Saturday, May 20, 2017
JERSEY CASH COW Jersey Boys, the terrific 2004 jukebox musical inspired by the story of pop sensation Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, is one of the greatest triumphs in Broadway histor…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:54AMSaturday, May 13, 2017
CD GETS NEITHER BRONX CHEER NOR FUGGEDABOUDIT It began as a 1989 solo play written by and starring Chazz Palminteri. Robert DeNiro saw this coming-of-age saga and became the powerhouse behi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:21PMFriday, May 12, 2017
A GREAT STATE FAIR Corny? Completely! Simple and sentimental? Sure! Did I love it? You betcha! Rarely performed since its Broadway outing in 1996, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s frolicking …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:25AMThursday, April 27, 2017
PHILLIPE JORDAN, LORD OF THE RING Little more than 200 years since the birth of Wagner, and the world still can’t get enough of the German composer. Love him or hate him, he is one of the …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:09PMTuesday, April 25, 2017
COME SALUTE THE END OF AN ERA It’s a bit surreal, but the the theater community’s longest-running AIDS-related benefit is having its final fundraiser on Saturday May 13, 2017. Th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:47AMFriday, April 14, 2017
PRIMO AND PRIMO A strange thing happened on the way to the duo piano recital of the once-married pianists Martha Argerich and Stephen Kovacevich at Disney hall last Saturday. A few minutes b…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:04AMTuesday, April 11, 2017
THEATER ON TAPE Once the mainstay of fringe festivals and performance art houses, one-person plays showcasing the likes of James Whitmore and Lily Tomlin became financially viable in the lat…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AMMonday, April 10, 2017
IT’S TIME FOR S’MORE GROUNDLINGS Who doesn’t love sitting around a campfire scaring the crap outta some brat? Who doesn’t love canoe trips down a rocky brook? Who do…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:45PMSunday, April 9, 2017
THOSE SUMPTUOUS STRINGS OF SIBELIUS Fresh-faced and vital, Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a program centered on Finland’s greatest composer…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:55AMSaturday, April 1, 2017
THIS COMEDY IS TRAGIC Painfully unfunny to the point of torture, Falcon Theatre’s production of The Complete History of Comedy (abridged) puts a nail in the coffin of vaudeville and…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:50PMFriday, March 31, 2017
THE DANCING ENTRANCES, BUT THE BOOK DOESN’T STAND A CHANCE Back in the era that spawned musicals with tunes by Gershwin, Kern, Porter, and Rodgers, the Broadway Musical Comedy book wa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:44PMSunday, March 26, 2017
WHIPPED INTO SUBMISSION Explaining the creation of his 1924 two-act ballet, Richard Strauss stated, “I cannot bear the tragedy of the present time. I want to create joy.” Thus wa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:17PMSaturday, March 25, 2017
TETZLAFF PLAYS DVOŘÁK There was atmosphere galore in Christian Tetzlaff’s intense interpretation of the Dvořák Violin Concerto last night at Disney Hall, but something was amiss—…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:00PMTuesday, March 21, 2017
INTO THE SOUL OF INTO THE WOODS When I first saw Fiasco Theatre’s production of Into the Woods, it was without reservation that I told friends it was worth the drive from Los Angeles …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:35PMThursday, March 16, 2017
HIT AND MYTH In Sophocles’ Antigone, the titular character has returned to Thebes to warn her brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, about a prophecy that predicts they will kill each oth…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:05PMWednesday, March 15, 2017
IF PIZZA BE THE FOOD OF LOVE… Well, that was frustrating. Now at the Wallis in Beverly Hills is England’s Filter Theatre, which deconstructs Twelfth Night to the bare walls (lit…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:18AMFriday, March 10, 2017
A NIGHT THAT WILL BE A DREAM Franz Schubert, the quintessential Romantic composer of the 19th century, was loved by Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, poet and director Samuel Beckett …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:53PMWednesday, March 8, 2017
HERE COMES MR. JORDAN Get ready, cats. The best musical revue since Ain’t Misbehavin’ is coming to Los Angeles, and I’m warning you well in advance: I promise you–yep…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:00PMTuesday, March 7, 2017
LET ME MAKE THIS PERFECTLY CLEAR Prior to yesterday’s matinee, the last of a two-performance run of Nixon in China presented by LA Phil, I wondered who would make up the audience for a re…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:05AMMonday, March 6, 2017
THAT GIRL, THAT BOY…HELL, THAT STAR It was well over 30 years ago that I first saw writer, actor and drag legend Charles Busch. Not only was he hi-larious in his long-running Off-Broa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:51PMWednesday, March 1, 2017
AILEY IS ALWAYS A REVELATION(S) After many happy visits to the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater returns to unleash a sumptuous, three-program showcas…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:41PMTuesday, February 28, 2017
YOU’LL FALL IN LOVE WITH AMOUR “I wanted to write an opera-bouffe, an intimate evening with light, lyrical singing and delicate charm,” wrote composer Michel Legrand. ̶…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:14PMMonday, February 27, 2017
THERE’S A REASON WE RETURN TO BRAHMS AND RAVEL Under guest conductor James Gaffigan’s assured leadership, the Los Angeles Philharmonic brought a fuller and more vibrant sound to two …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:57AMFriday, February 24, 2017
A BIRDIE THAT TAKES WING Having no intention of reviewing, I bought a couple tickets to a non-union production of Bye Bye Birdie, but the entire affair had me so damn giddy that I canR…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:55PMThursday, February 23, 2017
IN AND OUT AT HOME The Tony-winning 2013 coming-of-age memory play/chamber musical Fun Home—based on Alison Bechdel’s 2006 semi-autobiographical graphic novel—is a worthy coming-out ta…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:52PMWednesday, February 22, 2017
NEVERLAND FOUND AND LOST Playwright Alan Knee called Sir J. M. Barrie “the man who was Peter Pan.” If so, it was an author’s compensation as much as creativity. James Barrie was a shy …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:12PMTuesday, February 21, 2017
THEATER’S BLUE PERIOD Steve Martin wrote Picasso at the Lapin Agile in 1993. The offbeat meta-theatrical play opened at Chicago’s Steppenwolf, went to Los Angeles’s Westwo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:50AMMonday, February 20, 2017
A SCALED-DOWN ROBBER BRIDEGROOM STEALS YOUR HEART ON CD It will always remain one of the great unsolved mysteries in Broadway history. Composer Robert Waldman and librettist and lyricist Al…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:00PMSaturday, February 18, 2017
MORE THAN JUST VARIATIONS ON A THEME “Why did the great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven write 33 variations on a trivial little waltz by a mediocre amateur composer?” On the surface…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:59PMFriday, February 17, 2017
SUPER SQUIRREL Flora Buckman, the ten-year-old central character of Flora & Ulysses, the best play I’ve seen all year, begins when this self-proclaimed “natural-born cynic�…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:45PMCOME JOIN THE CIRCUS As if to compensate for the unpopularity of animal acts, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus began to beef up their productions in recent years, but that lack …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:29PM 
