Sunday, April 13, 2014
NEW YORK — Only a fool would second-guess the transformative power of Audra McDonald, but when it was announced that this five-time Tony Award-winner was going to portray Billie Holida…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:14PMNEW YORK — Only a fool would second-guess the transformative power of Audra McDonald, but when it was announced that this five-time Tony Award-winner was going to portray Billie Holiday in…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:14PMSaturday, April 12, 2014
Critic's Notebook: Plays based on history are big this year. England has adaptations of Hilary Mantel's Henry VIII novels; we have the LBJ play 'All the Way.' In them, we see parallels to th…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:00PMCritic's Notebook: Plays based on history are big this year. England has adaptations of Hilary Mantel's Henry VIII novels; we have the LBJ play 'All the Way.' In them, we see parallels to th…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:00PMThursday, April 10, 2014
A flashy adaptation of Woody Allen's 1994 film 'Bullets Over Broadway' illuminates the stage, yet the singing, acting and writing seem out of whack.NEW YORK — "Don't speak! Don't speak…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:05PMTheater Review: Dazzling production overwhelms Shakespeare's poetry even as extraordinary music vainly seeks to unify story and spectacle.LAS VEGAS — Telling friends that you're headin…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AMMonday, April 7, 2014
Excellent writing, fine acting and a touch of neurosis add sparkle to the stark facts of life in an Idaho retirement home.If the producers of the HBO series "Getting On" go to Costa Mesa to …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:15PMSaturday, April 5, 2014
Despite some horseplay excess, Handspring Puppet Company works wonders in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' at the Broad Stage.While a Punch and Judy version of "The Taming of the Shrew" has possibi…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:30AMMonday, March 24, 2014
Old-fashioned grace and signature wit embellish a drama that grapples candidly with the costs of repression. Accustomed to living glamorously in the spotlight, Noël Coward conducted his pri…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:25PMSaturday, March 22, 2014
Critic's Notebook: Inflammatory nature of a statutory rape plot in 'Firemen' is fueled by a lack of moral outrage, yet an excellent cast provides insight and honesty."The aim of the poet is …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:00AMThursday, March 20, 2014
Caryl Churchill's bracing modern classic 'Top Girls' — which involves a fanciful meeting of strong women from throughout history — is given a spot-on production by the Antaeus Co…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AMTuesday, March 18, 2014
Theater Review: Three high school buddies back together after 25 years hit all the genre buttons, but the cast sets the dramatic pulse.The cooler of beer in the bland, budget motel room sett…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMFriday, March 14, 2014
Spring theater highlights include 'A Song at Twilight,' 'Rest' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'Shakespeare with puppets, a legendary director still breaking ground in his 80s, and a couple o…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:15AMAn unwieldy mix of geopolitical suspense and domestic turmoil trips up Wendy Graf's 'Closely Related Keys,' having its world premiere at the Lounge Theatre.Julia, the protagonist of Wendy Gr…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:30AMThursday, March 13, 2014
Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's 'Harmony,' about the Comedian Harmonists, returns retooled at the Ahmanson. The music is beautiful, but the rest is derivative and plays it too safe.A show …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:53PMFriday, February 28, 2014
At Walt Disney Concert Hall, the TchaikovskyFest received some starry theatrical enhancement Wednesday under the direction of actress Kate Burton.
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:30AMTuesday, February 25, 2014
Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad Akhtar's latest drama ignites a clash of tradition and assimilation through superb acting but uneven structure.The conflict between tradition and assimilation has …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AMThursday, February 20, 2014
Kneehigh works its own stylized charm on 'Noël Coward's Brief Encounter' at the Wallis Annenberg Center.Some of you, upon hearing that "Brief Encounter" has been adapted to the stage, will …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:50PMWednesday, February 19, 2014
Director Barry Edelstein takes chances with a tricky Shakespeare text. The result — 'The Winter's Tale' at the Old Globe — is a happy ending all around.SAN DIEGO — The diff…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:15AMFriday, February 14, 2014
Backstage: Artistic director Barry Edelstein hopes to reshape the Old Globe's Summer Shakespeare Festival into a national center for the best in American Shakespeare. And he has the bona fid…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:00PMTuesday, February 11, 2014
Theater Review: Chekhov's despair and dashed dreams have never been so hilarious as in Christopher Durang's giddy farce 'Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.'Rarely has middle-aged despair o…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:30AMThursday, February 6, 2014
Former newspaper reporter Bernard Weinraub's heavy-handed 'Above the Fold' lacks balance, an element crucial in both journalism and the dramatic arts."Above the Fold," the title of former Ne…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:09PMTuesday, February 4, 2014
Adam Guettel's music is the essence of 'The Light in the Piazza.' Performed by just five musicians, the score doesn't have Broadway heft. But director Kent Nicholson focuses in on the drama …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:30AMMonday, February 3, 2014
Laura Marks' play, concerning squatters in a foreclosed house, features plot points that defy common sense, and the production compounds the problem — though the characterizations most…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:05PMAs a theater actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman commanded a pile-driving force. He didn’t start softly and build. He came out of the blocks in a fury and steadily ratcheted up to an apoplec…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 03:00PMThursday, January 30, 2014
Sarah Ruhl's 'Passion Play' at the Odyssey Theatre is a bit unwieldy and long, but boldly imaginative and ambitious.Right at the start of Sarah Ruhl's "Passion Play," now at the Odyssey Thea…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:30AMTuesday, January 28, 2014
Octavio Solis' new play might get you thinking about a lot of 20th century writers, but the nightmarish 'Se Llama Cristina' — at Theatre @ Boston Court — can't speak for itself.I…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 11:00AMThursday, January 23, 2014
The skilled Shakespeare interpreter and film star Christopher Plummer roams a lifetime devoted to books in the elegant one-man stage show 'A Word or Two.'If you've ever said to yourself afte…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:30PMWednesday, January 22, 2014
Critic's Notebook: For plays with a refreshing otherworldliness, there's nothing quite like the recent L.A. productions of 'The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart' and 'Penny Plain.'Playwrigh…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:30AMWednesday, January 15, 2014
In 'I'll Go On,' Barry McGovern performs well chosen excerpts from three Samuel Beckett novels. He is a superb interpreter, but these morsels leave the listener wanting to taste more.Irish a…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:00AMMonday, January 13, 2014
Zoe Kazan's play, starring Aya Cash and Michael Weston at South Coast Repertory, wrestles honestly with the fiction of happy endings, but the dramatic stakes are small. "Trudy and Max in Lov…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:05PM 
