Friday, April 24, 2026
A GEM FINDS ITS VOICE A charming, rarely staged Orff opera gets a smart, scrappy revival Did you know that composer Carl Orff wrote more than Carmina Burana? It’s true. While most audience…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:36PM[SHARE]Saturday, April 4, 2026
EPIC SOURCE, EPIC SCORE, EPIC PRODUCTION An ambitious new opera that struggles to connect its spectacle to a coherent narrative Want to know the quickest way to make me hesitate seeing a new…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:24PM[SHARE]Friday, March 20, 2026
CAN ANYONE SAVE THIS MUSICAL? A committed cast and strong vocals can't overcome a rushed, softened adaptation that drains the story's power In their mission statement, Chromolume Theatre is …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:51PM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 18, 2026
BAD MOOD? BALANCHINE WILL FIX THAT American Contemporary Ballet's twin masterpieces turn live strings into a reset button for the soul Two string duos. Two ballets. Both pairs similar in str…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:50AM[SHARE]Sunday, March 1, 2026
FOR SOME, MAYBE " FOR OTHERS, A CHORE An exhausting exercise in enforced fun and emotional emptiness (Seated) Felix (Jimin Moon), Noah (Matthew Scott Montgomery, (on floor) Kobe (Calvin Seab…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:00AM[SHARE]Monday, February 2, 2026
A SELF-INFLICTED WOUND POSING AS THEATER. SAFE WORD: CURTAIN An erotic psychological thriller script without the erotic, psychology, thrill, or script Dear Gay Theater-makers, I am writing t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:00PM[SHARE]SWEENEY TODD SLICES DEEP " EVEN WITH A FEW MISSTEPS Jason Alexander's ambitious concept does not blunt the impact of a blisteringly performed revival McCoy Rigby Entertainment has been doing…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:30PM[SHARE]Saturday, January 10, 2026
OPERA AMONG THE GHOSTS From playful parlor deaths to a chilling one-act about crime, punishment, and memory, Source/Filter Music Collective made Heritage Square sing. On November 8, Source/F…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:06PM[SHARE]Saturday, September 20, 2025
ONE MAN, TWO HOURS TOO LONG Ask yourself how much you liked The Play That Goes Wrong series. That's a pretty good indicator as to your enjoyment of Richard Bean's 2011 play, One Man, Two Guv…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:51AM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 16, 2025
TRACES OF POSSIBILITY Premiering Off-Broadway in 1989, Cindy Lou Johnson's Brilliant Traces is one of those plays that can be either mesmerizing or exasperating and tiresome. Lacking a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:08PM[SHARE]Saturday, September 13, 2025
Am I Roxie? Am I a Play? Am I at the Wrong Theater? Geffen's Latest Solo Act Feels More Fringe Than Mainstage Within five minutes of "this fiercely funny one-woman tour-de-force" (so says th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:45PM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 9, 2025
IT MAY BE JUST ANOTHER DAY, BUT THIS ISN'T JUST ANOTHER PLAY If I were to start by telling you what author Dan Lauria's sly new play is about, a great number of you might stop reading in dis…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:23AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 31, 2025
SEXLESS IN THE CITY Have you ever been with a guy who won't shut up and just enjoy the blow job? That's what it's like to sit through Ashley Griffin's new two-person play, The Opposite of Lo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:22PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 17, 2025
THE PICNIC COMES BEFORE PINAFORE, LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY. WELL, SHIP HAPPENS. It's best to approach Pacific Opera Project's new production of W. S. Gilbert (libretto) and Arthur Sullivan…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:08PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 12, 2025
BEAUTY IN STEP: GRACE, MELODIES, AND ACB'S ELEGANT NEW WORKS Few phrases in the world of classical music fill me with as much excitement and dread as "world premiere." This applies even with…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:03AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 17, 2025
A HELLUVA HELLAS Ancient drama gets short shrift here in Los Angeles. Sure, we get the stories, but the shows are usually adaptations, hardly ever a straight translation, and when we do, the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:55PM[SHARE]Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Teenagers these days are out of control. They eat like pigs, they are disrespectful of adults, they interrupt and contradict their parents, and they terrorize their teachers. " Aristotle Whe…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:08PM[SHARE]Saturday, March 29, 2025
BEE MINUS Now playing at Wisteria Theater in North Hollywood is one of the few wonderful musicals from this century so far, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, by William Finn (music…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:39PM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 11, 2025
A PROMISING AND AMBITIOUS THE CAMP Los Angeles has had a flurry of new operas within the past few years. Among the most promising and ambitious I've seen is The Camp, by Lionelle Hamanaka (l…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:54AM[SHARE]Monday, March 3, 2025
A SKETCHY, SPREAD OUT SEND-UP SAGS WITH SLUGGISH SATIRE I like to go into shows completely blind. Sometimes that backfires, but usually not before the show even starts. On Thursday, I walked…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:24PM[SHARE]Friday, February 21, 2025
IT'S TOUGH TO ADORE ADORATION; BUT WAS IT MEANT TO BE? I always look forward to new operas presented by Los Angeles Opera and Beth Morrison Projects. They are back with another one: Adoratio…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:31AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 19, 2025
THE WHINE OF THE ANIMALS Long Beach Opera continued its season-long devotion to the work of Pauline Oliveros with El Relicario De Los Animales (The Shrine of the Animals), from 1979, with tw…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:04AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 12, 2024
EAST WEST PLAYERS PULLS OUT ALL THE SHOGUNS FOR A MUSICAL THAT CALLS FOR INTIMACY On Sunday, East West Players opened their new production of Pacific Overtures by Stephen Sondheim (music and…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:50PM[SHARE]Thursday, October 10, 2024
BLOOD AND RANCH DRESSING In December of 2020, the world was still in the grip of COVID-19's unpredictable terror. Moderna and Pfizer had just released their vaccines, but supply was scarce a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:54AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 8, 2024
YOU COULD HEAR THESE PEOPLE SING, ALL RIGHT First performed in Shanghai in 2013, the Hollywood Bowl hosted a new installment of The Music of Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, and More: Boublil a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:21PM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 22, 2024
THE LAST FIVE YEARS AT SIERRA MADRE CAN BE SEEN IN DIFFERENT COMBINATIONS Last weekend, Sierra Madre Playhouse opened what seems like a bewildering number of performance configurations of th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:50AM[SHARE]Saturday, March 2, 2024
ATTEND THIS TALE: IT'S MURDER When A Noise Within, one of LA's best companies, which specializes in classical theater, announced its current season, what most excited me by far was their dec…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM[SHARE]Sunday, February 4, 2024
TINY LITTLE TOWN OPENS WITH A BANG, BUT GETS CORRUPTED BY INCOHESIVE STYLES Theatre Movement Bazaar's Tiny Little Town, a new musical comedy now playing at the Broadwater Main Stage, starts …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:03AM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 12, 2023
TECHNICAL ISSUES ASIDE, THIS NEW MUSICAL IS FULL OF HEART The Right is Ours!, a world premiere new musical which opened yesterday at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, tells the story of the friend…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:23AM[SHARE] 
