Wednesday, May 15, 2019
It’s 44 BC, a bit before the ides of March, and Roman citizens are in the streets singing a cheeky ode to life in the Seven Hills — to the tune of Weezer’s “Beverly Hills.” This ca…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:35PMSniffles in the darkness. They’re a sign of success, right? Yes, but at productions of the 1991 Broadway musical “The Secret Garden,” they’re a backhanded indicator. They come only w…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 03:35PMMonday, May 6, 2019
Taylor Mac knows how to throw down a challenge. Visiting L.A. last year with the music party/drag extravaganzas “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music” and “Holiday Sauce,” the New Yo…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:29PMFriday, April 26, 2019
Notions of family figure into the shows in this week’s 99-Seat Beat up-close look at Los Angeles’ smaller theaters. Families of the traditional, nuclear kind find themselves plunged into…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMTuesday, April 23, 2019
You could call it Cirque du Soleil: The Theater Geek Edition. Known as a theatrical circus for its no-animals, acrobatics-forward, story-framing format, the French-Canadian company has been …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 01:30PMFriday, April 19, 2019
Squeaks of anticipation greet the opening strains of familiar songs at a local revival of the stage musical “Singin’ in the Rain,” adapted from the 1952 MGM movie that keeps Gene Kelly…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:30AMThe first half of the musical “Falsettos” is set in 1979, the second in 1981 — years when Marvin, who leaves his wife and son for a man, was on the wrong side of sodomy laws in a numbe…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:30AMFriday, March 29, 2019
Imagine you’re holding a bar of Wonka’s Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. The name alone promises deliciousness inside. A name’s a powerful thing, especially if it has delivered…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:00AMEven the grandest stories, full of epic adventures, are built of everyday experiences. Mary Zimmerman creates theater magic in much the same way, bringing the world’s foundational tales al…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:30AMCommunity is at the heart of several plays on the 99-Seat Beat, our weekly look at Los Angeles’ stages. Folks support one another through daily challenges in 1968 Boyle Heights, work shoul…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMTuesday, March 5, 2019
“Othello” is an extended free-fall — a national hero’s plunge from widespread acclamation and joyful new marriage to legendary despair. In a gripping new staging for A Noise Within, …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:30AMFriday, March 1, 2019
Call it navel-gazing or, if you’re feeling poetic, peering into the soul’s very depths. At L.A.’s small theaters this weekend, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina does it. So too, in her way, do…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMThursday, February 14, 2019
As Pasadena Playhouse revives “Ragtime,” the theater’s leader wonders whether he’ll receive letters from viewers who believe the piece has been altered. The 1996 show is based on E.L…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AMWednesday, January 23, 2019
How quickly things change. In just four years, it’s become unimaginable that anyone would write a musical about our nation’s founders without giving them a hip-hop beat. But before “Ha…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:25PMFriday, December 14, 2018
Santa Claus, George Bailey and the original winter solstice party boy, Dionysus, have a busy weekend ahead as they entertain L.A. audiences with the seasonal shows “The Year Without a Sant…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMTuesday, December 4, 2018
Rule No. 1 of musical theater is to send ’em out the doors energized. For Musical Theatre West’s staging of “Elf: The Musical,” that means a finale packed with tap-dancing Santa’s …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMMonday, November 5, 2018
History figures prominently at Los Angeles’ smaller theaters this weekend: a slice of L.A.’s past in “Remembering Boyle Heights”; the heated days of the House Un-American Activities …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:55AMFriday, October 12, 2018
Think of them this weekend as mental gymnasiums. In Los Angeles’ smaller theaters you can work out with an injured soldier dreaming of social revolution in “Johnny Got His Gun,” a colo…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMFriday, September 14, 2018
Among the shows playing in Los Angeles’ bustling smaller theaters this week are two Pulitzer Prize drama finalists, one receiving its West Coast premiere, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Glor…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AMFriday, September 7, 2018
As theatergoers surge out the doors of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s three theaters, the air hums with discussions about the just-seen shows. Next morning, conversations are still goin…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AMAs its second presentation, the revived Reprise 2.0 is offering a John Kander-Fred Ebb cabaret. Not their “Cabaret,” mind you. Lowercase cabaret. The show is “The World Goes ‘Round,�…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00AMSunday, August 5, 2018
Like the pie fillings dreamed up by its central character, the 2007 independent movie “Waitress” is made of ingredients that wouldn’t seem to belong together yet combine into something…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 05:25PMFriday, August 3, 2018
Stephen Sondheim — writer of unhummable melodies and cynical lyrics? Or unerring saint of musical theater? In the mid-1970s, opinion often gravitated toward the former. Then “Side by Sid…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:00AMSunday, July 29, 2018
A search for family propels “Annie,” the 1977 Broadway musical inspired by the Depression-era comic strip “Little Orphan Annie.” In a weekend staging at the Hollywood Bowl, that came…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 05:55PMThursday, July 12, 2018
“Fish stories,” we call them — those times when truth gets embellished in a bid to make the ordinary seem more important or exciting. “Big Fish” — the 1998 novel, 2003 movie and …
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:25PMFriday, June 29, 2018
Shakespeare specialist, musical theater star, minor Broadway deity. These are just a few of the attributes we might ascribe to Len Cariou. These days, the 78-year-old, Canada-born actor is a…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 04:18PMFriday, June 15, 2018
Your attention probably has turned to the almost-summer outdoors, but L.A. theater is doing its best to get you off of the sand and into a seat. Consider: the Hollywood Fringe Festival at fu…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMThursday, May 24, 2018
Like its title character, the small-scale musical “Violet” wishes merely to be seen, whole and true. Set in September 1964, the story follows Violet — in her late 20s, her face disfigu…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:45PMFriday, May 18, 2018
Racism, gun violence and rebellion are themes in the L.A. small-theater offerings "The Ballad of Bimini Baths," "Ripe Frenzy" and "Antigone, or We Are Rebels Asking for the Storm."
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMFriday, April 20, 2018
Social justice is a topic in L.A. smaller-theater productions of "Key Change" by Collective Studio: Los Angeles, "Native Son" by Antaeus, "The Immigrant" by Sierra Madre Playhouse and "Enriq…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMMost any week the theater provides a college seminar’s worth of social-justice studies, but the conversations are particularly prevalent now in L.A.’s smaller theaters. This week they lo…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AM 
