LOVE AS A VERY MOVEABLE FEAST Love may be blind but it can certainly sing up a storm. Not to be confused with the John Cusack film about a Chicago vinyl record shop, High Fidelity: An Ope…
MURDER—A REFUSAL TO SUBMIT? You could call Machinal a nightmare under stage lights. Still potent after nearly ninety years, Sophie Treadwell's 1928 drama can't be dismissed as a …
SCHADENFREUDE GETS ITS SHOW We learn from fear, even if it's the wrong lessons. Well before Mark Twain's "Slovenly Peter," let alone Edward Gorey, Roald Dahl or Tim Burton, there was Heinric…
THE HARDEST WORKING GALS IN SHOW BUSINESS One thing is clear: If Bets Malone and Misty Cotton ever choose to sell themselves as an actual country music recording duo, they will be a smash. T…
DON’T CRY, BUT SEE ARGENTINA The crime of being a legend is to be simultaneously loved and hated, while the truth will always be a matter of perspective and interpretation. Eva Duarte,…
FANTASM'S FANTASTIC FORAY INTO BELLYDANCING Bellydance Evolution's Fantasm"Odyssey of Dreams is a well-interpreted and abridged re-telling of One Thousand and One Nights, the Ara…
IT WONDERS ME It’s uncanny that ever since Roger Bean wrote and directed this asinine jukebox musical in 1999, it's lightweight nostalgia factor and updated arrangements of 50s and 60s…
THE 90’s ARE BACK AND SOUNDING SWEET While the nineties might not sound that long ago to an older crowd, when was the last time you thought about Lorena Bobbitt? Or tamagotchis? Or won…
REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE OK, let’s get the confusion out of the way. If you’re not at all familiar with the Paramount films Holiday Inn and White Christmas, listening to the jus…
MOVE OVER BOND AND BOURNE; HAMILTON’S IN TOWN These two hard-hitting spy thrillers, filmed in 2012, are based on well-known novels by the French-Swedish journalist, Jan Guillou (b. 194…
DETECTING LOVE A 15-year-old math whiz, Christopher is an only child with Asperger's Syndrome. The anomaly is enough to push adolescence way beyond awkward. His autism manifests in manic mul…
WHEN LOVE SEEMED ALL A half century can wreak a ton of change, especially when it takes us from 1967's Summer of Love to 2017's Winter of Trump. It's impossible to imagine two more different…
THE GLOBE GOES BACK INTO THE WOODS Ken Ludwig is arguably the leading comic dramatist in the American theater, and with Robin Hood! he has fashioned an extraordinary new take on the le…
AS YOU MAY OR MAY NOT LIKE IT At its new home in Glendale, Antaeus Theatre’s second play, As You Like It, is an odd duck of a production. As is its norm, Antaeus "partner-casts" each p…
DRIVEN DANCES FOR JOY AND JUSTICE Their "dance card" is filled to bursting. Departing from Black Ensemble Theater's usual blast-from-the-past musical reclamations (Nicholas Brothers, Josephi…
THE ORIGINAL SISTER ACT This new bio-musical of the legendary gospel/rock crossover star Sister Rosetta Tharpe is at its best when focusing on its three powerhouse female stars. Tracy Nicole…
SUPER TROUPERS BURN BRIGHTLY UNDER THE STARS I've always thought Benny Andersson and Björn Kristian Ulvaeus of ABBA, along with Mamma Mia! book writer Catherine Johnson, were incredibly sma…
DON’T BE SKIPPIN’ PIPPIN Here’s a can’t-miss opportunity: San Diego Junior Theatre is presenting the perky but dark 1972 musical, Pippin. Don’t be fooled by the…
PARIS AS A PAS DE DEUX The opening image"a baby grand piano under the Arc de Triomphe"suggests the rest. The hopeful harbinger of a new normality, the beloved 1951 film An American in Par…
SEE IT BEFORE THIS PARADE PASSES YOU BY The emotionally pile-driving Parade by bookwriter Alfred Uhry and composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown reprises an ugly and evergreen tragedy. T…
A GOOD THING GOING; GOING, GOING… Sondheim on Sondheim, which had a short run on Broadway in 2010, offers both songs and personal musings from one of Broadway's greatest composer/lyric…
IT MAY SUCK TO LIVE ON AVENUE Q, BUT NOT TO SEE IT In the right setting, irreverence is so jovial. Our era of thought-police and political correctness has made it delicious to pervert that w…
STAR POWER MEETS GIRL POWER The new Broadway musical War Paint centers on historical personages and rags-to-riches rivals Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, cosmetic moguls who are…
MEMORIES OF MEXICO, LUZIAÂ UNLEASHES A RAIN OF JOY The Cirque du Soleil just made a run for the border"and not the Canadian one. Ignoring the United States (a favorite activity of many now…
A STEADY PLAY What police personnel go through day-by-day isn't really fully understood by civilians: the life-and-death tensions that alternate with the inevitable boredom and the public's …