WELL WORTH A VISIT Perhaps composer/lyricist David Yazbek (The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) was inspired by one of our best new playwrights, Itamar Moses, and his adaptation of the t…
REPRISE REPRISED It’s a strange sort of serendipity. Just when Musical Theatre Guild announced its final season after eight glorious years presenting rarely produced musicals, along co…
SUCH SWEET SORROW FOR THE WRONG REASONS It's as if choreographer Krzysztof Pastor, director of the Polish National Ballet, gave Prokofiev the opportunity to protest Stalin's tyranny that he …
DON’T MYTH OUT, OR DANCING THAT’S ORPH THE CHARTS LA Opera’s gorgeous production of Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice (Orphée et Eurydice), featuring a welc…
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST I'm actually happy I didn't see this musical live on stage. It makes for a wonderful original cast recording, but what seems like a giant heart on this CD, out…
THE MUSICAL THAT KEEPS ON WORKING Was 2017 really the European premiere of this oft-produced musical? Yep. 40 years since the Broadway opening of Working, and we’re just getting the Or…
A MODERNIZED STREETCAR Since struggle for power among the classes is one of the main themes in Tennessee Williams' still-shocking A Streetcar Named Desire, it makes perfect sense that direct…
A BEAUTIFUL DOLL It's amazing. Were this masterpiece from Broadway's golden age an actual guy or doll, he or she would be scoring Social Security. But make no mistake, this 1950 hoofer is no…
HIS AND HERS HISTORY Looking for some inspiration? From Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner and lauded author Sarah Vowell comes a powerful examination of one of American history'…
MY KINDA CABARET ACT It was the decade that changed our nation forever. What began as nothing but promise — victors of a World War and a young forward-thinking President — sudden…
A MAGNIFICENT MARIACHI OPERA COMES TO THE SORAYA It was by sheer luck that I was in Chicago and happened upon the world's first mariachi opera, Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face o…
MARVIN’S GARDEN One of composer Marvin Hamlisch's first gigs was that of rehearsal pianist and assistant vocal arranger for the original production of Funny Girl on Broadway in 1964, a…
THESE THINGS MUST BE DONE DELICATELY If you lose your way trying to navigate the enigmatic journey Anna Ziegler wants to take us in her well-written but thematically dense A Delicate Ship…
RARELY PRODUCED BERLIN SCORE COMES TO LIFE No doubt when folks hear “Louisiana Purchase,” they think of Thomas Jefferson’s gargantuan land acquisition from France in 1803, …
AN OPERATIC CIRCUS ODYSSEY The uber-innovative Australian performance troupe, Circa, returns to the States with its newest production, Il Ritorno, a unique production that melds circus arts …
YOU LEAVE SEEKING PEACE AND A PLOT When a play comes along that is entirely different from any play that has preceded it, especially in our era of over-informative white noise and copycattin…
THANKFULLY, NOT SO SILENT Based on her three previous theater outings alone, it's fitting that writer/director Marja-Lewis Ryan has recently been tapped to be showrunner and executive produc…
MEMORIES OF MEXICO, LUZIAÂ UNLEASHES A RAIN OF JOY The Cirque du Soleil just made a run for the border " and not the Canadian one — as the Montreal-based human circus lavishes its un…
A PRINCH ASSAULT For 22 years, the Troubadour Theater Company (aka The Troubies) has amalgamated freely altered classics with music of a particular artist, creating riotous sketch/improv/ent…
COME FOR GYLLENHAAL; STAY FOR SONDHEIM Although a hit, the 2017 revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George had a str…
WE GET EVERYTHING BUT THE HEART Certainly one of the most gorgeous lavish sets ever seen at the Wallis, with gorgeous sumptuous costumes, and gorgeous talented athletic actors. With all of t…
PLEASE HELLO! Remarkably, one of the most difficult things about Pacific Overtures is that Harold Prince directed the original production utilizing the ancient Japanese theater-form, Kabuki,…
CAUGHT IN ITS SPELL An onion-skin experience, Christopher Chen’s magnificent Caught is indeed scripted, but you won’t know that when you’re watching it. Part immersive thea…
The Los Angeles Philharmonic's Deck the Hall Holiday Concerts at Disney Hall are just around the corner, and the variety this year is unmatched. I may be enchanted by the ever-popul…
OUR CHORALE’S CHRISTMAS CHORAL CONCERTS AND CAROLS With the indefatigable Energizer Bunny of conducting, Grant Gershon, at the helm, Los Angeles Master Chorale (LAMC) can easily be lab…