Friday, January 15, 2016
THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT IS When the meek and paranoid everyman Winston Smith scribbles “Down with Big Brother” in his journal, he soon blossoms into a determined and impassi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:50PM[SHARE]Saturday, December 19, 2015
WHAT/EVER Saved from total disregard by a libretto that occasionally manages to engage with humor and knowingness, this brave attempt to examine the subject of fate versus choice utterly fai…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:05PM[SHARE]CROSSFIRE Between religious zealots, especially those who use the word of God to control the populace rather than to create peace, and the liberation of a new world"gay marriage, Roe v. Wade…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:05PM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 15, 2015
ME SO FELIZ A friend mentioned that three comediennes–a Cuban American from Miami, a Mexican American from Texas, and the daughter of an “over-dedicated Mexican mother and …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:14PM[SHARE]Sunday, November 29, 2015
APOLLO EARTHBOUND; SHOSTAKOVICH SOARS Rollicking, mysterious, and adventurous may be attributes of Britten’s Young Apollo,but these adjectives also describe the outcome, respecti…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:13AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 17, 2015
DO I FEAR A WALTZ? Musicals are generally "lost" for any one of a number of reasons: the libretto may be filled with once topical socio-political humor now meaningless to contemporary audien…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:22AM[SHARE]Monday, November 16, 2015
IF STORYTELLING’S YOUR THING, SKIP SCOTCH French poet and essayist Charles Pierre Péguy wrote, “It is the essence of genius to make use of the simplest ideas.” Yuval Sharo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:20PM[SHARE]Monday, November 9, 2015
FALLING IN LOVE WITH LAUGHS AND LEAPS Sadly a review of record, but this experimental, eclectic mash-up from Chicago looks to have a life beyond its short runs in the cities of wind and ange…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:24AM[SHARE]Sunday, November 1, 2015
HOW BROWN WAS MY VALLEY? The San Fernando Valley has always creeped me out. My family moved from Anaheim to Canoga Park (now West Hills) in 1971 (two weeks before the earthquake, thank you).…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:40PM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 28, 2015
NEED TO KNOW MORE Since moving into my six-unit apartment eight months ago, I have encountered the loveliest neighbors a man could hope for. But just two weeks ago, a tall, gangly, middle…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:00PM[SHARE]Monday, October 26, 2015
THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN OPERA IS HERE I shudder when the time comes to see a "New American Opera." The majority of new works are frustratingly inaccessible. Instead of reinventing opera, most…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:02PM[SHARE]SHORT ON WICKED; SHORTER ON LIT While Knott's Scary Farm has been doing it for decades with its haunted mazes, interactive theater is gaining ground nationwide as a way to address dwindling …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:14AM[SHARE]Sunday, October 25, 2015
GOD HE’S GOOD A belated but welcome revue, Sondheim on Sondheim offers both songs and personal musings from one of Broadway’s best composer/lyricists. This inside look is rich wi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:55PM[SHARE]Friday, October 23, 2015
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE ALIVE AND WELL AND WAITING FOR GODOT Rajiv Joseph's surprisingly complex and touching two-hander concerns a couple of guards assigned to stand watch at the w…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:28PM[SHARE]Thursday, October 22, 2015
COME YE TO THE FAIR…LADY, THAT IS I'm rather certain one cannot visit enough productions of My Fair Lady. The 1956 musical, based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, tells the tale …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:48PM[SHARE]Monday, October 19, 2015
HOT DOG SUCKING AHEAD You know, it’s funny, I was asking a friend just the other day if he knows of any show in town which has a guy sucking on a hot dog. And it would be great if it w…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:34AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 15, 2015
TWYLA'S TWILIGHT While most American dance companies go on tour with a "best of" program, Twyla Tharp has refreshingly opted to offer two world premieres for her 50th Anniversary Tour, seen …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:32PM[SHARE]MARIINSKY BALLET &Â ORCHESTRA DOUBLE DOSE Russia's Mariinsky Ballet, one of the world's most influential and historically rich dance companies, returns to Segerstrom Center for the Art…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:32PM[SHARE]WATCH WHAT UNFOLDS AND BE STUNNED In DIAVOLO's dance/text hybrid piece Transit Space, author Steve Connell writes, "The only way to get there is to go." The same can be said for what is argu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:32PM[SHARE]A TREASURE TROVATORE There's nothing subtle about Verdi's ambitiously conceived Il Trovatore (The Troubadour). And David McVicar's grandly realized, dark and hellish version will be shown in…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:32PM[SHARE]GET CARRIE’D AWAY The key words in the title Carrie: The Killer Musical Experience are Killer Experience. Director Brady Schwind has taken a forever-troubled musical based on sou…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:52AM[SHARE]VON TOURIST TRAPP The original stage version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music was such a crowd pleaser that many are surprised to learn the 1959 Mary Martin vehicle received v…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:52AM[SHARE]OOH LA LA FOR LA CAGE AUX FOLLES If any gay activist ever derides this delightful musical, they would do well to remember just how radical La Cage aux Folles was when it hit Broadway in 1983…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:52AM[SHARE]SUNNY AND SCARE You think theater in Los Angeles can be frightening? Well, here's entertainment that's intentionally soulless. "It's so funny, you'll laugh your head off" takes on a whole ne…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:52AM[SHARE]Monday, September 28, 2015
ONE SKETCH, TWO STYLES When the National Theatre of Great Britain produced One Man, Two Guvnors, playwright Richard Bean's 2011 update of Carlo Goldoni's 18th Century comedy, The Servant of …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:59PM[SHARE]A RARE TREAT SERVED PIPING HOT The Stephen Schwartz/Joseph Stein musical The Baker's Wife never made it to Broadway. The musical folded in Washington. D.C. in 1976 before reaching New York C…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:59PM[SHARE]SLIDE INTO THE OLD DISNEYLAND My first visit to Disneyland was 1964, and I still remember many attractions from that day which will be covered when pop culture humorist and author Charles Ph…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:53PM[SHARE]SCHOOLED BY CALLAS If you've ever been to a master class, then Terrence McNally's Master Class (1995) will seem very familiar. If you haven't, then you're in for a real eye-opener. A master …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:53PM[SHARE]GANGSTER MUSICAL You've seen the movie, you've seen the car, now see the musical. Meet the most famous robbing, murdering, loving couple in U.S. history. From their first meeting at a West T…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:53PM[SHARE]Thursday, September 10, 2015
RETURN OF A SMART IDIOT It’s always satisfying to see a show that really works get a remount. DOMA, which presented the best version I have ever seen of Green Day’s American I…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:05PM[SHARE]BORDERING ON TRAGEDY There is a lot to like about playwright Luis Alfaro's Mojada, a modern retelling of Medea which sets the main character as an undocumented immigrant and seamstress in th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:05PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
