ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A GOOD STORY After winning two Tony awards in 2007 for book and lyrics of Spring Awakening, Steven Sater teamed up with the one-and-only Burt Bacharach to write s…
SUITORS SUIT ILL-FITTING SUITS Enda Walsh, scribe of The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom, is one of the great polarizing writers in modern theater:Â his admirers love the Eng…
UNAPPRECIATED MASTERPIECE OR ABJECT FAILURE? Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein began the Golden Era of Broadway with two musicals that reimagined the previous form of musical comedies " …
AN ERROR IN 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 other Bard work…
QUEEN OF THE GYPSIES It's a relief that Chita Rivera, one of the last great holdovers from the Golden Age of Broadway still performing today, told the audience in Costa Mesa that she doesn't…
GET SOME FANNY There are many reasons to see the revival of Harold Rome's 1954 musical Fanny at the Alex Theatre, but you only have one shot. Musical Theatre Guild (MTG), an Equity company o…
SITTING VIGIL FOR THE CENTER THEATRE GROUP, OR LIVING ON BORROWED THEATER Vigil, which was first done in Canada in 1995, is an oft-produced play, having been translated into 19 languages. At…
YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN A trip to South Coast Rep is exactly what was needed to shake off the blues of this year's morass of over-produced and/or over-written theater. The Trip to Bountiful, H…
FALL FLAT My extreme reluctance to recommend Next Fall should not necessarily deter you from seeing it. Stay with me here. Geoffrey Nauffts' Tony-nominated play, which concerns a gay cou…
MANAGEABLE HAIR Say what you will about Musical Theatre West's fluffy season selections, including Winter Wonderettes, Forbidden Broadway and Spamalot, this company continues to collect an a…
A BIGGER NOISE NEEDS TO BE MADE WITHIN A Noise Within (ANW), one of the nation's leading classical repertory theatre companies, has done the unimaginable: after 19 seasons in a Masonic build…
A COWARD IN PEACETIME [Undelivered letter to Noël Coward discovered in North Hollywood:] My Darling Noël: Sir Anthony here, writing to you from the palm-drenched regions of Los Angeles…
THIS FAIR IS JUST THAT: FAIR Science Fairs are an opportunity for students to apply scientific methods to an experiment and present them at a competition. The best way to take first prize fr…
A BRIDEGROOM ROBBED OF ITS CHARM Anxiously anticipating The Robber Bridegroom at International City Theatre (ICT), I felt like an excited bride who had already slept with her soon-to-be husb…
'TIS FOLLY TO OVERPRAISE FOLLIES The buzz in the lobby of Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) on opening night of Stephen Sondheim's landmark 1971 musical Follies was palpable; people from aro…
TWO PLAYS IN ONE What is the purpose of theater? Some say that it is to reflect reality while being entertaining, enlightening, and/or educating. Yet when Shakespeare wrote that theatre is d…
THE SHADOW OF A GREAT PLAY The birth of the Irish Republic occurred around Dublin in 1916. Aiming to end British rule, Irish Volunteers staged an insurrection known as the Easter Rising, a r…
WHO IS TO SAY WHAT IS REAL? Tom Stoppard is the thinking person's playwright. Ever since his breakout hit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 1967, the erudite scribe has been earmarked…
WHAT WE FIND IN THE ATTIC IS A CASE OF THE CUTES It was a privilege to witness Snapshots: A Musical Scrapbook at Northlight Theatre, for this reviewer has never seen anything like it before.…
LITERATURE NOT MEANT TO BE STAGED Halfway through the first act of Brand at Red Tape theatre, it occurred to me that I had no idea what was going on. First of all, it can be argued that Henr…
THIS MUSICAL IS MURDER Dear Drury Lane Theatre: Since your production of Sweeney Todd is closing this week, please allow me to write a love letter to you for giving me the privilege of witne…
A PALE SHADE OF RED The closing stage picture in John Logan's 2010 Tony-winning Red at the Goodman is about as thrilling and breathtaking as theatre gets: as Abstract Expressionist painter M…
FORGIVE AND FORGET The Amish people of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania taught the world a sobering lesson in 2006 when they instantly forgave the man who murdered five girls in their one-room sch…
GHOST LIGHT LEAVES US IN THE DARK Assassin Dan White ensured Harvey Milk's legacy when he shot the openly gay San Francisco politician. The gay community continues to hold Milk as a martyr t…
LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST, FOUND, LOST, LOST, AND FOUND I'm not so sure that this William Shakespeare has a future as a playwright. Oh, the man can write, but his newest play, Love's Labor's Lost …