SUPER SQUIRREL Flora Buckman, the ten-year-old central character of Flora & Ulysses, the best play I’ve seen all year, begins when this self-proclaimed Â"natural-born c…
COME JOIN THE CIRCUS As if to compensate for the unpopularity of animal acts, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus began to beef up their productions in recent years, but that lack …
SHE’S BA-A-A-CK AND SHE’S FA-A-A-ABULOUS Charles Busch's Die, Mommie, Die! is equal parts comic melodrama, Greek tragedy and Hollywood kitsch"and all campy noir classic in the ve…
NO ADO ABOUT LITTLE Never has a lesser comedy enjoyed a lovelier setting: Embraced by a Rococo balustrade, staircase, and pastoral backdrop worthy of Watteau or Boucher, Chicago Shakespeare …
A GUY WALKS INTO A CUCKOO’S NEST… Jazz pianist, TV personality, actor, author, film composer and arranger Oscar Levant (1906-1972) was quite possibly one of the quickest wits on …
AND EVITA KEEPS ROLLING IN That great balcony scene is back. No, not R&J. It's the one with Eva Duarte Perón's valedictory aria "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina." As this princess of t…
WORKING UP YOUR APPETITE Bringing the aesthetics of classical theater to the realm of the contemporary circus, the fearless performers of The 7 Fingers (also known as Les 7 Doigts) explore l…
URINE FOR A GOOD TIME I fondly recall the infectiously brilliant Cardiff Giant shows that Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann perpetrated in the 80s and 90s. After so much success in Chicago, it's …
THE URGE TO BE USEFUL Steppenwolf Theatre is great at stirring things up"on stage and in the minds of its crowds. Nobody does it so well. Exhibit A is their latest offering: There's good cau…
I COULD WATCH 9 TO 5 24/7 In 1980, an unlikely film trio, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton, was the center of 9 to 5, an amusing feminist romp with lovable characters. Years l…
THE SONGS AND THE FURY Sardonic, ironic, cheeky, subversive"hip epithets can't convey the excruciating call-and-response fusion of humor and horror, laughter and tears, that you feel seeing …
ALTERNATIVE FACTS Eugene O’Neill is one of those gigantically influential artists whom it is often difficult for later generations to enjoy. The innovations he cribbed from Ibsen and C…
TAKING OUT THE (WHITE) TRASH Ever since 1981, small-town souls, Dixie doodles and atavistic Red State rednecks have fueled the fun in the Tuna trilogy. It's a hilarious perpetration by adapt…
ZOOT SUIT FITTED FOR A NEW GENERATION When Zoot Suit was originally commissioned and developed by Center Theatre Group in 1978, it played for nearly a year in Los Angeles"first a…
ANATEVKA COMES HOME In this world premiere of a newly commissioned and instantly topical new work, Chicago Shakespeare Theater makes it clear: Karen Hartman's The Book of Joseph is not just …
GET READY FOR “TOMORROW” The sun will come out on February 13, 2017, when Andrea McArdle lands at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood with her newest cabaret show ’70&#…
HE FOUND HIS HEART IN SAN FRANCISCOÂ (AND MORE) I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett totally earns its title. Created in 2005 by David Grapes and Todd Olson, this warmly …
PROTECTING YOURÂ ASSET The best thing about The Bodyguard, Lawrence Kasdan's Oscar-nominated 1992 film, was how it put the late Whitney Houston on the map and in our hearts. Despite zero c…
LANG LANDS INÂ LA LA LAND Jessica Lang has no doubt made a name for herself in the dance world as an independent choreographer, but dance patrons in Los Angeles may find this in-demand dan…
THE MUSIC AND THE WORDS BEHIND THE MUSIC With astounding chromatic structure and continually shifting tonalities and rhythms, Debussy's music has always mystified and transported me. Certain…
THE DEAD WEIGHT OF RANDOM TALK Richard Greenberg's better works"Take Me Out, Three Days of Rain, The Violet Hour"stand out by putting enough in play to make us care. Raven Theatre's distress…
KNEEHIGH RETURNS TO THE WALLIS I wonder if L.A. residents know how ridiculously lucky they are to have the Wallis Annenberg Center, an outfit so prestigious that Britain's Kneehigh …
VISITING THE INTERNET OF 'SHADES' Cryptic and fascinating, Jennifer Haley's 85-minute one-act The Nether takes its name, if not its inspiration, from an allusion to the afterlife. But, persu…
FOUND IN THE STARS Lost in the Stars is quite possibly composer Kurt Weill’s magnum opus for the American Theater. The score is prime Weill, characteristically mixing high operatic sty…
WHEN IS FAKING IT OK? If someone should recommend Sierra Madre Playhouse’s production of Bee-Luther-Hatchee to you, they’re not off the mark. My advise would be that you walk, do…