IN HARLEM'S WAY We never meet the titular Our Lady of 121st Street, a no-nonsense New York nun who had a profound effect on the characters in Stephen Adly Guirgis's 2003 play. Nor do we meet…
COMMERCIAL WITHOUT COMMERCIALS Imagine if the '70s sitcom Good Times did not hit TV until 2007. Now imagine a 3-episode arc about the coming out of a black man who brings his white boyfriend…
GO FACE THE MUSIC+DANCE Assuredly, Artistic Director Lincoln Jones' American Contemporary Ballet (ACB) has become the go-to organization for thrilling dance in Los Angeles. Along with his mu…
CAROUSEL COMES TO LYRIC OPERA Lyric Opera of Chicago's stunning new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel opens tonight and runs through May 3, 2015 at the Civic Opera House in Ch…
A GOOD BÊTE Even though it's written in mostly rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter, David Hirson's 1991 play, La Bête, is by far the least avant-garde presentation at Trap Door I h…
UNLEASHING THE BEAST River North Dance Chicago (RNDC) is blasting into The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University as part of the "Made in Chicago" Series on Saturday, March 28, 2015 at 7…
"FEELIN' GOOD SWEET," INDEED! Giordano Dance Chicago (GDC), America's original jazz dance company, returns to the Harris Theater for Music and Dance for its spring engagement, March 27-29, 2…
LAST CHANCEÂ TO GET THIS WORK Get ready for this 1920s-era feel-good musical, complete with extravagant dance numbers, glittering costumes and an unlikely love story between a wealthy play…
MUSICAL THEATRE WEST KNOWS HOW TO SUCCEED Reams can and have been written about the glories of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, and b…
REAWAKENING A TIMELESS BEAUTY Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Center for the Arts once again proves itself as one of the country's most exciting dance centers by presenting Alexei Ratmansky's all-ne…
LOVE THAT GOES BUMP IN THE NIGHT Conor McPherson's plays are so rooted in the characters that plot is really revelation. With unforced warmth, he captures loneliness in the act of self-effac…
A FAMOUS LITERARY FEUD MAKES GREAT DRAMA In a 1980 television interview with Dick Cavett, novelist and literary critic Mary McCarthy made an especially biting comment about her longtime adve…
THEATRICAL TRICKERY TRUMPS A TRAGIC TALE Cheeky, goofy and sassy, Tristan & Yseult at South Coast Rep affectionately mocks and contemporizes a classic love tragedy and literary legend wh…
EXCITING QUARTET COMES TO SEGERSTROM I've been on a chamber music kick for about four years now. From intimate salons in living rooms to concert halls, I'm discovering composers I've never h…
EAGERLY I WISHED THE MARROW For all its surface eccentricity, Nevermore, The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe, written, composed, and directed by Jonathan Christenson, …
IN GOOD COMPANY "It's a revue, but not a revue," Stephen Sondheim said about Company when he was interviewed at Segerstrom in 2013. This surprised me because the groundbreaking 1970 musical …
¡FIGARO! ¡FIGARO! ¡FIGARO! An updating of The Marriage of Figaro took New York by storm in 2013. Taking the debate over immigration reform, a multi-cultural English/Spanglish adapta…
AN EXTRA CHANCE TO CHECK-IN With ticket sales hotter than the Great Chicago Fire, the even greater Robey Theatre Company has just announced an extension of their wildly popular, sold-out The…
YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE, NOËL Noël Coward would have loved that his name appears twice in Love, Noël: The Letters and Songs of Noël Coward, which, having completely sold out its ru…
A HOT CHRISTMAS Under boughs of holly and multi-media of silver and gold, stars and snowflakes will glitter as Upright Cabaret combines the Best of Broadway with the Carols of Christmas for …
COEURAGE, I COULD EAT YOU UP It is rare when a theater company lives up to its mission statement. Normally, the vision is so hifalutin as to be obscure. Luckily, Los Angeles has Coeurage The…
FLARE DONE WITH FLAIR Unlike Sherwood's Idiot’s Delight (1936), Terence Rattigan's Flare Path (1941) is not an anti-war play. Both take place in a hotel and have a rich variety of char…
EVERYBODY LOVES SHE LOVES ME I'll be the first to admit that it may be impossible to create a bad production of the 1963 jewel-box musical She Loves Me. This perfect show, based on the 1937 …
THIS WOODS DELIVERS THE GOODS Somewhere between "Once Upon a Time" and "Happily Ever After" there is a very adult world of tests, losses, disappointments, and grief. Despite this, we assert …
CROSS OVER INTO IMPRO'S TWILIGHT ZONE After last year's crop of run-of-the-mill Christmas plays, I swore off any theater that even alludes to the holidays. Now, I must eat my words. Opening …