Sunday, August 27, 2017
LIFE IS AN ABSURD BUSINESS It’s an absurdist masterwork, yet it is rarely produced in the States. A disquieting parable which warns against the herd mentality, Eugène Ionesco's three-…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:49PM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 8, 2017
IT WONDERS ME It’s uncanny that ever since Roger Bean wrote and directed this asinine jukebox musical in 1999, it's lightweight nostalgia factor and updated arrangements of 50s and 60s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:26AM[SHARE]Monday, August 7, 2017
REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE OK, let’s get the confusion out of the way. If you’re not at all familiar with the Paramount films Holiday Inn and White Christmas, listening to the jus…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:28AM[SHARE]Friday, August 4, 2017
THE GLOBE GOES BACK INTO THE WOODS Ken Ludwig is arguably the leading comic dramatist in the American theater, and with Robin Hood! he has fashioned an extraordinary new take on the le…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:47AM[SHARE]Friday, July 28, 2017
DON’T BE SKIPPIN’ PIPPIN Here’s a can’t-miss opportunity: San Diego Junior Theatre is presenting the perky but dark 1972 musical, Pippin. Don’t be fooled by the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:44PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 26, 2017
SEE IT BEFORE THIS PARADE PASSES YOU BY The emotionally pile-driving Parade by bookwriter Alfred Uhry and composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown reprises an ugly and evergreen tragedy. T…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:45PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 25, 2017
A GOOD THING GOING; GOING, GOING… Sondheim on Sondheim, which had a short run on Broadway in 2010, offers both songs and personal musings from one of Broadway's greatest composer/lyric…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:47PM[SHARE]Friday, July 21, 2017
A FEW BLEMISHES CAN’T MAR THIS BEAUTIFUL DOLL It’s amazing. Were this masterpiece from Broadway’s golden age an actual guy or doll, he or she would be scoring Social Securi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 19, 2017
ANGELS IN AMERICA APPROACHES In two sprawling works written in the 1980’s, Tony Kushner brought alive the American national scene of the 1980's and early 1990's, mixing raw naturalism …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:34PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 18, 2017
OUT OF PLACE Well, that was pointless. Entertaining to a point, but pointless. I had a feeling about two minutes into At the Old Place that something was wrong dramatically. A woman shows up…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:03PM[SHARE]Friday, July 14, 2017
ENCHANTED FORGIVENESS Shakespeare Orange County (SOC) has used local community members alongside professional actors to reinvent Shakespeare as a way to offer thoughts about inclusiveness an…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:18AM[SHARE]Monday, July 10, 2017
TAKE A GRAND TOUR WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR SEAT Pageant of the Masters, now in its 83rd year, is a singularly unique entertainment that has perfected the art of tableaux vivants ("living p…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:08PM[SHARE]Sunday, July 9, 2017
MARY‘S POPPIN’ OUT ALL OVER Not just the quintessentially "practically perfect" nanny, Mary Poppins is a kind of cosmic cure. Given the state of our disunion, we probably need to…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:36AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 6, 2017
TRIPLE-LAYERED CAKE Thirty-something Jen (Shannon Lucio) is torn. She wants her deceased mother’s best friend, Della (Debra Jo Rupp), a talented but struggling baker, to create her …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:52PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 28, 2017
MY DAUGHTER, THE CABARET SINGER This year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival has given me new hope for the art of cabaret: Black and White in Paris offered standards dripping in style; Psy…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:01AM[SHARE]AIDA GETS THE AID IT NEEDS There are two beautiful reincarnations with Moonlight's production of Aida, a 2000 Disney outing that never would have seen the light of day were it not for the ce…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 22, 2017
A VERY GOOD GRIEF This funny but disturbing update of Charles M. Schultz’s Peanuts comic strip first arrived at the Blank Theatre, after which Worst First Kiss Productions wisely ut…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:41PM[SHARE]Saturday, June 17, 2017
GRILLED TO PERFECTION North Coast Rep's rendition of James Valcq and Fred Alley's simple musical The Spitfire Grill demonstrates two things: the redemptive power of acceptance, forgiveness a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:03PM[SHARE]Friday, June 16, 2017
THE WAR WITHIN THE WAR As sturdily written and swiftly moving as it was in 1982, Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play remains an enduring testament to the home front battles that African-Americ…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:05PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 14, 2017
FREE WILLY Imagine if cast recordings from the fifties and sixties recorded out-of-town tryouts, then changed material, then recorded the Broadway production, then changed material, then …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:53PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 13, 2017
IT’S LIKE REAL LIFE, BUT BETTER About a decade ago, I was having a miserable time dating. The age of electronica was firmly in place, and chat rooms, lengthy bios, and requested cock s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:42PM[SHARE]Monday, June 12, 2017
OOH-LA-LA Where am I? Is this a dream? Just when you thought cabaret in Los Angeles was on life support comes this bar of gold at the Hollywood Fringe. Do not miss this extravaganza of re…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:08PM[SHARE]THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT A WARHOL If you thought Pop Artist Andy Warhol only referenced and defined mass culture and consumerism through replicated images of Campbell's soup cans and Marilyn …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:18PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 7, 2017
FLAGGED DOWN Who hasn’t walked away from some bad dates thinking, “Jesus, that was like being in a play.” Well, now Capital W — a theater company that offers uncon…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:22AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 1, 2017
 MICHAEL FEINSTEIN! LIZA MINNELLI! STORM LARGE! JOEL GREY! BROADWAY! No one can argue that Michael Feinstein"charismatic, appealing, boyish, excited, and eager to please"has singlehandedl…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:46PM[SHARE]ANÂ IMAGINARY IMAGINARY Back in March, Roundabout Theatre announced their plans for 2017. After collaborating with Fiasco Theater on their acclaimed paired-down production of Into the Wood…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:53PM[SHARE]Sunday, May 28, 2017
SHINE ON, ETERNAL LIGHT In just twenty years of existence, Morten Lauridsen's gorgeous choral masterwork Lux Aeterna has become one of the most performed works worldwide. Under direction …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:39PM[SHARE]Friday, May 26, 2017
SNOB HIT Well, that was boring. Of all the people on the planet who should understand the difference between theater and an underwhelming fringe entry (low cost and well-meaning with no s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:58PM[SHARE]Monday, May 22, 2017
AÂ LIMPÂ STIFF Before composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens were, well, the Flaherty and Ahrens who created Once on This Island, Ragtime, Suessical, et al., they were a youn…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:58AM[SHARE]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 02:54AM[SHARE]Saturday, May 13, 2017
CD GETS NEITHERÂ 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 be…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:21PM[SHARE] 
