Thursday, June 5, 2014
TECHNICOLOR TURNCOAT It’s like one of the Great Plagues of Egypt: Every so often, some producer decides to dust off another production of this old Andrew Lloyd Webber chestnut, and cast …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:45PMWednesday, March 5, 2014
CRY!BOYS AND INDIANS Let’s be honest: Director Elizabeth LeCompte’s sometimes astonishing adaptation of Shakespeare’s Trolius and Cressida by the acclaimed Wooster Group of New Y…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:49AMSaturday, March 1, 2014
FLESH MADE TEDIOUS In my day job as a public librarian, I can tell you with certainty there is nothing more dreaded than finding E. L. James’ turgid lust romancer Fifty Shades of Grey in …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:43PMTuesday, February 25, 2014
LOVE GONE NUTS Here’s a twisted little response to the maudlin sappiness of Valentine’s Day: Steve Yockey’s sprightly romantic farce is about love, all right, but it’s love as path…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:17PMWednesday, February 19, 2014
A VILE VILLON MAKES FOR VILLAINOUS VIEWING Art isn’t pretty – and neither is Murray Mednick’s sharp, cynical comedy about the life of the great artistic poet François Villon, who, in…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:15PMWednesday, February 12, 2014
RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES It was the shot heard round the countercultural world – the Big Bang of the Beats, as it were. At a party one night in Mexico City in 1951, writer William Burroughs …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:50PMWednesday, January 29, 2014
AN OCEAN OF TIME If you ever climb to the top of the Granite Park Chalet trail in Montana, you will find at the end of the hugely winding, desperately steep pathway a log book containing ent…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:41PMTuesday, January 21, 2014
STATIC ELECTRA Your college classics teacher be damned: For all the talk about the Greek literary themes of hubris and arête, the Greek tragedies are just gussied up soap operas, with atr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:43PMWednesday, January 15, 2014
A SHOW THAT’S BETTER THAN PROZAC Been to the drugstore lately? Sick of taking semi-useless pills three times a day every day? You’ve got your Losartan and your Lisinopril. You’ve…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:07PMSunday, January 12, 2014
SIC SEMPER BORE-ANNUS This solo musical effort by musician performer Hersey Felder has all the trappings of a work that is rich with worthy subject matter and culture. Peppered with songs …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:45AMSunday, December 8, 2013
EXPENSIVE VANILLA-SCENTED PERFUME For its inaugural stage dramatic production at the glittering new Bram Goldsmith Theater, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is presenting …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:05AMSunday, November 24, 2013
JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: A DARK CARNIVAL OF DEATH AND TERROR! This tour de force of trickery from creators Todd Robbins and the magician Teller (the traditionally silent half of the …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:33PMThursday, November 14, 2013
THE HAM IN WINTER Here’s a show that means well, but which somehow falls a little short of expectations. It’s actually somewhat difficult to put one’s finger on why: By rights, the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:11PMWednesday, November 6, 2013
ROCK AND ROLL DREAM (MAYBE, IF YOUR DREAM IS VERY SMALL) Becoming a rock star is a uniquely American dream. And who wouldn’t want to live a life of rock and roll excess and decadence? …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:25PMThursday, October 24, 2013
DEPRESSING DEPRESSION ERA DRAMA What a time! Folks standing on line for charity handouts, companies closing down, destitution and despair all around. Surprise, though, we’re not talkin…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:57PMWednesday, October 23, 2013
MOZART’S SISTER: POSSIBLY MORE TALENTED, DEFINITELY BETTER LEGS In many one person shows that are biographies of historical personages, there’s the risk of Wikipedia syndrome, in which t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:07PMSunday, October 20, 2013
VERDICT: WEAK ADAPTATION There’s something innately suspenseful about a courtroom drama. Perhaps it’s the fact that real life courtrooms are themselves theaters and a criminal trial is…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:00PMSaturday, October 19, 2013
NOT ONLY THE PLAY, BUT THE PLAY-WITHIN-THE-PLAY’S THE THING The Storm Theater presents the first offering of its Ferenc Molnár festival with this gem, adapted by P.G. Wodehouse from M…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:17AMFriday, October 18, 2013
FRANCE: WHERE THE WOMEN ARE WOMEN (AND THE MEN ARE WOMEN, TOO) Director Paul Urcioli’s delightful production of Moliere’s classic skewering of female emancipation is given an additiona…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:26AMTuesday, October 15, 2013
THE FOOD HERE IS MIXED…AND SUCH SMALL PORTIONS One thing you’ve got to love about this festival of ten minute plays: When they’re done correctly, these vignettes are like plates …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:37AMThursday, June 20, 2013
NOT JUST A GAY BAR ANY MORE It is the unfortunate nature of some gay dramas to hammer home or leadenly evangelize a theme with a heavy hand. You know the sort of thing I am talking about:�…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:10PMFriday, June 14, 2013
A HEAD SPINNINGLY GOOD EXORCIST ROMP THAT DOESN’T SUCK C#CKS IN HELL A year or two back, wily producers crafted a stage version of the chilling 1970s horror flick, The Exorcist, and gave i…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:40PMWednesday, April 10, 2013
NOT MUCH UNDERGROUND Author Neil Gaiman writes for the anime and graphic novel era – rollicking adventures that are tonally glib, suffused with whimsy and wit, and full of puns, extraordin…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:12PMThursday, February 21, 2013
YOU CAN SKIP THESE SKETCHY SKETCHES Those of us who are of a certain age reverently remember the National Lampoon as being one of the great humor magazines of the 1970s and early 1980s. Ye…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:30AMMonday, February 11, 2013
I’D LIKE TO RETURN THIS GIFT, PLEASE The Geffen Playhouse has a proud tradition of staging crackerjack productions of dramatic works by some of the modern theater’s greatest playwrights.…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:00AMThursday, January 17, 2013
A FINE MESS The Grand Irrationality: The title of playwright Jemma Kennedy’s romantic comedy refers to the concept found in astrology relating to ultimate chaos – e.g., the idea that s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:23AMSunday, November 18, 2012
BAD GIRL DONE GOOD Here’s a play with a fascinating history for you. Early-mid 20th century Chicago playwright Phillip Yordan originally intended this play to be set in the Polish Americ…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:54AMTuesday, October 30, 2012
THE SHTICK MAY DETRACT FROM THE PLAY, BUT JUST TRY TO RIVAL THE ACTORS’ GANG The Rivals (1775), Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s wonderful Comedy of Manners, is a play about pretension; every…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:42AMWednesday, October 17, 2012
THE JOADS AT HOME Playwright Randy Sharp’s one act drama takes place during the Dust Bowl catastrophe of the 1930s, when a monstrous drought descended on the central plain states turning f…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:59PMSunday, October 14, 2012
THE FAMILY THAT STAYS TOGETHER HATES TOGETHER The legacy of emotional damage inflicted on children by their parents is one of the main themes in Him, a new play by Daisy Foote – but the su…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:58AMSaturday, October 13, 2012
SOPHISTICATED SONGWRITING IN CLOSER THAN EVER One might well approach this musical about growing into middle age with some trepidation. The fact is that plays about midlife usually tend to…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:49PM 
