Stage Raw: The Receptionist By Steven Leigh Morris

Though Mullally nails the officious manner and mercurial pettiness of the practiced office functionary, Bart DeLorenzo's detail-mired direction ultimately proves unable to bridge the miscalc…

Stage Raw: The Subject Was Roses and Emmett Till By Steven Leigh Morris

Is a Play About a Gay Baseball Player Still Timely? Of Course by Jenny Lower

The new troupe Plus One Productions' debut restages Richard Greenberg's 2002 Broadway drama Take Me Out -- about an African-American baseball star who comes out of the closet -- for a black-…

How to Make Horror and Sci-Fi Theater Work by Mindy Farabee

One man is dragged, screaming, down a portal to hell. A boy takes a baseball bat to his abusive father. A mysterious body stuffed into a trunk provokes the most unsettling metaphysical quest…

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including Bob Baker's Holiday Puppet Show for Kids by Steven Leigh Morris

For all the latest new theater reviews and stage listings, see below. Our list of the top 10 plays in 2013 is this week's theater feature. This is the last posting of Stage Raw at this loc…

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including Bruce Vilanch and Ben Vereen in a Terrific Alladin by Steven Leigh Morris

A "beguiling interactive adaptation" of the Alladin story is this week's Pick of the Week. It features with Bruce Vilanch and Ben Vereen, among others. Warm feelings also for the just-closed…

Suck It, Times Square. Downtown L.A.'s 3D Animated New Year's Eve Is Going to Rock by Amanda Lewis

On New Year's Eve, around midnight, City Hall will disappear. First, the iconic 85-year-old art deco skyscraper will morph and vibrate with neon patterns, as its windows, walls and edges e…

W.C. Fields and a Sing-Along Fiddler on the Roof: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List by Sherrie Li

Saturday, Dec. 21 Everything Is Terrible! Holiday Special 2013! is at the Echo tonight at 7 p.m. This comedy event promises to be "the tackiest winter wonderland imaginable," offering a com…

Why Is Theater Not Diverse Enough? SoCal's Stage Leaders Discuss by Bill Raden

The artistic directors of Southern California's regional theater powerhouses came together Monday night on the Pasadena Playhouse stage for what was billed as a panel discussion "on the stat…

How Is L.A. Opera's New Airline-Style Pricing System Going? by Samantha Bonar

If you waited until L.A. Opera season started to purchase your tickets to season-opener Carmen this year, you were in for a rude awakening: Prices for the cheapest seats for Bizet's classic …

Theater to See in L.A. This Week: Bette Midler Plays a Legendary Hollywood Agent by Steven Leigh Morris

Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht find themselves on the Santa Monica Pier for Paul Sand's Kurt Weill at the Cuttlefish Hotel -- a cabaret that critic Paul Birchall describes as a "tour de force…

A 30-Minute Musical Version of Home Alone, Starring Chaz Bono by Channing Sargent

The holidays in L.A. are marked not by snow but by the heavy fall of holiday-themed shows into small theaters across the city. Multitudes of A Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, and ho…

Theater to See in L.A. This Week: A Christmas Carol That Crawls Inside Scrooge's Head by Steven Leigh Morris

A Christmas Carol at Sierra Madre Playhouse crawls inside the head of Scrooge, and nabs this week's Pick of the Week. Our critics also liked a "turbo-charged" A Christmas Carol at Zombie Joe…

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including a Magic Horror Show by Steven Leigh Morris

A spooky, horror magic show, Todd Robbins' and Teller's Play Dead at Geffen Playhouse, is this week's Pick. A good review also for In the Heights presented by Teatro Nuevo Horizontes and Cas…

Sleeping Beauty at the Ahmanson Shows How Matthew Bourne Tweaks a Classic Ballet by Channing Sargent

Choreographer Matthew Bourne has a reputation for audaciousness that precedes him. In America, the British choreographer is most well known for his production of Swan Lake. First staged at …

5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week, Including Funny Paintings by David Lynch by Catherine Wagley

This week, a fountain at LACMA gets renamed and a Culver City gallery temporarily adds a basement. 5. Trolleys can make music, too Futurist Luigi Russolo began his 1913 manifesto, The Art o…

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including Elvis's Toenail by Steven Leigh Morris

Fionnuala Kenny's Elvis's Toenail takes us back to 1961 Dublin. Critic Neal Weaver found himself entranced by the classical strain between people and church. The production at Burbank's Sidw…

L.A. Weekly Theater Critic Steven Leigh Morris Talks About His New Play, Moskva by Channing Sargent

Steven Leigh Morris, L.A. Weekly's own head theater critic, has brought a Russian literary masterpiece -- Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita -- to Santa Monica with his stage adapta…

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including Charles Dickens Meeting Lewis Carroll by Steven Leigh Morris

Lewis Carroll meets Charles Dickens in Daniel Rover Singer's play on the literati at South Pasadena's Fremont Centre Theatre, called A Perfect Likeness. Our critic Deborah Klugman enjoyed it…

Young Jean Lee's Play Shows How Life Is Terrible and Stars a 'Terrible' Performer -- Herself by Bill Raden

"The thing that is so amazing about music," exclaims the excited voice over the phone, "is I feel that it is so much more immediate. ... It's just like ... I don't know, it's just like, I me…

5 Dance Shows to See in L.A. This Week: Martha Graham Dance Company at a New Beverly Hills Theater by Ann Haskins

This week's dance events include lost boys, the day of the dead, Susan Marshall live and two phoenices rising from the ashes. 5. Phoenix rising #1 Not sure what is more impressive, the fact…

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including a Play About a Teacher Versus a Parent by Steven Leigh Morris

An intense one-act about a showdown between a schoolteacher and a parent, Gidion's Knot, presented by Furious Theatre Company at the Pasadena Playhouse's Carrie Hamilton Theatre, is this wee…

Wallis Annenberg Center: New Beverly Hills Theater Nods to Its Past Life as a Post Office by Channing Sargent

In a year of sweeping post office closures and service cutbacks, one local branch is being celebrated with a much-anticipated transformation. The historic mail center in Beverly Hills, afte…

How Do You Translate Menopause The Musical Into Spanish? by Kevin O'Keeffe

When playwright Jeanie Linders interviewed translator Vivis Colombetti for the job of translating her 2001 show Menopause The Musical into Spanish, Colombetti couldn't get the scribe to laug…

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including a Disturbing Tale of Freed Slaves in Oklahoma by Steven Leigh Morris

Marcus Gardley's epic tale of freed slaves in Oklahoma, the road weeps, the trail runs dry at LATC, nabs this week's Pick of the Week. Our critics also felt warmly for Beckett's Endgame at P…

Invisible Cities, the Wandering Opera Through Union Station, Is a Welcome Adventure by Christian Hertzog

"It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear." This aphorism appears on the cover of the program to Christopher Cerrone's opera Invisible Cities. Yet in the Industry's fascin…

Museum of Tolerance Creates an Anne Frank Experience for the Twitter Era. Is That a Good Thing? by Amanda Lewis

Americans don't read anymore, and the museums have noticed. No longer can we stroll through a white-walled room and linger over a jargon-heavy treatise explaining the origins of an artifac…

Meet One of L.A.'s Top Native American Hoop Dancers, Now Performing in Cirque du Soleil by Sarah Diamond

It started out as a hobby, but it ended up as a contract with the largest circus in the world. Just two years ago, Los Angeles native Eric Hernandez was a sophomore at Brigham Young Univer…

Crimes of the Heart Writer Beth Henley Revisits Play With Loyola Marymount Production by Kevin O'Keeffe

Over three decades ago, playwright Beth Henley completed her play Crimes of the Heart. Two years later, it debuted in New York City. A year later, Henley won the Pulitzer Prize. Six years af…

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including Cirque du Soleil's Totem by Steven Leigh Morris

Our critics enjoyed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Actors Co-op, Awake and Sing at Group Repertory Theatre and Cirque du Soleil's Totem. This week's Pick of the Week goes to David Grieg's adapta…

A Haunted House That Aspires to Be Intelligent, Truly Interactive Theater by Bill Raden

At Silver Lake's old Bethany Presbyterian Church on a recent Thursday night, a gathering of well turned out Angelinos murmur with nervous anticipation. A sudden hush falls over the room as …