THE SLIPPERY SIGNIFICANCE OF GREAT AND GOOD A person's true character is revealed in crisis. The road to triumph is filled with battles lost and sacrifices made, but overall it is worth the …
DOSTOEVSKY’S NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre in North Hollywood ought not to surface. This willfully banal production of …
AN IMPERSONALÂ CHRISTMAS CAROL What has become of Christmas since Dickens' A Christmas Carol was published in 1843? In spite of the fact that technology has afforded us numerous opportunit…
SOME THINGS GO, SOME THINGS DON'T While it is refreshing that Cole Porter is experiencing a revival, it is unfortunate that the timeless brilliance of his music is attached to musicals whose…
LIKE ADDING MILKÂ TO GREEN TEA, A GREAT PLAY IS SPOILED BY ADDING MUSIC. Post World War II Era in America isn't a red, white, and blue haven with a backyard and a Buick waiting for everyon…
SILK-SCREEN DEEP Even though icon Andy Warhol passed away twenty-five years ago, his legacy remains elastically strong in all its plastic nature; a man very "American" for being of the cultu…
BETTER THAN THIN MINTS FROM A GIRL SCOUT The World Premiere of Patricia Scanlon's Death of a Salesgirl is a must-see surreal tragicomedy presented by The Bootleg Theater. Its fresh and innov…
FLEET FEET, HOLLOW HEART When notes jostled in and out of the written score during the overture of Musical Theatre West's 42nd Street, it portended a production that doesn't have all the ing…
JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED Even though the legislation for a public health care option passed by Democratic majority in Congress, matters of wellness and proper treatment are anxieties tha…
JOPLIN TRIBUTE NEEDS TO TRY, NOT A LITTLE BIT, BUT A LOT HARDER 42 years ago, Janis Joplin joined fellow rock visionaries Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones in the "27 Club," a…
GIVE UP THE GHOST AND GIVE US WHAT'S REAL The multi-hyphenate J.B. Priestley (Author-Novelist-Playwright-Critic-Essayist-Political Commentator) commented, "Comedy, we may say, is society pro…
SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL HAS ARRIVED Daniel Serrano's Roma al final de la VÃa (Rome at the End of the Line) is a highly recommended diamond-in-the-rough, and the 24th Street Theatre presents i…
AMERICANA NOT DEAD YET! Composer Jerome Kern said, "Irving Berlin has no place in American music. Irving Berlin is American Music." This understanding is precisely what Ray Roderick and Mich…
THE PLAYWRIGHT MUST HAVE EATEN A PILLOW, BECAUSE THIS PLAY IS DOWN IN THE MOUTH Andy Bloch's The Bellflower Sessions is a bleak, black comedy about Jack Calvin, a victim of "The Great Recess…
IT'S THE PERFECT YEAR FOR THIS POWERFUL STORY, BUT FOR THIS PRODUCTION..? It must be an election year, as artistic directors all around the nation are presenting Adrian Hall’s meaty 19…