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 …
A REALLY GOOD LIFETIME MOVIE ON STAGE Chicago Theater comes to L.A. lock, stock and barrel with the Goodman production of Rebecca Gilman's Luna Gale. Â A winning cast"led by the remarkable…
IT'S ONLY INVISIBLE IF YOU KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN The first time I heard Christopher Cerrone's opera Invisible Cities, based on Italo Calvino's 1972 fictional novel, was during The Industry's i…
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT Beginning November 26, 42nd Street Moon will revist one of its earliest hits, the mirthful 1943 farce Something for the Boys. This rarely performed boisterous mus…
PROMISING PROMISES, I PROMISE The premise of Promises, Promises is one you are probably familiar with even if you have never seen the 1968 musical, which opens in a splashy revival at San Fr…
KANDER & EBB'S DANCE MARATHON MUSICAL FINALLY ARRIVES IN LOS ANGELES I can understand why you hear about a "Staged Reading" and want to bolt in the opposite direction. Don't let that tit…
SILVER DOESN'T EVEN GET A BRONZE It took fifteen actors, two writers, two directors, and three designers to create a Working Theater's one-hour interactive theatrical experience, a Silver Li…
HAUNTEDÂ BY POWER Aurora Theatre once again proves its might by presenting the West Coast Premiere of a great play. Opening this week and running through Dec. 7, 2014, Breakfast with Mugab…
AÂ CASE WHERE CURIOSITY WON’T KILL THE CAT Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the global phenomenon Cirque du Soleil arrives at San Francisco's AT&T Park for the U.S. Pr…
COMPLETELY SMART The exciting and insightful writer Itamar Moses may be one of our brightest playwrights, yet he has astoundingly been given short shrift by the L.A. theater community. Wi…