Friday, February 17, 2017
COME 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 08:29PMSHE’S BA-A-A-CK AND SHE’S FA-A-A-ABULOUS Charles Busch’s Die, Mommie, Die! is equal parts comic melodrama, Greek tragedy and Hollywood kitsch—and all campy noir classic in th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:16AMTuesday, February 14, 2017
A GUY WALKS INTO A CUCKOO’S NEST… Jazz pianist, TV personality, actor, author, film composer and arranger Oscar Levant (1906-1972) was quite possibly one of the quickest wits on …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:54PMMonday, February 13, 2017
AND EVITA KEEPS ROLLING IN That great balcony scene is back. No, not R&J. It’s the one with Eva Duarte Perón’s valedictory aria “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina.” As this princes…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:06PMWORKING UP YOUR APPETITE Bringing the aesthetics of classical theater to the realm of the contemporary circus, the fearless performers of The 7 Fingers (also known as Les 7 Doigts) explore l…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:35PMMonday, February 6, 2017
ZOOT SUIT FITTED FOR A NEW GENERATION When Zoot Suit was originally commissioned and developed by Center Theatre Group in 1978, it played for nearly a year in Los Angeles—first at the …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:31PMWednesday, February 1, 2017
THE MUSIC AND THE WORDS BEHIND THE MUSIC With astounding chromatic structure and continually shifting tonalities and rhythms, Debussy’s music has always mystified and transported me. Certa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:10PMKNEEHIGH RETURNS TO THE WALLIS I wonder if L.A. residents know how ridiculously lucky they are to have the Wallis Annenberg Center, an outfit so prestigious that Britain’s Kneehigh is b…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:52AMMonday, January 30, 2017
FOUND IN THE STARS Lost in the Stars is quite possibly composer Kurt Weill’s magnum opus for the American Theater. The score is prime Weill, characteristically mixing high operatic sty…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:26PMThursday, January 26, 2017
GUESS WHO’S NOT COMING TO DINNER? At first, we have no idea why a well-to-do couple has invited another couple and their son over for dinner. The hostess Debora (Ann Hearn) is on edge …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:55PMWednesday, January 25, 2017
A WHALE OF A PRODUCTION Moby Dick, Herman Melville’s 1851 whale of a tale (or tale of a whale), is as unsinkable as its title cetacean. It’s never been more so than in Lookingglass Theat…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:24PMTuesday, January 24, 2017
CUMMING AND SAPPY Yes, Disney Hall is a large venue for a cabaret act, but you can expect Tony Award-winning actor Alan Cumming to turn the venue into the most intimate hotspot when he prese…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:15PMSaturday, January 21, 2017
JERRY HERMAN’S LEGACY ISN’T IN JEOPARDY, BUT TRIBUTE CONCERTS ARE With an evening of Jerry Herman tunes sung by Broadway powerhouses Ron Raines, Karen Morrow, Debbie Gravitte, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:44AMMonday, January 9, 2017
JAMES CAMERON MEETS CIRQUE DU SOLEIL Cirque du Soleil writes a new chapter in make-believe with Toruk – The First Flight, a not so typical two-hour fantasy inspired by (but not based on) J…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:02AMSunday, January 8, 2017
A SALUTE TO GREAT SONGS AND A GREAT CLUB Any excuse to expose selections from the Great American Songbook to a modern audience works for me. And a cabaret revue entitled A Night at the Stork…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:18PMSaturday, January 7, 2017
THE MANE EVENT Watching the Los Angeles premiere of writer/performer Benjamin Scheuer’s one-man show The Lion, directed by Sean Daniels, the element I am most taken with is Mr. Scheuer’…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:00PMFriday, January 6, 2017
‘TWAS BRILLIG, AND THE SLITHY TOVEY The witty, charming raconteur and conductor Bramwell Tovey has never failed to have the audience in the palm of his baton-filled hand. As energeti…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:43PMMonday, December 19, 2016
WHIMSY WASHOUT Adapting a film or play into a musical is a dicey proposition. There’s no perfect formula, but theater’s great librettists—Oscar Hammerstein, Alan Jay Lerner, et…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:10PMWednesday, December 14, 2016
TAKING NOTES TO THE NEXT LEVEL Los Angeles native Stew, born Mark Stewart, is one of today’s most fascinating songwriters. He has released both solo albums and with his band, The Negro…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:55PMWednesday, November 30, 2016
I’M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS WITH A BETTER SCRIPT I suppose it’s possible that Irving Berlin’s White Christmas might succeed with audiences. Possible, that is, if they are w…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:33PMSaturday, November 19, 2016
EVERYBODY LOVES SHE LOVES ME I’ll be the first to admit that it may be impossible to create a bad production of the 1963 jewel-box musical She Loves Me. This perfect show, based on the 193…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:04PMThursday, November 17, 2016
BEYOND COMPARE In the past five years, I have encountered only a handful of fresh-to-the-scene classical soloists who completely enraptured—those who combine the old-school magnetic qualit…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:02PMThursday, November 10, 2016
BOYS WILL BE BOYS Musical Theatre West’s (MTW) Reiner Reading Series begins its 2016-17 season with a musical from the beginning of the second decade of the Broadway Musical’s Golden A…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:03AMThursday, November 3, 2016
THE WINNER BY AN INCH Not long into its original run at Jane Street Theatre Off-Broadway in 1998, a cult following had already been firmly entrenched for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It was th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:14PMThursday, October 27, 2016
MEMPHIS SOARS The most entertaining musical of the year is not a great musical. Here is a show with a predictable, synthetic feeling book and 19 songs which only emulate the music of th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AMBRING ON THE TEARS Orlande de Lassus, Europe’s most famous musician during his lifetime, created nothing finer than the Lagrime di San Pietro, (Tears of St. Peter) a collection of twenty s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:10AMFriday, October 21, 2016
STILL SEARCHING Is there life after Lily Tomlin? Producer Jon Imparato is attempting to find out: under his auspice, the Los Angeles LGBT Center is reviving The Search for Signs of Intellige…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AMO’HARA SALON Broadway icon Kelli O’Hara ventured far west of the Great White Way Friday night to perform Broadway favorites and a few originals to a well-sold house at Valley Pe…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:06AMWednesday, October 19, 2016
DEFICIENT DRAMA DILUTES DELUSION In 2011, writer/director Jon Braver created Delusion, a new kind of haunted house. In the ensuing years (except last year, 2015, which was dark), with a diff…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:26AMSaturday, October 15, 2016
REVEALING THE SOURCE There’s so much buzz about The Source, which opens at REDCAT next week, that an extra performance has been added (the show runs Oct.19-23, 2016). The most fascina…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:20PMFriday, October 14, 2016
DUDAMEL AND BELL MORE THAN WELL Drop your plans this weekend and get to Disney Hall to witness conductor Gustavo Dudamel leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic in an astoundingly satisfying …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:46PM 
