Wednesday, August 15, 2018
LOOKING FOR PROOF Proofreading: It may be a lost art. As an editor, I have become accustomed to scanning copy everywhere for mistakes, either in grammar or with facts. But lately, the effect…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:26AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 8, 2018
WORD FOR WORD’S PERSONAL VICTORY LAP MAY BE THE BEST DEEP KISS YOU’VE EVER HAD San Francisco's Word for Word has been transforming classic and contemporary fiction into amazing t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:31PM[SHARE]Sunday, August 5, 2018
THE GLOBE MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A WALK IN THE PARK Barefoot in the Park, Neil Simon's second Broadway hit after Come Blow Your Horn, played a staggering 1,530 performances in its initial run, w…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:20AM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 31, 2018
SHE'S BA-A-A-ACK For those who think the sun won’t come up until 2020, here comes another Annie, that 1977 optimistic spitfire of a musical — based on the Harold Gray comic st…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:32PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 26, 2018
ITCHING TO BE SWITCHING ROLES Burt Grinstead and Anna Stromberg's take on Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde switches between comedic farce and serious scen…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:11PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 24, 2018
PUMP GETS YOU PUMPED This invigorating, modest little 1980 musical was nominated for both a Tony and Drama Desk Award for Best Musical in 1982. It may seem commonplace now thanks to John Doy…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:16PM[SHARE]Friday, July 20, 2018
WE NEVER STOP CRYING IT OUT The term “cry it out” refers to the practice of letting babies bawl until their fit subsides without parents coddling and mollifying them; assumedly t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:16PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 11, 2018
FRIED, STEWED OR BROILED, THIS FISH WILL NEVER TASTE GOOD So here’s what baffles me: A show which is middling at best is suddenly showing up at regional, community and high school thea…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:11PM[SHARE]DANCE DELIRIUM As jukebox musicals go, the rags-to-riches bio On Your Feet! definitely earns its exclamation point. No question, the upbeat tunes, with their irresistible Cuban-fusi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:30PM[SHARE]Monday, July 2, 2018
THE MONTALBÃN MIXES MOVIES, MINGLING AND MERRY MASTICATING Always fun, outdoor cinema hits the summer ether like the smell of fresh cut grass and smoked meat (or is that fresh cut meat an…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:01PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 28, 2018
BETTER THAN FAIR As musical revivals went from a few nostalgic productions in the 1970s to the ubiquity of resurrections we see today — both from the Golden Age (Porter, Rodgers and Ha…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:24AM[SHARE]Saturday, June 23, 2018
SWEETER THE SECOND TIME AROUND It's like kicking a puppy dog to dislike Charity Hope Valentine. Charity is the heroine of the 1966 musical Sweet Charity — a strange amalgam of high hop…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:42PM[SHARE]Friday, June 22, 2018
ALL TOO HUMAN Stephen Karam's remarkable Tony-winning play The Humans — which is winding up its national tour at the Ahmanson with members of the Broadway production — …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:35PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 21, 2018
DON’T LET THIS PARADE PASS YOU BY With no intentions of reviewing, I attended 3-D Theatricals’ astounding rendition of Parade, bookwriter Alfred Uhry and composer/lyricist Jas…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:40PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 20, 2018
ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH Eugene O'Neill twice turned his troubled youth into all-absorbing drama. His family first appeared as a happy tangle of eccentric loved ones in Ah, Wilderness!, a h…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:17PM[SHARE]Monday, June 18, 2018
ON CONFORMING AND CHRIST Ah, what better fodder for drama is there than the dysfunctional American family? You know the ingredients: accusations hurled back and forth by the walking wounded;…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:06PM[SHARE]Saturday, June 16, 2018
BREAKING DOWN FENCES An American requiem, an oratorio, and a choral masterpiece elegantly and movingly performed, Considering Matthew Shepard, which closes tonight at the Ford Amphitheatre, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:06PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 14, 2018
FLY TO THIS NEST Boy oh boy, if you like immersive theater, than check yourself into the madhouse over in Burbank. When the rebellious, charismatic and playful Randle McMurphy gets reassigne…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:54PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 12, 2018
SORRY TO BURST YOUR BABBLE In this unfortunate world premiere, the winsome cast begins with angry pessimistic post-millennial Benji (Will Choi), an Asian-American comic book artist whose bos…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:39PM[SHARE]Sunday, June 10, 2018
PIRATES STEALS YOUR HEART Music Theater Works just unleashed 140 minutes of undiluted ecstasy and hilarious nonsense, and the lucky location is Northwestern University's Cahn Auditorium in E…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:06PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 7, 2018
LULA’S BACK IN TOWN The Ford Theatres presents Lula Washington Dance Theatre (LWDT) on Friday, June 8 at 8:30pm, as part of its IGNITE @ the FORD! series. For this joyous evening of da…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:33PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 6, 2018
COME TO THIS CABARET Aside from the fact that it will sell out quickly, there are a number of reasons to rush out and get tickets for Celebration Theatre’s revival of Cabaret. First…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:36AM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 30, 2018
WHILE HARDLY REVELATIONAL, A REVVED-UP REVIVAL BECOMES RELATABLE It’s a miracle. After seeing the original 2005 musical adaption, it seemed that nothing could fix this show. But the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:31PM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 22, 2018
CELEBRATING BROADWAY ROYALTY When I tell you that the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the revue covering Harold Prince’s oeuvre mostly works, it’s an enormous compliment. For…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:12PM[SHARE]Monday, May 21, 2018
NO SHY VIOLET Based on The Ugliest Pilgrim, a short story by Doris Betts, Violet — with book and lyrics by Brian Crawley and music by Jeanine Tesori — takes place in 1964 and fol…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:40PM[SHARE]Sunday, May 20, 2018
FILLING THE VOID IN L.A. THEATER Neither my friend nor I were looking forward to this play — I mean, good grief, when I heard that it was about a couple of “fools” going on…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:02PM[SHARE]Friday, May 11, 2018
BLENDING BANANAS AND BORSCHT Mark Harelik's 1985 play The Immigrant is based on the story of his grandparents, Haskell and Leah Gorehlik, immigrants from Russia who settled in the tiny centr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:52PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 10, 2018
SPLITSVILLE Five years after its world premiere, L.A. is just now getting Amy Herzog’s disturbing domestic thriller. Both praised and not, the controversy with this one-act has been…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:25PM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 8, 2018
AN UPDATED BABY IS STILL CAPTIVATING THEATER For all its melodrama, Jane Anderson's The Baby Dance has always been one of my favorite plays since I first saw it at Pasadena Playhouse in 1990…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:01PM[SHARE]A HONEYMOON IN GLENDALE More fun than walking away a few bucks ahead from a black jack table, this pell-mell, silly-sweet, old-fashioned musical comedy (ya know, gangsters, lovers, Elvis imp…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:50PM[SHARE]Monday, May 7, 2018
EAGER FOR EGAN It was sheer luck that I've been able to see Broadway Baby Susan Egan in over 10 shows since the mid-1980s. From intimate stages (Babes at the Matrix; Hello, Again at the Blan…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:02PM[SHARE] 
