AN ABUNDANCE OF DANZA In 1994, Tania Pérez-Salas founded CompañÃa de Danza in Mexico City. Since then, her company has become unrivaled in the arena of Mexican contemporary dance, and…
DIRTY DOINGS IN DIXIE In a way The Little Foxes is a complete complement to Margaret Mitchell's antebellum revisionism in Gone With The Wind (which appeared the same year as Lillian Hellman'…
MUSICALS LIKE THIS OCCURÂ ONCE EVERY 100 YEARS In 1947, when Brigadoon confirmed the mutual genius of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, timing was everything: A second global conflict h…
IN HARLEM'S WAY We never meet the titular Our Lady of 121st Street, a no-nonsense New York nun who had a profound effect on the characters in Stephen Adly Guirgis's 2003 play. Nor do we meet…
THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING In Lucia Cox's play One Hand Clapping, which she adapts from the 1961 Anthony Burgess novel and brings as director to 59E59 Theaters as part of their Brits Off…
LUMBER Workshopped once onstage in 2000, Stephen Fechter’s The Woodsman had its play form set aside while Fechter and director Nicole Kassell turned it into a screenplay that won the 2…
DISTURBED DANCES Two years ago Boris Eifman brought his all-absorbing story recital Rodin to the Auditorium Theatre. It delighted audiences with its stream of 1,000-word pictures: The vibran…
TWO GREAT ART FORMS IN ONE Dido and Aeneas is a Greek myth of grand proportions, perfect for adaptation into an opera. English Baroque composer Henry Purcell and librettist Nahum Tate did ju…
THE ONCE AND FALLEN DREAM It's a continuing crisis seen from the inside out, fleshed out with warmth and truth. In The Project(s), American Theater Company artistic director PJ Paparelli …
BLACK IS BACK The "Man in Black" is back. Actually, it's more like a non sci-fi "Men in Black": It takes both Kent M. Lewis and Michael Monroe Goodman to play, respectively, the mature and y…
COMMERCIAL WITHOUT COMMERCIALS Imagine if the '70s sitcom Good Times did not hit TV until 2007. Now imagine a 3-episode arc about the coming out of a black man who brings his white boyfriend…
ALBANIAN/AMERICAN STORYTELLING As my Albanian friend put it: "The legend of Doruntine is the very core around which the Albanians' national code of morals is organized (say those who believe…
BLUES IN THE NIGHT Side Man is a superb title. It fits the story/situation splendidly. Warren Leight's 1999 Tony-winning memory play is narrated by a son named Clifford, its subject his jazz…
PRUDENCE AND PASSION Offhand, sense and sensibility hardly seem antonyms. As the Brits say, it's a distinction without a difference. But in Jane Austen's 1811 novel of the same name (her fir…
SISTERS AND SOLDIERS Following their rather loose and unconventional takes on Greek tragedy and Gilbert and Sullivan, The Hypocrites return to a more classic approach with Anton Chekhov's Th…
ANCIENT LAUGHS TIMES TEN An irresistible mix of Roman "new comedy," commedia dell'arte, and vaudeville, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum rivals The Producers as the funniest mu…
AN OFFER HE CAN'T REFUSE It's easy to dislike this alleged 511-year-old comedy. All's Well That Ends Well (originally Love's Labors Won) is the wrong title: It should be "The End Justifies T…
THE LATEST FASHION Since its founding in 2004, Vs. Theatre Company has upped the ante for storefront theater in Los Angeles, offering both original works and LA premieres with the kind of lo…
OSCAR PLEADS FOR MERCY "We are all of us lying in the gutter–but some of us are staring at the stars." This fusion of original sin and the saving power of grace fuels the artful ambiva…
CHICAGO'S CIVIL WAR A grand dream is now completed. Over the last five years City Lit has delivered five old and new works to mark the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, now finished with th…
GO FACE THE MUSIC+DANCE Assuredly, Artistic Director Lincoln Jones' American Contemporary Ballet (ACB) has become the go-to organization for thrilling dance in Los Angeles. Along with his mu…
MUSICAL MEASURES Grandstine, the beloved Mississippi matriarch of the Harris clan, has died and gone to her reward. Her many loved ones return to their roots for a "going to heaven" sendoff …
THE CONTINUUM OF LOVE Ethan Lipton is a magic maker who's mastered the art of intertwining characters. The five lost and found souls in his 2012 offering Red Handed Otter are security-…
HIPSTER HUMOR ON A ROLL The title of Second City e.t.c.'s 39th revue, Soul Brother, Where Art Thou?, is more wordplay than revelation. They know very well where to find their very spec…
SHTICK ON A SHIP R.M.S. Titanic was not unsinkable but the S.S. American really is. It's been sailing strong since 1934 as Cole Porter's biggest hit before Kiss Me Kate. It may have jetti…