THIS WAY TO THE AMERICAN DREAM" MIND THE TRAP DOORS Kafka's story still needs an ending, but Open Fist delivers a wildly inventive Amerika If you think America is in an existential crisis ri…
425 YEARS LATER, THE O.G. ROMCOM STILL CASTS A SPELL Writers Theatre in Glencoe, a charming North Shore Chicago suburb, has developed a reputation for impeccably produced theater of extremel…
A GREAT PREMISE GETS LOBOTOMIZED Laguna Playhouse offers a dazzling wall of doors and not much behind them Paul Slade Smith's new play Beside Myself arrives with a knockout premise: Gemma, a…
THE QUIET COST OF BELONGING Suh's Thanksgiving duet is lovely and lived-in, but leaves one wishing for deeper stakes The Heart Sellers at South Coast Rep offers a focused, uninterrupted glim…
SWEET, CHARMING, AND BRIMMING WITH LIFE, HELLO, DOLLY! IS MUSICAL COMEDY HEAVEN It's always extraordinary to hear a live orchestra in a musical these days " a rare and exhilarating luxury th…
THE BRIDGE FROM THE GREAT WHITE WAY TO TINSELTOWN AND BACK AGAIN The New York Pops' concert From Stage to Screen at Carnegie Hall promised a night of crossover magic last Friday"songs that l…
WHEN INTROSPECTION FLATLINES: DAVID ROUSSEVE'S BECOMING DADDY AF IS MORE LIKE WTF After more than twenty years away from full-length solo work, choreographer and storyteller David Roussève …
A KNOCKOUT OF CONSCIENCE NOW BECOMES A STREAM OF CONSCIENCE Stage and Cinema called the visceral and relevant Broadway hit Punch "a knockout of conscience." Now, Manhattan Theatre Club is gi…
A GHOST STORY THAT EXPLAINS ITSELF TO DEATH It's 2012 in Sherman Oaks, CA, when Thai-American life-insurance salesman Max (David Huynh) begins sleepwalking and violently lashes out at his pr…
A KILLER REVIVAL Drury Lane's Dial M for Murder may be set in 1950s London, but under Adam Immerwahr's taut direction, the suspense feels freshly sharpened. Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's adap…
READY FOR A SWIFT MOVE? Veronica Electrifies the Pacific Jazz Orchestra Gala The Pacific Jazz Orchestra opens its 2025"26 season with a night that promises both elegance and swing: an intima…
A NEWFOUND(LAND) WAY OF LOOKING AT MUSICAL THEATER It's always a joy " and a rarity " to see a musical I've witnessed before reemerge as something fresher than the first time I saw it. Such …
REVELLING IN RAVEL AND A RAPTUROUS CARMEN The Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened its late-September program tonight with a shimmering palette of sound while offering many chances for the play…
WEST SIDE SNORING Astoundingly unsatisfying, LA Opera's many-headed Hydra production of West Side Story, directed with no sense of urgency by Francesca Zambello, opened tonight to a crowd la…
Ragtime is the epic musical by Terrence McNally (book), with music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens (based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow). It weaves together stories of a Jewish…
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME A friend warned me that The Heidi Chronicles might feel dated"after all, Wendy Wasserstein's Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play ends in 1987.…
ONE UP PLAYS TO WIN" WITH A CHEAT CODE FOR CHARM One Up: The Musical, which premiered at this year's Hollywood Fringe and returns for encore performances, is a charming, if uneven, 80s-inspi…
WHY CAN'T A SUPERHERO CATCH A BREAK? (OR A BROADWAY RUN) Foster Cat Productions is taking a gleeful leap off the tall building that is It's a Bird… It's a Plane… It's Superman!, the 1966…
THE SHOW MUST GO ON, MOORE OR LESS She's a singer, certainly a star, and a survivor. Melba Moore has had a decades-long career that includes musical theatre, film, TV, and recordings coverin…
MÉNAGE À MEH, OR BOB & CAROL & DEAD & AIRLESS Last Saturday, I caught the world premiere of Ménage à Quatre, a play that seems to promise a farce but instead delivers…
THE KIND OF SEPTEMBER YOU'LL WANT TO REMEMBER With the original opening Off-Broadway in 1960 and running an astounding 42 years, The Fantasticks is a veritable classic amongst the reperto…
BYRD SONG IN SHADOW: CONCERT IN CANDLELIGHT, THEATRE OF DEFIANCE Hark! Attend, ye lovers of sacred sound and clandestine devotion, for the international tour of Secret Byrd"an evanescent gli…
SEAGULL INTERRUPTED An extraordinarily well-written play"and a perfect choice for the Hollywood Fringe"Steven Dietz's 75-minute one-act, The Nina Variations, takes the final scene of Chekhov…
Have you ever wanted to run away from your own life? In Becky's New Car, now playing at Theatre 40, playwright Steven Dietz takes that midlife fantasy and drives it straight into a quirky, c…
Kevin Mambo's journey to the stage reads like a global prelude to a richly textured career. Born in Zimbabwe, raised in Canada, and educated in Los Angeles at USC, Mambo's trajectory launche…