499 stories by "ROB WEINERT-KENDT"
St. Vincent's new video "Cruel" is catchy and disturbing in roughly equal measure, but what caught my eye is the fine, understated actor playing her husband. The bearded fellow is Bjørn J…
Readings from around the Intertubes:
French Stewart's tribute to tiny, thankless L.A. theater.
The Garv blows the lid off theater people knowing each other and working together.
The Zinoman …
Photo by Anne Cusack for the Los Angeles Times
The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity continues its nationwide sweep, all the more remarkable because of its exceptional staging demands (real …
My fellow blogger/dad/theater writer, George Hunka, has a thoughtful and encouraging post about the value of reading plays vs. seeing them staged.That a written drama only comes alive on the…
As I mentioned in my recent post about the Sondheim/Porgy and Bess rumble, I knew I'd seen quotes in which he'd spoken frankly about West Side Story's flaws and strengths. I just dug up the …
Monday morning links with your coffee.Managing the nightly Hair dance party.Critic behaving badly.The case for spoilers: "The sign of something being really good is that it stands up well to…
Here's the thing: Patrick Healy's feature about Diane Paulus and Suzan-Lori Parks' new musical adaptation of Porgy and Bess was a big fat target; I myself read it with very mixed feelings ab…
The Sondheim classic about faded Broadway dreams returns.
I don't think the woman can do no wrong, but anyone who wrote both "Jolene" and "Down From Dover" is doing something right, and heartily worth a tip of the margarita at El Chavo. But a fun p…
The only Sondheim shows I haven't seen are Saturday Night, Anyone Can Whistle, and Follies, and only the last is a canonical work. I have a reasonable excuse in that Follies is pretty infreq…
Solo artist at work (a millennial, to boot).
From around the Webs:Jeremy Barker on why theatres in trouble should take more, not fewer risks.Denise Poirier, one of the best Lady Macbeths I've seen (way, way back in L.A. at Theatre of N…
Years ago, on my first trip to London, I happened to meet the Guardian's eminence grise Michael Billington (is there any living theater critic who's been at it as long as he? Feingold?). We …
July was a busy month away from the theater district, with a heavy focus on Shakespeare, both imported and locally grown. In addition to the Public Theater's annual Shakespeare in the Park, …
Fascinating video of my local Dixieland band, the Red Hook Ramblers, making a wax cylinder recording recently at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, NJ. There are tech…
The TCG Conference in Los Angeles, now more than a month in the past, was bittersweet for me. I've been back to the city I called home for nearly half my life many times before, but this tim…
Karina Fernicola Ikezoe in the lead role of Salome; photo courtesy of Black MoonMost of the big dailies' websites allow commenting on their reviews, and most theater reviews receive few comm…
Apart from the obligatory Murdoch hatred, what's striking about this clip from Dennis Potter's final interview is how well his critique of ultra-monetized media applies to dilemmas that have…
Some things that caught my eye while I should be doing 10 million other things:Elizabeth Swados' Runaways gets another listen.Haven't seen the play, but the spin--that a play about a woman w…
Kitten on the keys:A sign of hope for new musicals.Shades of the Pigiron kerfluffle: L.A.'s Poor Dogs get called out by a Fox affiliate for spending city tax dollars abroad. The LAT comment …
For the terminally curious, here's the (almost) complete video of Julie Taymor's talk with Roger Copeland at the recent TCG conference, about which I've only commented on Isaac's blog. For m…
The first big piece I wrote for American Theatre after I started full-time here was an in-depth profile of L.A.'s Celebration Theatre and its artistic director Michael Shepperd. There was no…
Good Person of Szechuan by Bertolt BrechtThe Glass Menagerie by Tennessee WilliamsUnforgettable Elephants PBS Nature Series"Whistler's Mother" Season 1 Episode 20 Arrested Development a man…
"Regardless of the medium, rewriting and more rewriting is still necessary. No one gets anything right the first time, and since I don't write with a hammer and chisel, it's relatively ea…
The Ohio Theatre's untimely departure from Soho last year was bad news, but this summer brings great news upon already good news. The Ohio's annual Ice Factory new-works festival is now up a…
