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,…
I HAVE A LOVE Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony have just released a live recording of the first ever complete concert performances of West Side Story. I wanted …
MEGALOMANIA WAS NEVER SO MUCH FUN Move over Evita, there's another Queen of Hearts in town. And she likes diamonds too. I'm talking about Imelda Marcos"she of the thousand pairs of shoes"who…
CAVE-IN The press release refers to The Cave as being inspired by Beauty and the Beast and Persephone. In Greek mythology, Persephone was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the Underworld. B…
A WORLD APART FROM TYPICAL FRINGE FARE Like a breath of fresh air, Jason Robert Brown's Songs for a New World far exceeded my expectations of both the Fringe and Brown's uneven song cycle. T…
FAR FROM FABULOUS A young gay man named Charlie has had a breakup. Feeling despondent, he enters an empty theater and performs a ritual aided by a copy of Witchcraft for Dummies. He conjures…
GIVE US THE OL' RAZZLE DAZZLE There are some perfect pairs in entertainment: Laurel and Hardy, Bert and Ernie, Simon and Garfunkel, Gumby and Pokey, Cheech and Chong, and Shaggy and Scooby c…
LINDEN HOPS Based on the lyrics of Van Morrison's "Linden Arden Stole the Highlights," Colin Mitchell's one-man play of the same name may have a sketchy narrative, but a combination of genui…
CANDY MAN Yes, this is a superficial “And then I…” retelling of Anthony Newley’s life, but Jon Peterson’s one-man outing at the Hollywood Fringe Festival is fun…
ONCE NIGHT ONLY Pretend for a moment that One Night Only Cabaret wasn't a fundraiser for both Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation (REAF). Pretend that yo…