6,591 stories from Stage and Cinema
CARVING A “HAM” Direct from a critically acclaimed off-Broadway run, Harris’s HAM: A Musical Memoir makes its West Coast debut at the LGBT Center’s Renberg T…
EVERYTHING'S FINE IN '59 It's as welcome as flowers that bloom in the spring: A cascading, minute-by-minute hit, Bye Bye Birdie is a showcase for happiness even as it merrily mocks the…
A MUSICAL THAT REACHES FOR NEW HEIGHTS Built during the Depression between 1930 and 1931, the Empire State Building became the world’s tallest office building"surpassing the Chrysler B…
LEARNING TO BE LOVED The past clashes with the future in Dominique Morisseau's Sunset Baby, a drama more of reckoning than reconciliation. Despite her rage at the father she thinks desert…
ANOTHER WALTZ WITH TENNESSEE Tom "Tennessee" Williams never buried his treasures. The ultimate, unashamed "bleeding heart," this passionate playwright put his soul and guts into every show h…
TOO TRUE TO BE NEW Subtitled "A Tale of Today," Mark Twain's early novel The Gilded Age was written in (and from) 1873, a dozen years before Huckleberry Finn rafted down the Mississipp…
YOUR PAL IS COMING TO TOWN Sassy and brassy Pal Joey is a wondrous rouser that spins the tale of a roué gone rotten in Depression-era Chicago. As part of its Reiner Staged Reading …
THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT IS When the meek and paranoid everyman Winston Smith scribbles “Down with Big Brother” in his journal, he soon blossoms into a determined and impassi…
A SERIOUSLY STUPID SCREAMFEST Premiering in politically correct San Francisco in 2014, Christopher Chen's cartoon drama purports to address multi-culturalism in politics. This two-act trifle…
A CAPITOL IDEA FOR THIS WEEKEND One of the funniest troupes in the country resides in our nation’s capitol–hence the name Capitol Steps. For almost 35 years, they have skewered a…
BAGGAGE HANDLING Unprocessed pain can supply grist enough for a playwright's mill. But an unprocessed play is a lot less. Alas, there's little design for loving in William Donnelly's No W…
SENIOR RUSH No, despite the title, Gotta Dance, a world premiere at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre, is no musical homage to Gene Kelly or MGM's musicals. It's a true-life, feel-good sa…
AÂ MAIL-ORDER BRIDE I guess it's my own fault, but when I read about The Golden Bride, a Yiddish operetta from 1923 that was lost in the 40s, found in the 80s, and is now enjoying its firs…
A SOUL STORM SUNG TO THE SKIES A tribute to women of soul, Dynamite Divas, despite the title, is not about terrorists with tonsils. A remake and update of a 2001 hit at the Black Ensemble…
CROSSFIRE Between religious zealots, especially those who use the word of God to control the populace rather than to create peace, and the liberation of a new world"gay marriage, Roe v. Wade…
WHAT/EVER Saved from total disregard by a libretto that occasionally manages to engage with humor and knowingness, this brave attempt to examine the subject of fate versus choice utterly fai…
NO ONE ELSE IS THAT GIRL Marlo Thomas may not have the iconic stature of one of those luminous performers like, say, Meryl Streep or Cher or Judy Garland, but akin to these illustrious…
ME SO FELIZ A friend mentioned that three comediennes–a Cuban American from Miami, a Mexican American from Texas, and the daughter of an “over-dedicated Mexican mother and …
A VOICE GETS ITS OWN SHOW Despite the name, Baritones UnBound is no comedy about musical kinkiness. A kind of theatrical rebuttal to The Three Tenors (and its many spinoffs), it …
A POUND OF LOVE EXPLODES INTO A TON OF HATE Short of screaming "Fire!" in the theatrical darkness, you can't imagine a more polemical provocation than Domesticated. As with Grand Conco…
LEAPING TO THE SOLSTICE Between now and Sunday, four innovative female choreographers offer an evening of motion quests. The Harris Theatre is the backdrop for themes of not-so-close encount…
HARD TO CARE First of all, I think it's important to state that I adore The Flea, the fiercely creative performance and theater collective down in Soho. More often than not, they do amazing,…
HILARITY HAMMERED HOME, OR AN HEIR TO MISFORTUNE The tone is set from the start: The Heir Apparent begins with a chamber pot being emptied from a balcony window. It answers a question …
OUR CHRISTMAS TOWN Under Dan Wackerman's superb direction, Peccadillo Theater Company's A Wilder Christmas, comprised of two Thornton Wilder one-acts"The Long Christmas Dinner and Pullman Ca…
DISAPPOINTING DEBUT DELIVERS DAMAGED GOODS Lyric Opera's world premiere production of Bel Canto fails to live up to its name (translation: beautiful singing). While first-time opera composer…
