BLACK BOX BASEBALL Rise Above Theatre Movement has proved once again that it is not afraid of performing difficult material. In the young theatre company’s first show, The Last Days of…
THEATER AS COLLECTIVE DREAM The band is already playing, the show underway, as we enter The Kitchen Theatre by way of the stage, which is set up like the parlor of a mystic or a fortunetelle…
¿POR QUÉ? I have been trying to figure out sixty ways from Sunday's opening of Los Otros just exactly how to approach a critique. The new one-act musical by composer Michael John LaCh…
VERY IMPERVIOUS AND HARD TO GET, OR WHAT THE HELL..? I'm debating whether or not to tell you to go to Hell. Should you choose to go, playwright Steve Yockey will take you there in the world …
RUN The Rogue Machine is one of the best theatre companies in Los Angeles, producing some of the finest productions anywhere. Sadly, their latest effort Where the Great Ones Run wandered off…
[title of review] The Northlight Theatre decided to step off of the beaten path this season, putting on the relatively unknown cult musical [title of show]. The simple premise has two writer…
THEÂ LIBRETTO NEVER REALLY WORKS, BUT THIS PRODUCTION SURE DOES Camelot is a good musical that should be better. After all, it was composed by the team of Lerner and Loewe, of My Fair Lady…
BAREDÂ SOULS AND BARE FLESH The huge production of Ray of Light Theatre’s The Full Monty may be packed into the tiny Eureka Theater (opening night was squirming-room-only), but it as…
GO FOR THE PERFORMANCE, NOT THE SCRIPT Like most one-actor plays, the new show at the Writers' Theatre is more satisfying as a performing showcase than as a drama. The play carries the tanta…
A MESS IN BIG POCKETS Imagine yourself not exactly as JFK cheerleader Arthur Schlesinger Jr., but at least a 40ish New Deal Democrat, attending a John F. Kennedy rally in New York City in th…
BAD COP GOOD COP The cynical title My Kind of Town acknowledges the pop song that celebrates Chicago but also a likely culture of police brutality. This is the work of investigative journali…
PIECE OF EIGHT Conceived by Ashlin Halfnight and Melanie Sylvan at New York's Electric Pear Productions, Synesthesia can easily be classified in the "Why Didn't I Think of That?" Department.…
CHILDREN OF HOPE AND SORROW We enter the theater, which has been configured thrust-style like an amphitheater, and take our seats. The tiny stage below has an unfinished cement floor, a smal…
TOO MUCH TRAGEDY SPOILS CLEVER CONCEIT Prior to curtain at Sacred Fools' production of Stoneface, the packed house watched samplings of Buster Keaton's films, projected on a screen center st…
IT IS (BUT SHOULDN'T BE) DONE There was something that felt particularly showcase-y about It Is Done, which can best be described as a 22-minute episode of The Twilight Zone laboriously stre…
THE HOUSE OF LOVE AND MUSIC Many artists, being generally unsuited for life in normal society, have often dreamed of a place where they could be with others of their ilk. Where they would be…
IN PURSUIT OF DRAMA Beneath the stairwell sign assuring guests that all cigarettes smoked on stage are herbal, the following sign might as well have been posted regarding The Roundabout's ne…
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY BECOMES A MUSICAL COMEDY 1931 was a crossroads in American history. With no economic recovery in sight, the Depression had people edgy, and when Americans are edgy, they …
COMMUNION If the Ahmanson Theater is akin to a cathedral (elevated rules of decorum apply, and a certain dress code, and it’s expensive and showy in such a way as to invite your tithe …
THE PERFECT PINOT PAIRING Pinot Noir is presently one of the most popular wine varietals in California thanks to Sideways. First published as a novel by Rex Pickett in 2004 before being made…
MUSICAL TAKES ON REALITY TV What better place than the stage to examine the phenomenon of Reality TV? One would hope that by now, Americans would be wise to the fact that these shows, whethe…
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE STORY? The tortured elements in the life of the great rhythm and blues artist Marvin Gaye would be fascinating fodder for a powerfully tragic stage pl…
AN INCREDIBLY BRIGHT LIGHT The Light in the Piazza opened on March 12 at Theo Ubique and has now been extended into midsummer, and counting. It's gathered a sheaf of rave reviews and the tin…
BONA FIDE ACTING FUELS DIDACTIC SCRIPT At about the same time that the United States entered WWI, units of the 24th Infantry Regiment, one of the Army's four black regiments, set up camp on …
OF GOOD TURNS AND SCREWINGS All emotional reaction comes filtered through prerequisite knowledge: the sound of a crying baby is annoying, unless it’s your baby, in which case that soun…