A DANCE PIECE THAT'S A KEEPER The frequency of site-specific events continues to grow exponentially in the City of Angels, but Heidi Duckler has been doing it for many years, creating unique…
HIT THE WALLIS A brand new theater has opened its doors in Beverly Hills, but nothing could have prepared me for its magnificence in contemporary construction and design. The 500-seat Bram G…
BALLET SUPERSTAR RETURNS TO SEGERSTROM The title of two world premiere dance pieces at Segerstrom Hall this week could not be more apt: Diana Vishneva of the Mariinsky Ballet and American Ba…
A HIGH FLYING, ADORED REVIVAL Composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice released the Evita "rock opera concept album" in 1976, a few years before the first theatrical production…
A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF ACTING Last August, Time's cover story, "A World Without Bees," brought to light a frightening occurrence: In recent years, there have been mass deaths of honeybee…
A CLOSED-MOUTH KISS There are so many sexual allusions and situations in Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate that it is remarkable the musical came out in 1948. I surmise the reason that Porter got …
SEEING WHAT’S INVISIBLE In describing Invisible Cities, allow me to paraphrase Gore Vidal's critique of Italo Calvino's 1972 novel of the same name on which this production is based: O…
COMPRESSED CRUELTY IN A SMALL STRINDBERG SHOCKER August Strindberg, the "father of modern psychological drama," told his publisher that Creditors, a drama that he prized as much as he did hi…
PUTTING THE THEATER IN DANCE Living up to its name, Nederlands Dans Theater 1 bounded into Los Angeles last night, showing off the reasons why The Hague-based contemporary dance outfit is kn…
CIRQUE'S PERKS What’s a circus without lions, tigers, and elephants? Â In the case of Cirque du Soleil's Totem, their eleventh major production in 26 years, it’s a marked impro…
SITE-SPECIFIC IS NOT SO SPECIFIC La Jolla Playhouse supported the trend of site-specific and immersive theater by presenting a four-day program of over 20 different performances in and aroun…
STOPPARD AND GO Tom Stoppard's brilliant Travesties (1974) is literate and fiercely crafted, tackling ideas of love, wit, politics, art, theater, literature, intellectualism and whatever els…
NO HALLELUJAH FOR THE LAST GOODBYE No one can deny why Jeff Buckley has achieved cult status. The coffeehouse-rock singer brought an aching, wrenching, ethereal and vulnerable quality to bot…
TOO FEW Samuel D. Hunter's slice-of-life one-act, The Few, returns to familiar territory for this up-and-coming playwright. As in his previous plays, Hunter takes us to small-town Idaho; thi…
RELATIVITY, STAGED A trusty theater friend witnessed Einstein on the Beach at BAM in New York last year, and she told me it was not just one of the greatest theatrical experiences of her …
MY KINGDOM FOR A TRANSLATION In the "What Were They Thinking?" Department, the Broad Stage has brought in a magnificently acted, thrillingly staged and cleverly edited version of Shakespeare…
SAFETY IN NUMBERS The production of Carmen that opened this week at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion has been seen before. Emilio Sagi’s production originated at Madrid’s Teatro Rea…
THE HEART OF THE MATTER Larry Kramer's blistering condemnation that chronicles the early years of the AIDS epidemic has arrived with an intimate production that highlights the urgency of the…
THEY COULD HAVE DANCED ALL NIGHT Once a month at the Fountain Theatre, Deborah Lawlor presents Forever Flamenco!, an assemblage of the greatest flamenco artists anywhere. Programs change eac…
NO HEART. NO BRAIN. NO NERVE. STAY HOME. Just short of insulting, a Broadway Machine-styled version of the iconic film, The Wizard of Oz, opened at the Pantages this week. Instead of writing…
THERE IS NOTHING EITHER GOOD OR BAD, BUT CASTING MAKES IT SO Can it really be twenty years now that I have admired Lisa Wolpe's work? Time and again, the actress has impressed me with her ab…
DOMINGO DAZZLES What do world-renowned singers do once they have reached the age of retirement? On the strength of their name, they fill cabarets and concert houses across the land with nost…
NOT MUCH LIFE IN DEATH The miracle of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is that it contains so many themes relevant to today's world"the American Dream, the disconnect of father and son, a…
I SAY YOU WANT THIS REVOLUTION After the Revolution is a chewy new play about family dynamics and the difficulty of making moral judgments, especially after the fact. For audiences thirsting…
HEAVEN OR HELL? I surmise that opinions will be all over the map for San Francisco Opera’s production of Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito’s 1868 take on the Faust legend. To begin wi…