WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR SONG This time it's up close and down home. Rick Stone the Blues Man departs from the Black Ensemble Theater's standard tributes to superstars like Patti LaB…
RIGHT PLAY, WRONG STOP The plays of William Inge, featured this season by Eclipse Theatre Company, offer a bedrock realism that fuels the down-home decency of his small-town characters. But …
WE NEVER STOP CRYING IT OUT The term “cry it out” refers to the practice of letting babies bawl until their fit subsides without parents coddling and mollifying them; assumedly t…
SHE’S STILL A BEAUTY It is sheer luck that I've been able to see Broadway Baby Susan Egan in over 10 shows since the mid-1980s. From intimate stages (Babes at the Matrix; Hello, …
BLACK AND BLUE After winning a Tony last year for best revival of a musical, Oprah's once and future movie-turned-musical has finally hit her home town, part of a national tour. As alive as …
SIN AS CRAZINESS You don't see morality plays like Everyman anymore — and not just because it's not the 15th century. We shy away from such absolutes as Death and even Good De…
BEFORE THE CROWN PRINCE BECAME THE KING Legends require reclamation: Created by Floyd Mutrux, the huge hit Million Dollar Quartet reprised a once-in-four-lifetimes recording session in…
THE TRAGIC COMEDY OF LOVE Antaeus Theatre closes its season with a terrific production of Three Days in the Country, Patrick Marber's adaptation of Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Turgene…
FRIED, STEWED OR BROILED, THIS FISH WILL NEVER TASTE GOOD So here’s what baffles me: A show which is middling at best is suddenly showing up at regional, community and high school thea…
DANCE DELIRIUM As jukebox musicals go, the rags-to-riches bio On Your Feet! definitely earns its exclamation point. No question, the upbeat tunes, with their irresistible Cuban-fusi…
THE HOLY GRAIL OF SILLY MUSICALS The tales of King Arthur and his knights of the round table stand as icons of literature, leaving them ripe for outrageous parody in Monty Python’s 197…
SERIAL SEX AS A CONTINUUM OF DESIRE There's not much to learn from Fucking Men —  an unabashed sexual merry-go-round and a late-night offering from Pride Films & Plays …
IT’S LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT WITH THE BARD'S FIRST LOOK AT LOVE Happily, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare's first play, is not like the first pancake — a test case to be throw…
THE MONTALBÃN MIXES MOVIES, MINGLING AND MERRY MASTICATING Always fun, outdoor cinema hits the summer ether like the smell of fresh cut grass and smoked meat (or is that fresh cut meat an…
REMAKE YOUR LIFE"AT YOUR PERIL With some plays what doesn't happen is the whole megillah. Jen Silverman's two-character one-act The Roommate, now simmering in a Chicago premiere by Steppe…
OPEN SESAME SEASON Peter Pan never grew up. Likewise Alice in Wonderland, the Hardy Boys, Freddy the Pig, Nancy Drew, Huck Finn, or Donald Trump. It's a pity people do: Why must grown-ups le…
SEA WORLD AS A CITADEL OF CAUCASIAN COMMAND Orcas, it seems, can suffer for our sins. In Tilikum — a world-premiere from Sideshow Theatre Company — the struggle of indigenous peo…
TARANTINO IN THE STICKY SWAMPS OF SADNESS Tom Jacobson's Tar is from his The Ballad of Bimini Baths, a triad of works playing concurrently in Los Angeles. For half a century (1902-1951), the…
A DIFFERENT LOOK AT THE VIEW Now a nearly forgotten but seminal gay tragedy, it happened after Stonewall but before AIDS and Orlando's Pulse terrorist attack " a 1973 arson atrocity in The B…
BETTER THAN FAIR As musical revivals went from a few nostalgic productions in the 1970s to the ubiquity of resurrections we see today — both from the Golden Age (Porter, Rodgers and Ha…
AN ACT IN THE DARK For her debut at 54 Below in NYC " a nearly solo cabaret which was recorded for release on Broadway Records " the triple-threat Arielle Jacobs opened by letting us know th…
PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW AFTER A PLAY THIS GOOD “What’s in a name?” Juliet famously asks. A lot, if the name is Ruff Yeager. Yeager, a co-founder of Roustabouts, has be…
SWEETER THE SECOND TIME AROUND It's like kicking a puppy dog to dislike Charity Hope Valentine. Charity is the heroine of the 1966 musical Sweet Charity — a strange amalgam of high hop…
"The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared." Author Lois Lowry On June 28 & 29, Ford Theatres, in associat…
ALL TOO HUMAN Stephen Karam's remarkable Tony-winning play The Humans — which is winding up its national tour at the Ahmanson with members of the Broadway production — …