FALLING IN LOVE WITH LAUGHS AND LEAPS Sadly a review of record, but this experimental, eclectic mash-up from Chicago looks to have a life beyond its short runs in the cities of wind and ange…
HOW BROWN WAS MY VALLEY? The San Fernando Valley has always creeped me out. My family moved from Anaheim to Canoga Park (now West Hills) in 1971 (two weeks before the earthquake, thank you).…
NEED TO KNOW MORE Since moving into my six-unit apartment eight months ago, I have encountered the loveliest neighbors a man could hope for. But just two weeks ago, a tall, gangly, middle…
THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN OPERA IS HERE I shudder when the time comes to see a "New American Opera." The majority of new works are frustratingly inaccessible. Instead of reinventing opera, most…
SHORT ON WICKED; SHORTER ON LIT While Knott's Scary Farm has been doing it for decades with its haunted mazes, interactive theater is gaining ground nationwide as a way to address dwindling …
GOD HE’S GOOD A belated but welcome revue, Sondheim on Sondheim offers both songs and personal musings from one of Broadway’s best composer/lyricists. This inside look is rich wi…
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE ALIVE AND WELL AND WAITING FOR GODOT Rajiv Joseph's surprisingly complex and touching two-hander concerns a couple of guards assigned to stand watch at the w…
COME YE TO THE FAIR…LADY, THAT IS I'm rather certain one cannot visit enough productions of My Fair Lady. The 1956 musical, based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, tells the tale …
HOT DOG SUCKING AHEAD You know, it’s funny, I was asking a friend just the other day if he knows of any show in town which has a guy sucking on a hot dog. And it would be great if it w…
TWYLA'S TWILIGHT While most American dance companies go on tour with a "best of" program, Twyla Tharp has refreshingly opted to offer two world premieres for her 50th Anniversary Tour, seen …
MARIINSKY BALLET &Â ORCHESTRA DOUBLE DOSE Russia's Mariinsky Ballet, one of the world's most influential and historically rich dance companies, returns to Segerstrom Center for the Art…
WATCH WHAT UNFOLDS AND BE STUNNED In DIAVOLO's dance/text hybrid piece Transit Space, author Steve Connell writes, "The only way to get there is to go." The same can be said for what is argu…
A TREASURE TROVATORE There's nothing subtle about Verdi's ambitiously conceived Il Trovatore (The Troubadour). And David McVicar's grandly realized, dark and hellish version will be shown in…
GET CARRIE’D AWAY The key words in the title Carrie: The Killer Musical Experience are Killer Experience. Director Brady Schwind has taken a forever-troubled musical based on sou…
VON TOURIST TRAPP The original stage version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music was such a crowd pleaser that many are surprised to learn the 1959 Mary Martin vehicle received v…
OOH LA LA FOR LA CAGE AUX FOLLES If any gay activist ever derides this delightful musical, they would do well to remember just how radical La Cage aux Folles was when it hit Broadway in 1983…
SUNNY AND SCARE You think theater in Los Angeles can be frightening? Well, here's entertainment that's intentionally soulless. "It's so funny, you'll laugh your head off" takes on a whole ne…
ONE SKETCH, TWO STYLES When the National Theatre of Great Britain produced One Man, Two Guvnors, playwright Richard Bean's 2011 update of Carlo Goldoni's 18th Century comedy, The Servant of …
A RARE TREAT SERVED PIPING HOT The Stephen Schwartz/Joseph Stein musical The Baker's Wife never made it to Broadway. The musical folded in Washington. D.C. in 1976 before reaching New York C…
SLIDE INTO THE OLD DISNEYLAND My first visit to Disneyland was 1964, and I still remember many attractions from that day which will be covered when pop culture humorist and author Charles Ph…
SCHOOLED BY CALLAS If you've ever been to a master class, then Terrence McNally's Master Class (1995) will seem very familiar. If you haven't, then you're in for a real eye-opener. A master …
GANGSTER MUSICAL You've seen the movie, you've seen the car, now see the musical. Meet the most famous robbing, murdering, loving couple in U.S. history. From their first meeting at a West T…
RETURN OF A SMART IDIOT It’s always satisfying to see a show that really works get a remount. DOMA, which presented the best version I have ever seen of Green Day’s American I…
BORDERING ON TRAGEDY There is a lot to like about playwright Luis Alfaro's Mojada, a modern retelling of Medea which sets the main character as an undocumented immigrant and seamstress in th…
DOUBLE DUTY DOMINGO The biggest names in opera, cinema, and classical music converge for the opening of LA Opera's impressive 30th anniversary season. The double bill which opens Saturday is…