Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Despite all that needs fixing in Empire, it has a lot going for it and may well be worth the effort. There are eye-popping visuals, a huge tap ensemble hoofing its heart out, and some deligh…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:10AM[SHARE]Sunday, September 20, 2015
It's a ripoff of Much Ado set in the universe of the Quartos—a quartet so suspiciously like the Beatles, their album covers look exactly alike, although the titles are somewhat different (…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:43PM[SHARE]Saturday, June 20, 2015
To be sure, there are a lot of things that need work in the new Richard Maltby Jr./David Shire musical premiering at the Pasadena Playhouse...
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:21PM[SHARE]Monday, May 25, 2015
First, the good news: the world premiere musical Dangerous Beauty at the Pasadena Playhouse is full of good, strong voices. Everyone in this show can sing and sing well. The bad news is that…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:58PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 4, 2014
I have seen several attempts to put The Picture of Dorian Gray on stage. Be it play, musical, or dance, people keep trying to dramatize the piece, sensing its inherent theatricality. And whi…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:51PM[SHARE]Friday, April 4, 2014
La Mirada has created a small space in its huge space, by curtaining off the wings and the house, and placing seating on three sides of the stage. The result is a theatre that is simultaneou…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:39AM[SHARE]Saturday, November 30, 2013
Sure, I could nitpick Play Dead—the cross between a play and a magic show, sprinkled with a bit of haunted house, currently playing in the small Audrey Skirball Kenis theatre at the Geffen.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:46AM[SHARE]Monday, November 18, 2013
For us to buy Barrymore's Hamlet, we have to be completely committed to the idea that a conversation with John Barrymore is a wild ride-just strap yourself in and be prepared for anything, e…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:57PM[SHARE]Friday, October 11, 2013
Standing alone, the story of Flowers for Algernon is solidly fiction—it was originally published in a science fiction magazine—because, let's face it, there is no operation that transfor…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:37PM[SHARE]Friday, September 20, 2013
It is a nightmare scenario for any parent: your car is gone, your 17-year-old daughter is nowhere to be found, and there's a snowstorm making driving especially hazardous.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:57PM[SHARE]Saturday, September 14, 2013
... in Hamlet, the company has achieved a true company production—a Hamlet that doesn't noticeably drop in quality whenever Hamlet is offstage.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:00PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Bad news, nerds: Bruce Norris's A Parallelogram is not about math. Good news, though: It's about time travel.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:17AM[SHARE]Wednesday, April 17, 2013
On a scene-by-scene basis, Talbott has a true gift for realistic dialogue; and, when directing his own work, he knows exactly where the pauses ought to go, to make for true-to-life conversat…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 01:10PM[SHARE]Thursday, April 11, 2013
Mitzi Sinnott's one-woman show is part political statement and part theatre. As the former, it is a pretty powerful piece, as she recounts—and, with certain dramatic license, reenacts—he…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:18PM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 13, 2013
In its Los Angeles premiere production at the Colony theatre, it is perfectly executed. This is a show that won't leave you debating about anything in the car on the way home, but it will le…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 04:03PM[SHARE][E]ven with a concert staged reading, the downright awfulness of the book takes its toll.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 04:02PM[SHARE]Sunday, December 2, 2012
Elevator Repair Service has chosen not to adapt the novel for the stage, but to instead perform every word—the script must look like the book with a lot of stage directions.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 04:05PM[SHARE]Friday, September 28, 2012
Justin Love gives an old plot a modern twist, shines it up with with a bright and upbeat score, adds genuinely clever dialogue and lyrics, and wraps it all up in a Hollywood that only exists…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:25AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 19, 2012
I don't think I'd ever actually considered the possibility that our soldiers fighting in the Middle East might be the children of our soldiers who fought in Vietnam. Keliher Walsh's world pr…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:32PM[SHARE]It's a play about aging—Stop! Wait! Don't turn away! It's an honest, frank-and-sometimes-funny look at people making difficult life decisions at a time of life when their conversation focu…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:31PM[SHARE]Monday, August 27, 2012
It's hard to know exactly what to make of The Blue Iris, Athol Fugard's latest play to have its U.S. premiere at the Fountain.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:26PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 17, 2012
When you enter the theatre for the world premiere adaptation of The Exorcist, you'll notice that the set looks church-like, with a massive wooden cross suspended over the stage. There is not…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:38PM[SHARE]Monday, June 11, 2012
Reviews of four productions in the Hollywood Fringe Festival: "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes," "The God Particle Complex,"
"Speed Merchant (of Venice)" and "Tape."
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 01:11PM[SHARE]Friday, June 8, 2012
The world premiere musical Los Otros is perfectly named. It's an exploration of the relationships we have with the "others"—those people who come from different social, economic, racial or…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:07AM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The plot of The Fix is at its best when it is in unapologetic farce mode.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:10AM[SHARE]Cyrano is deaf, and finds himself running up against jerks who see him as someone who can't hear, can't speak, and flails his arms around in a wasteful and senseless attempt to make his pres…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:10AM[SHARE] 
