6,591 stories from Stage and Cinema
UNDER THE SPELL OF MATILDA Just as author Roald Dahl's child-heroine "Matilda" is a magical mix of unexpected brilliance, youthful exuberance and solid common sense — so is the Royal S…
A SHOW OF GREAT IMPORTANCE An anomaly of the Hollywood Fringe Festival has arrived. A gem which alone justifies the Fringe's existence. A nascent troupe named Good People Theater Company is …
FALLING FOR DONIZETTI'S VALLEY GIRL Opera in Los Angeles seems to be thriving these days. In addition to established companies like LA Opera and Long Beach Opera, there are smaller companies…
LOVE, SEX AND POETRY Thoroughly delightful and hilarious throughout, Dirty Great Love Story, which is part of the Brits Off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theaters, is just what its admittedly c…
THEATER TO THE MAX What's to love about the 1970s? As SF Playhouse's presentation of Mike Leigh's acclaimed Abigail's Room shows, quite a bit. Director Amy Glazer offers a cornucopia…
DON'T COME TO THE CABARET It's the first time I have ever seen someone on stage in flop sweat. Poor Anastasia Barnes had a rough go in her opening of The Ruby Besler Cabaret. One would suppo…
A HEAD SPINNINGLY GOOD EXORCIST ROMP THAT DOESN'T SUCK C#CKS IN HELL A year or two back, wily producers crafted a stage version of the chilling 1970s horror flick, The Exorcist, and gave it …
GAY PRIDE AND PREJUDICE The Pride is an invaluable offering for Pride Month, or any other for that matter. Deeply textured and perfectly enacted, this Olivier Award-winning script by Brit…
FOGGY BUT FASCINATING Neva by Guillermo Calderón opens like a Beckett play, with a woman sitting alone in the darkness. Once she is illuminated, she begins to speak with the pace and …
YES, EVERYONE Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister were BBC television shows that ran on American PBS stations when I was a kid; I resented them for not being Monty Python, and dismissed th…
GIRL, PLEASE! Prior to curtain at Musical Theatre Guild's concert staging of Girl Crazy, we were warned that the Gershwin brothers' 1930 musical was written before "the code" (read: censorsh…
REASONS TO SEE THIS SHOW Neil LaBute's explosive and wildly funny new comedy Reasons to be Happy, which Mr. LaBute also directs, starts off with a bang as Steph (Jenna Fischer), having stalk…
OFFENBACH'S REQUIEM Just as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in the middle of writing his famous Requiem so did Jacques Offenbach die composing his fantastical opera Tales of Hoffmann. Both work…
BOBBING FOR APPLES While perusing through a Peanuts anthology recently, I found my mind beginning to wander after about 15 panels. Regardless of Schultz' insightful social commentary and uni…
SOME PLAYS ARE "FORGOTTEN" FOR A REASON Part of the Brits Off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theaters, Finborough Theatre's classic staging of J.B. Priestley's Cornelius, under Sam Yates' expert…
THE FRUSTRATING LABORS OF A FASCINATING COMPANY It is said that Roman Philosopher and Playwright Seneca's Hercules Furens (c. 54 CE) was never produced but only read in Seneca’s lifeti…
OPULENT PLOT, THRILLING FIGHTING, AND A STUDLY D’ARTAGNAN While it’s brought to film more than a dozen times, Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers is a tough work to adapt. It&#…
ME NO LIKE Brandon Baruch’s new play answers the question, What if a tedious dipshit got cloned? Failed actor and drunken doofus Tuck (Benjamin Durham) sponges off his girlfriend G…
EVERY NIGHT A FULL MOON Looking back on his life and sounds from his death in 1976, Chester Arthur Burnett, now forever called Howlin Wolf, is the complex crooner at the heart of Jackie Tayl…
SHIPSHAPE PRODUCTION TAKES SAIL Still subversive as it both condemns and confirms class snobbery, this smash hit from 1878 fuses Romeo and Juliet and Punch into a role-reversing romp where l…
MADCAP MIDSUMMER To say that Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is oft-produced would be an understatement. The 1595 text is very much in the public domain, free and available to an…
KISS ME, COLE Just the songs are blessing and bounty enough in A Cole Porter Songbook, Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre’s all-singing, much-dancing salute to Broadway's suavest purveyor …
MARVIN HAMLISCH GETS A WARM-HEARTED, STAR-FILLED MUSICAL TRIBUTE You had the feeling you were watching the cream of musical theater history come fully, wholeheartedly alive on the evening of…
CHICK 'N' SCHTICK THEATER It's no small feat when a play inspires me to do something with my life. While watching Stephen Sachs' Heart Song at the Fountain, I felt compelled to join a Flamen…
OVER THE (ABSURD) MOON The show begins in darkness with a musical overture blazing through the air. Slowly the glow of a yellow moon appears in the background, a man's face superimposed on i…
