6,591 stories from Stage and Cinema
A VANDAL OF AN ENDING Thirty-something actor and writer Hamish Linklater's The Vandal is one of those plays that starts well and ends poorly. It begins with a middle-aged woman waiting at a …
A WHISTLEBLOWER'S CONVENIENT SUICIDE Urgent, cinematic, and breathlessly intense in everything but its intermission, TimeLine Theatre Company's true-life exposé of a truth-teller and his ma…
A TRANS-PORTIVE EXPERIENCE AWAITS YOU When I saw the trio of headliners who will be performing for one night only at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, I had to do a Little Rascals double-take. …
LAUGHTER IS THE WORST MEDICINE Humor and hygiene play off each other in Sarah Ruhl's much-praised but not altogether satisfying 2004 romantic comedy. Now fitfully revived by the new Bluebird…
SHOW ME THE MONEY Two couples are having aperitifs at a luxurious home in the Hollywood Hills (sexy stylish set by Derek McLane). They are Steve (Fred Weller), an aging action superstar; Mis…
THE MANY LOVE(S OF) DON GIOVANNI Why does Chicago love Mozart's Don Giovanni so much? Well-received as Lyric Opera's first production back in 1954, and revived many times over the ensuing de…
LOVE AS A MOVEABLE FEAST Conor McPherson's plays are so rooted in the characters that plot is really revelation. With unforced warmth, he captures loneliness in the act of self-effacement an…
A BEDTIME STORY FOR EVERY ADULT With a justifiably extended run, Route 66 Theatre Company's richly rewarding world premiere of Caitlin (A Twist of Water) Parrish's The Downpour is a story as…
WHEN BEING A STARVING WRITER IS NO LONGER ROMANTIC Austin Pendleton's breathtaking performance and Ira Lewis's penetrating script make Chinese Coffee, with all its flaws, a most worthwhile o…
THIS MAGIC FLUTE IS ALL TOO ORDINARY South Africa's Isango Ensemble is undoubtedly full of talented actors, singers, and musicians, but doesn't quite have the specialized skills required to …
MAD ABOUT JOHN DOE Trap Door Theatre is entered via a long narrow gap between two Bucktown restaurants. Upon arrival, Artistic Director Beata Pilch assigns audience members a number and Mike…
SWEET SONGS UNSUPPORTED Tarell Alvin McCraney’s 2012 Choir Boy is a tantalizing, underdeveloped play-with-music not entirely improved by Trip Cullman’s direction, now at the Geff…
OUT OF THE COUNTRY AND OUT OF LUCK Seldom has a title been more ironic: The World of Extreme Happiness, specifically the booming factory city of Shenzhen in urban China, is definitely extrem…
REAWAKENING In one of the bios for Deaf West's production of Spring Awakening, actress Ali Stroker thanks the company for stepping out of the box, and turning what some may think as a 'limit…
STAY FORÂ A WEILL An impeccable labor of love, Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre's heartfelt homage, A Kurt Weill Cabaret, pays unstinting tribute to a deft and dynamic composer. Kurt Weill's im…
COME HOME TO THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL The Trip to Bountiful, Horton Foote's plaintive 1953 teleplay (adapted for Broadway and for the 1985 film with Geraldine Page), paints a picture of rural A…
STOREFRONT SHENANIGANS Have you ever heard of Bad Settlement Theatre Company? Well, don't worry about it if you haven't. Up until the opening of House Theatre's production of Season on the L…
THE UNKNOWABLE WORLD THAT WE LIVE IN Is it possible for true love to be unrequited? Or, to put it another way, is it possible for unrequited love to be true? These questions, on the surfa…
THE GOOD, THE LOST, AND THE VAIN Owen Gould Davis, Sr.'s thoughtful and masterfully crafted 1923 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Icebound, which explores Puritan vanity and its many ironies, ge…
A MERRY APPROACH TO A MELANCHOLY CLASSIC These days when directors revive a classic, they have to decide whether their approach will be either to modernize the play or mount it as a period p…
LOVE IS A MANY-SPLINTERED THING It's after dark in Westchester County in 1976. Do you know where your parents are? Still under the spell of an ebullient consciousness raising meeting, two su…
POP DOES OPERAÂ BIG, INTIMATELY Under Artistic Director Josh Shaw's hands-on guidance, Pacific Opera Project has become L.A.'s most exciting new opera company. In just three years since PO…
COLD DEAD HANDS America's bittersweet love-and-hate affair with guns is the target of playwright Victor Kaufold's thought-provoking but lopsided satirical revue, which premiered in 2000 at t…
GOTHIC FRICTION There soon will be plenty of haunted houses and Halloween-themed plays cropping up, but if you’re looking for a genuinely creepy production now, you'll find it in Lifel…
A CABARET SHOW THAT GOES FOR BAROQUE Mae West, the sage and sybarite from Brooklyn, used to say, "Let joy be unrefined," a point of view that also suits Austin McCormick, artistic director a…
