SHAKESOPHRENIC, OR SCHIZSPEARE American director Barry Edelstein knows his Shakespeare. Before being appointed Artistic Director of the Old Globe 16 months ago, he was Director of the Shakes…
INTRIGUE? I'M GLAD YOU MASKED The poster of San Diego Opera's production of Verdi's A Masked Ball claims "Based on a True Story." This is not hyperbole. When their production opens on Saturd…
BASKETBALL MUSICAL IS ONE BIG PENALTY You wanna know how great the Chance Theater is? They actually made it a palatable experience to sit through one of the most half-baked and frivolous new…
REFLECTIONS ON L.A. DANCE PROJECT The uneven and uninspiring effort presented by L.A. Dance Project last night isn't bad news; it just means that this nascent company needs to hone its visio…
THE BLOOMING OF A BUDD IN L.A. Based on Herman Melville's classic American tale, adapted into a libretto by English novelist E.M. Forster and writer Eric Crozier, Billy Budd tells the …
LOVE WITHOUT THE TRIMMINGS My darling, dearest Noël: It only just occurred to me that I haven't written you since I saw your play Peace in our Time. Do forgive me, lamb chop. Let me cut t…
THE MUSIC MAN BEHIND THE MUSIC MAN When Musical Theatre West announced their production of The Music Man, which opens tonight at the Carpenter Center in Long Beach, I actually got excited. I…
FUNK ME Director and choreographer Otis Sallid wants to illuminate how James Brown's funky music and original dance styling has influenced contemporary culture. He engaged PHILADANCO (Philad…
LASAGNA AND MOANERS AND KASHA AND TRIPE The comical but frothy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike arrives at the Taper this week, but instead of a delectable meal, Christopher Durang's play…
MTG DEFIBRILLATES DOA MUSICAL Sheaths can be written about how deadly the musical Death Takes a Holiday is, and where the creators went wrong. What's more important is that director Calvin R…
DAISEY: I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM NOT I'm jealous of Mike Daisey. In American Utopias at Royce Hall, the infamous monologist fulminated and commentated about three interpolated subjects near an…
IF I LOVED YOU At a time when many ballet companies are commissioning short dance pieces, it's refreshing that John Neumeier"since 1973, when he became Artistic Director and chief choreograp…
KILLER PUSSY Suicide! Euthanasia! Incest! Health Care! Racism! Old age! Corporate America! Spirits! The afterlife! Prison! Duplicity! Playwright Josefina López (Real Women Have Curves) is…
GISELLE'S GAZELLES First staged in 1841, Giselle is one of the oldest surviving ballets still in the international repertory, especially because the lead role is a showcase for the world's l…
MAKE IT ANOTHER OLD-FASHIONED PLEASE It's something of a shocker, really. I had a great time watching Let's Misbehave, a jukebox musical slim on both premise and reality. It's actually more …
QUEENIE WHY? When George C. Wolfe first tried adapting Duke Ellington's unfinished work Queenie Pie in 1986 it was subtitled "A Jazz Operetta in the Key of Make Believe." Ellington called it…
FAR OUT The Los Angeles premiere of British choreographer Wayne McGregor's FAR opened at Royce Hall last night, and you are advised to cancel all plans and catch the last performance tonight…
WHEN A WORD OR TWO WILL NOT DO A Word or Two is an apt title for Christopher Plummer's solo show about Christopher Plummer and Christopher Plummer's love of language. He wants to celebrate l…
THAT AIN’T THE WAY TO HAVE FUN, SON One of the most exciting events to come out of Los Angeles theater in the last few years was Zombie Joe's Urban Death, a naturalistic horror show…
MORE JAZZ, PLEASE Interestingly, the work that opened Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal's program last night at the Bram Goldsmith Theater in the brand new Wallis Annenberg Center for the Perfor…
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID The two most important aspects of the right kind of cabaret act are the singer and the songs. But when you go to see Laura Benanti's new cabaret In Constant Search of …
TAKE A CHANCE Merrily We Roll Along is a notoriously difficult musical to get right. Even with Sondheim's magnificent score, the nature of the show"its lopsided cynicism and moving-back-in-t…
AN UNCONVENTIONAL ROMANCE Meet Max, a celebrity novelist who is single, and Trudy, a happily married woman who is working on a new novel. They meet in a writer's room and form a fast friends…
MORE LIKE ONE STARRY STARRY STARRY NIGHT If anybody knows how to put together a night of eclectic songs and singers, it's Bruce Kimmel. While he has created some terrific revues, this prolif…
CONSPIRACY THEORISTS AND THEATER LOVERS, UNITE! Remember E. Howard Hunt? This intelligence officer was one of Nixon's White House Plumbers, that clandestine band of operatives who were assig…