45 stories by "Sharon Perlmutter"
Despite all that needs fixing in Empire, it has a lot going for it and may well be worth the effort. There are eye-popping visuals, a huge tap ensemble hoofing its heart out, and some deligh…
It's a ripoff of Much Ado set in the universe of the Quartos—a quartet so suspiciously like the Beatles, their album covers look exactly alike, although the titles are somewhat different (…
To be sure, there are a lot of things that need work in the new Richard Maltby Jr./David Shire musical premiering at the Pasadena Playhouse...
First, the good news: the world premiere musical Dangerous Beauty at the Pasadena Playhouse is full of good, strong voices. Everyone in this show can sing and sing well. The bad news is that…
I have seen several attempts to put The Picture of Dorian Gray on stage. Be it play, musical, or dance, people keep trying to dramatize the piece, sensing its inherent theatricality. And whi…
La Mirada has created a small space in its huge space, by curtaining off the wings and the house, and placing seating on three sides of the stage. The result is a theatre that is simultaneou…
Sure, I could nitpick Play Dead—the cross between a play and a magic show, sprinkled with a bit of haunted house, currently playing in the small Audrey Skirball Kenis theatre at the Geffen.
For us to buy Barrymore's Hamlet, we have to be completely committed to the idea that a conversation with John Barrymore is a wild ride-just strap yourself in and be prepared for anything, e…
Standing alone, the story of Flowers for Algernon is solidly fiction—it was originally published in a science fiction magazine—because, let's face it, there is no operation that transfor…
It is a nightmare scenario for any parent: your car is gone, your 17-year-old daughter is nowhere to be found, and there's a snowstorm making driving especially hazardous.
... in Hamlet, the company has achieved a true company production—a Hamlet that doesn't noticeably drop in quality whenever Hamlet is offstage.
Bad news, nerds: Bruce Norris's A Parallelogram is not about math. Good news, though: It's about time travel.
On a scene-by-scene basis, Talbott has a true gift for realistic dialogue; and, when directing his own work, he knows exactly where the pauses ought to go, to make for true-to-life conversat…
Mitzi Sinnott's one-woman show is part political statement and part theatre. As the former, it is a pretty powerful piece, as she recounts—and, with certain dramatic license, reenacts—he…
In its Los Angeles premiere production at the Colony theatre, it is perfectly executed. This is a show that won't leave you debating about anything in the car on the way home, but it will le…
[E]ven with a concert staged reading, the downright awfulness of the book takes its toll.
Elevator Repair Service has chosen not to adapt the novel for the stage, but to instead perform every word—the script must look like the book with a lot of stage directions.
Justin Love gives an old plot a modern twist, shines it up with with a bright and upbeat score, adds genuinely clever dialogue and lyrics, and wraps it all up in a Hollywood that only exists…
I don't think I'd ever actually considered the possibility that our soldiers fighting in the Middle East might be the children of our soldiers who fought in Vietnam. Keliher Walsh's world pr…
It's a play about aging—Stop! Wait! Don't turn away! It's an honest, frank-and-sometimes-funny look at people making difficult life decisions at a time of life when their conversation focu…
