as previous productions of The Beauty Queen of Leenane — Martin McDonagh's 1996 black comedy — the dark humor…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM[SHARE]Thursday, September 20, 2018
JAZZ, GENIUS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS Wynton Marsalis's wildly enjoyable composition, a new dance suite called Spaces, combines modern dance with big band jazz in a playful and entirely …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:26AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 19, 2018
AN EARNEST HEART THAT SHAKES, THROBS, PALPITATES & FLATLINES For all of its sincere heart and driving rock ‘n’ roll, this new jukebox musical inspired by Huey Lewis and the N…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:52PM[SHARE]Monday, September 17, 2018
MORE THAN BROADWAY, THIS PRODUCTION IS MORE INTIMATE WITH MORE HEART AND MORE FUN Wise and warm, funny and tender, this 100-minute family memory-play musical charts the twisted courses of a …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:26PM[SHARE]Thursday, September 6, 2018
THE WORLD IS FLAT Musical revues are a tricky business. While highly enjoyable and entertaining, even high profile compilations such as Side by Side by Sondheim and the Fats Waller son…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:45AM[SHARE]Monday, August 20, 2018
AND NOW, WITH FURTHER ADO… Not only is it one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, but Much Ado About Nothing contains a favorite character: Dogberry. This bumbling constable arrives…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:17PM[SHARE]Saturday, August 18, 2018
A STORY OF IMPORTANCE Unlike manipulative Broadway machines such as Priscilla and Kinky Boots, which shove issues down our throats, the societal consequences for a homosexual in …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:14PM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 15, 2018
LOOKING FOR PROOF Proofreading: It may be a lost art. As an editor, I have become accustomed to scanning copy everywhere for mistakes, either in grammar or with facts. But lately, the effect…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:26AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 8, 2018
WORD FOR WORD’S PERSONAL VICTORY LAP MAY BE THE BEST DEEP KISS YOU’VE EVER HAD San Francisco's Word for Word has been transforming classic and contemporary fiction into amazing t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:31PM[SHARE]Sunday, August 5, 2018
THE GLOBE MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A WALK IN THE PARK Barefoot in the Park, Neil Simon's second Broadway hit after Come Blow Your Horn, played a staggering 1,530 performances in its initial run, w…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:20AM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 31, 2018
SHE'S BA-A-A-ACK For those who think the sun won’t come up until 2020, here comes another Annie, that 1977 optimistic spitfire of a musical — based on the Harold Gray comic st…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:32PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 26, 2018
ITCHING TO BE SWITCHING ROLES Burt Grinstead and Anna Stromberg's take on Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde switches between comedic farce and serious scen…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:11PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 24, 2018
PUMP GETS YOU PUMPED This invigorating, modest little 1980 musical was nominated for both a Tony and Drama Desk Award for Best Musical in 1982. It may seem commonplace now thanks to John Doy…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:16PM[SHARE]Friday, July 20, 2018
WE NEVER STOP CRYING IT OUT The term “cry it out” refers to the practice of letting babies bawl until their fit subsides without parents coddling and mollifying them; assumedly t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:16PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 11, 2018
FRIED, STEWED OR BROILED, THIS FISH WILL NEVER TASTE GOOD So here’s what baffles me: A show which is middling at best is suddenly showing up at regional, community and high school thea…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:11PM[SHARE]DANCE DELIRIUM As jukebox musicals go, the rags-to-riches bio On Your Feet! definitely earns its exclamation point. No question, the upbeat tunes, with their irresistible Cuban-fusi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:30PM[SHARE]Monday, July 2, 2018
THE MONTALBÃN MIXES MOVIES, MINGLING AND MERRY MASTICATING Always fun, outdoor cinema hits the summer ether like the smell of fresh cut grass and smoked meat (or is that fresh cut meat an…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:01PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 28, 2018
BETTER THAN FAIR As musical revivals went from a few nostalgic productions in the 1970s to the ubiquity of resurrections we see today — both from the Golden Age (Porter, Rodgers and Ha…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:24AM[SHARE]Saturday, June 23, 2018
SWEETER THE SECOND TIME AROUND It's like kicking a puppy dog to dislike Charity Hope Valentine. Charity is the heroine of the 1966 musical Sweet Charity — a strange amalgam of high hop…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:42PM[SHARE]Friday, June 22, 2018
ALL TOO HUMAN Stephen Karam's remarkable Tony-winning play The Humans — which is winding up its national tour at the Ahmanson with members of the Broadway production — …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:35PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 21, 2018
DON’T LET THIS PARADE PASS YOU BY With no intentions of reviewing, I attended 3-D Theatricals’ astounding rendition of Parade, bookwriter Alfred Uhry and composer/lyricist Jas…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:40PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 20, 2018
ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH Eugene O'Neill twice turned his troubled youth into all-absorbing drama. His family first appeared as a happy tangle of eccentric loved ones in Ah, Wilderness!, a h…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:17PM[SHARE]Monday, June 18, 2018
ON CONFORMING AND CHRIST Ah, what better fodder for drama is there than the dysfunctional American family? You know the ingredients: accusations hurled back and forth by the walking wounded;…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:06PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
