FUTURE SHOCK FROM A PAST PRANK In less than 90 minutes this new one-act by Meridith Friedman plays hard: By show's end we get an absorbing case history in situational ethics. Cautionary scen…
NEED TO KNOW MORE Since moving into my six-unit apartment eight months ago, I have encountered the loveliest neighbors a man could hope for. But just two weeks ago, a tall, gangly, middle…
HOME AND HEART When you go to Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, one of the great pleasures is seeing performers Orson Bean and his wife Alley Mills hanging out in the lobby either manning …
THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN OPERA IS HERE I shudder when the time comes to see a "New American Opera." The majority of new works are frustratingly inaccessible. Instead of reinventing opera, most…
SHORT ON WICKED; SHORTER ON LIT While Knott's Scary Farm has been doing it for decades with its haunted mazes, interactive theater is gaining ground nationwide as a way to address dwindling …
GOD HE’S GOOD A belated but welcome revue, Sondheim on Sondheim offers both songs and personal musings from one of Broadway’s best composer/lyricists. This inside look is rich wi…
A TRIVIAL COMEDY FOR SERIOUS PEOPLE When all seven of London's major papers give a show the highest rating possible, I'm infused with frustration that I couldn't be on the other side of the …
A VERY SELECTIVE SILENCE "Let hands do what lips do." Shakespeare never meant the line so literally as it feels in R+J: The Vineyard. Red Theater Chicago delivers a bold resetting, moving th…
TEA AND SYMPATHY–AND TRANSGENDERED KIDS It makes an irresistible transformation tale: Teachers shape students, then get golden too as a Midas touch reverses course. We love it in To…
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE ALIVE AND WELL AND WAITING FOR GODOT Rajiv Joseph's surprisingly complex and touching two-hander concerns a couple of guards assigned to stand watch at the w…
COME YE TO THE FAIR…LADY, THAT IS I'm rather certain one cannot visit enough productions of My Fair Lady. The 1956 musical, based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, tells the tale …
LOVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA Daphne Rubin-Vega delivers a riveting performance in Empanada Loca, a sinewy one-woman show written and directed by Aaron Mark. Inspired by the legend of Sweeney To…
A CERTAIN FUTURITY César Alvarez's fascinating musical Futurity begins with Mr. Alvarez and Sammy Tunis taking the stage as themselves, greeting the audience, engaging in improvised b…
HOT DOG SUCKING AHEAD You know, it’s funny, I was asking a friend just the other day if he knows of any show in town which has a guy sucking on a hot dog. And it would be great if it w…
SAILING OF AGE Prepare to buckle your swashes, shiver your timbers and avoid Davey Jones' locker. In a co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company sets sail o…
A SYMPHONY OF QUIRKS An Evening of Work by William Forsythe is a dull title for a frenetic program. This is kinetic dance, its percussive paces almost too fast for feeling. Three years in…
FROM MYTHS TO MOVEMENTS A kind of Mulan among major works of 19th-century ballet (it celebrates a young nymph's coming of age), Leo Delibes' Sylvia is not as famous as his simple…
A MARRIAGE MADE IN CHICAGO Lyric Opera's season-opening production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro celebrates love and beauty with vibrant colors, light-hearted laughter and sublime music…
TWYLA'S TWILIGHT While most American dance companies go on tour with a "best of" program, Twyla Tharp has refreshingly opted to offer two world premieres for her 50th Anniversary Tour, seen …
MARIINSKY BALLET &Â ORCHESTRA DOUBLE DOSE Russia's Mariinsky Ballet, one of the world's most influential and historically rich dance companies, returns to Segerstrom Center for the Art…
WATCH WHAT UNFOLDS AND BE STUNNED In DIAVOLO's dance/text hybrid piece Transit Space, author Steve Connell writes, "The only way to get there is to go." The same can be said for what is argu…
BETTER ON THE MARIMBA Such is the life of a theater critic. On Friday, you might find yourself in a dusty living room in a seedier area of mid-town, seeing a salon-scale show in some hal…
A TREASURE TROVATORE There's nothing subtle about Verdi's ambitiously conceived Il Trovatore (The Troubadour). And David McVicar's grandly realized, dark and hellish version will be shown in…
A CINDERELLA FOR ALL AGES You might think you know the story if you've seen Disney's animated version, but Rossini's Cinderella (or La Cenerentola, literally "little girl of the cinders") is…
WHAT'S GOOD FOR OTTO ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR GIFT Seldom have I sat through such a long-winded play (nearly three hours!) that said so little. I struggled in vain to find some deeper meaning i…