STRANGE BUT WATCHABLE BEHAVIOR Let's see if I got this right. A tongue-in-cheek bio-musical and pseudo-adventure tale about John Broadus Watson"wannabe preacher-turned-behavioral scientist-t…
MORE D'OH THAN WOO-HOO The intelligent minds behind The Simpsons already had over 51,000 spectators (over three nights) in the palms of their collective hands before they sat down to write T…
ALBEE SEEING YOU AT THE RENBERG On the surface, Edward Albee's The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? is about a middle-aged architect, Martin, who has a zoophilic love affair that threatens to destroy…
INTO THE FOLD Recently divorced, and abandoned by her beloved three-legged dog, well-respected origami artist Ilana has fortified herself in her studio. Surrounded by paper, Chinese take-out…
A FLAT-FOOTED RACE In April 2014, lawyer and LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling was banned from the NBA for life and fined $2.5 million by the league after private recordings of him making ra…
THE PERFECT COCK Whether breeding chickens or designing your kitchen with rooster tchotchkes, it can be challenging to find the perfect cock. But if you look to the theater, your search for …
NOT AS TRYING AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN A slight bio-drama is given heft by larger-than-life performances in this latest outing from International City Theatre in Long Beach. Trying is based on …
ONE IN A MILLION Rabid theatergoers who often attend plays are akin to miners panning for gold: The drudgery and disappointment from months of discovering rocks is dissipated when a precious…
I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE OF LOS ANGELES BALLET Along with the film industry, one of Los Angeles' greatest entertainment assets is music. While theater, dance, opera, and other mediums continua…
ALLEY HIGH There are many reasons why some previously produced Broadway musicals are rarely performed: The sheer size of the show makes it prohibitively expensive (The Most Happy Fella, 1956…
SOUR CHERRIES It's been 110 years since The Cherry Orchard premiered. While Chekhov insisted that his play about the fall of Russian aristocracy"and the fallout from the abolition of serfdom…
FLAMENCO FEVER AT THE FORD AMPHITHEATRE Last year, after the thrilling, fiery, and passionate flamenco dancer Manuel Gutiérrez displayed a crackling tap and pedal pyrotechnics the likes of …
EVEN WHEN A GENERATION CAN'T HOLD UP, ITS HAIR CAN When Diane Paulus' revival of Hair swooshed into the Pantages in 2012, it felt more like a cause for nostalgic partying than a recreation o…
THE PAGEANT OF THE MASTERS IS ON THE CASE On March 18, 1990, two young men dressed as Boston police officers walked unchallenged into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Some 81 minutes lat…
ETHER IS NEITHER/NOR A dramaturgical mess, Elizabeth Egloff's strangely shapeless historical drama about the mid-19th-century advent of ether as an anesthesia contains a fascinating story bu…
FINDING NEW MOMENTS IN THE WOODS I wondered at the intermission of Fiasco Theater's production of Into the Woods why they hadn't cast amazing singers. Up to this point, the ten-member ensemb…
FOUR PLAY The setting for Ronald Harwood’s 1999 play is a retirement home in England for former opera singers. Three of the residents,  Reginald, Cecily, and Wilfred, try to pers…
FATHERS AND SONS The sensitive, expressive, and pensive son. The emotionally cool, impatient, and badgering father. Together, this family dynamic seen throughout history is so familiar that …
L.A.'S BIGGEST FAN It surprises me that Lady Windermere's Fan isn't produced as frequently as the ubiquitous The Importance of Being Earnest. Beginning Friday, Chalk Rep is remounting las…
WE WILL SCHLOCK YOU A huge West End hit for twelve years (just closing last May), this awful compilation jukebox musical does for Queen what Mamma Mia! did for ABBA, Buddy for Buddy Holly an…
I DREAM’D A DREAM TO-NIGHT The National Ballet of Canada (TNBC), which presented its thrilling rendition of Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at the Dorothy Chand…
A HOT AUGUST CAST Having witnessed many Broadway hits at the beginning and end of their runs (and the touring companies they spawned), it is fair for me to say that the magic and crackling e…
EXPECT NO ERRORS IN THIS COMEDY One of Shakespeare's earliest plays, The Comedy of Errors is also his shortest and most farcical. In fact, while scholars argue over the classification of oth…
DARK SUBJECT MATTER LEAVES US IN THE DARK Inspired by Theater of the Absurd, Cuban expatriate MarÃa Irene Fornés (b. 1930) cut her teeth during the Off-Off-Broadway avant-garde movement.…
DELIVERING THE GOODS WITH INTO THE WOODS Somewhere between "Once Upon a Time" and "Happily Ever After" there is a very adult world of tests, losses, disappointments, and grief. Despite this,…