6,591 stories from Stage and Cinema
HOT IOLANTA, OR LOVE REALLY IS BLIND A glorious 126-year-old discovery just happened again. First performed at Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater in 1892 (on a double-bill with The Nutc…
LOVING THE COCKROACH WITHIN Playwright Eric Reyes Loo wisely observes that the messiness of love and grief does not easily coexist within the binary world of Facebook. In his new play, Death…
CULTURE CLASH Narratively, there are two cultural clashes at the center of A Bronx Tale, now at the Pantages as part of its North American Tour. Italians and African-Americans are on oppo…
BITTER END The gulf is clear from the start. Joe Schermoly's set consists of interconnected boxes that create shelves which suggest two apartments separated by a crosswalk. It's an apt depic…
A SHOW TO END ANY THEATER DROUGHT It's a "big sky" story with a ton of heart, this other musical created by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, composer and lyricist of The FantasticksÂ�…
GREEK ACTIVE It only seemed natural that Michael Cacoyannis's 1964 film, Zorba the Greek, about a happy-go-lucky fisherman on the isle of Crete, should one day become a musical. It took J…
IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME In 2011, Playwrights Horizon Artistic Director Jon Lawrence Rivera staged Donald Jolly’s bonded, which explored the restrictiveness of gays based on their si…
CAL IN CAMO EXTENDS ITS RUN AT VS. THEATRE William Francis Hoffman's multilayered play attempts to lay bare, (literally in the case of the character "Cal") the issues surrounding postpartum …
WALKS LIKE A DUCK, QUACKS LIKE A HIT Playwright Eliza Clark, in notes about Quack, her new play now in its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, writes that she has been…
LOCKED IN Dalton Trumbo's novel Johnny Got His Gun was published in September 1939, the same month Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. It was not an immediate hit, but it was perf…
WHEN REALISM IS NOT ENOUGH, SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN DENMARK It's strange that an enterprise as lavishly bounteous as Goodman Theatre should seem to shrink itself: Currently it's hosting two w…
IMAGINATIVE PHANTASMAGORIA DOESN’T PLUMB THE DEPTHS OF PLUMMER’S HISTORY One of the most bemusing, bewildering affairs in recent memory, Señor Plummer's Final Fiesta is an inc…
A CELEBRATION OF DIVAS Three years ago, Black Ensemble Theater's associate director Daryl D. Brooks created a kinetic tribute called Men of Soul. The revue embraced solid singers whose he…
A COLOSSAL CIRCUS CARAVAN FROM COLOMBIA Three rings do not make a circus, any more than "two boards and a passion" make a play. Sometimes all you need is fifteen performers for for sixty pow…
THE DEVASTATION OF POWERLESSNESS When the curtain comes down at the end of The Little Foxes you hear a remarkable sound: 80 people letting the air out of their lungs. We have all been holdin…
SILENT SCREAMS Two of the spookiest horror films ever made were completed before much of today's audiences were born. One, Nosferatu, is far better known than the other, especially for the c…
CREEPY FUN, BUT NOT AS BLACK AS IT COULD BE Pasadena Playhouse's production of The Woman in Black is a delicious, handcrafted thriller of the classic style, at once dingy and disturbing. …
GOING, GOING, VIETGONE Prior to last night's L.A. premiere of Vietgone, the actor playing playwright Qui Nguyen tells us that his 2015 play is about his parents (“who this play is abso…
LA DIVINA EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU After she prematurely destroyed her once "smoky," soaring voice, the "prima donna assoluta" — Greek soprano Maria Callas — decided that if you c…
IT ONLY TAKES A MUSICAL To start with, let's agree to never say "Goodbye, Dolly." Thornton Wilder's genius for the common touch isn't just a golden legacy in Our Town or The Skin of…
SHINING BRIGHT Bright Star is a bittersweet bluegrass musical with music, book and lyrics by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. It was nominated for five Tony awards when it ran on Broadway and…
A SHOW FOR FOREVER That songwriters and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul — critical darlings for La La Land (film), Dogfight (Off-Broadway), and A Christmas Story (Broadwa…
PARTNERING ARROGANCE WITH SACRIFICE In taking residence at the Electric Lodge, their new digs in Venice, Rogue Machine makes an audacious choice with the American premiere of Tom Morton-Smit…
TRENCH STAGEFARE It's a small-scale marvel, a feat to treasure: In only 80 minutes director/adaptor Simon Reade and performer Shane O'Regan do total justice to Private Peaceful, Michael M…
SHREK TO THE RESCUE The first time I saw Shrek The Musical was on Broadway in 2008. I loved it then but 5-Star Theatricals’ production has me really loving it now. With book and lyrics…
