Big Brother isn't watching you. You're watching him. An acclaimed adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian vision on the future, "1984," is crossing the Atlantic to make its U.S. debut on the…
Since making her Broadway debut in Stephen Sondheim's 1981 musical "Merrily We Roll Along," Tonya Pinkins has won a Tony in 1992 for "Jelly's Last Jam" and was nominated for 1997's "Play On!…
The crowd of about 200 huddled in the parking lot of San Pedro City Ballet, ensconced in fog and drizzle. Restless and excited, they might have been awaiting the arrival of a rock legend. So…
Christmas, we like to remind ourselves, is about family. But the season tends to offer surprisingly little familial music of any real significance. The subject matter of holiday oratorio, ca…
The upcoming "Harry Potter" sequel that is set to open at the Palace Theatre in London next year has cast a black actress to play the role of the adult Hermione, a decision that author…
Still haven't checked off those on your gift list who are of a more melodramatic or histrionic temperament? Never fear. There is a cornucopia of holiday goodies waiting for the thespians and…
It's hard to believe, but the Troubadour Theater Company has been around for more than 20 years, doing turn-away business at venues around Southern California. The group's productions inc…
Choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has made his own Christmas miracle: a joyful "Nutcracker" ballet that is ravishing and clever enough to inspire multiple viewings. Cynical adults who feel drag…
Idina Menzel is such a beloved Broadway talent that it only makes sense that a show built around her would give us two Menzels for the price of one. "If/Then," the 2014 Broadway musical now …
"Identity politics" has an old-fashioned ring, the banner of the academic culture wars of the 1990s, but the conflicts over race, religion, sexuality, gender, nationality and, let us not for…
Here, in alphabetical order, are my 2015 theater highlights. "Amélie," Berkeley Repertory Theatre: An enchanting act of theatrical translation that brought the French film to the stage in a…
Reviewing an established hit that has been running for decades seems a tad presumptuous -- sort of like criticizing the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for an off-key marching band. After all…
"A Christmas Carol" is upon us, and its winning A Noise Within production is a keeper. Amid worthy area stagings of Charles Dickens' immortal classic about miserly Ebenezer Scrooge's Christm…
Having been more or less inundated, year after year, for good or ill, by the surplus of yuletide theatrical stagings of "A Christmas Carol," that most ubiquitous of the literary creations of…
It happens so often in Iowa that the housewives have come to expect it: Moments after their husbands and children head off to the state fair, hunky photographers arrive, asking directions to…
For the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 2015 was supposed to have been a year of celebration " a 25th anniversary season spotlighting the company's reputation as one of Orange County's premiere pres…
What a difference a director makes. Having seen the original Broadway staging of "The Color Purple" in New York and then the touring production at the Ahmanson Theatre, I was in no rush to r…
If you missed the L.A. run of "Hit the Wall," the popular and well-reviewed play about the 1969 Stonewall riots, you have one last chance: Five performances have been added for January. "Hit…
The crowds in the theater district here have been as large and unwieldy as they typically are this time of year. Walk along Broadway or 8th Avenue between 42nd and 50th streets around 7:30 i…
For a guy who's never had much success on Broadway, Jason Robert Brown is, well, pretty successful. "Parade," a musical about the lynching of a Jewish factory worker, closed after barely two…
The Kennedy Center Honors Gala saluted five legendary artists on Sunday night, the extravaganza unfolding with First Lady Michelle Obama and one late arrival: President Obama, who appeared a…
Musical theater lovers weren't hit with too many surprises Monday with the 2016 Grammy nominations in the theater album category. Of the five Broadway cast recordings recognized, four had ra…
The stripper whose wildest dream is of marriage. The high-stakes gambler who falls for a missionary. Both live on the sweet, homely Broadway of Damon Runyon, whose short stories about …
NEW YORK " The youngsters from the new musical "School of Rock" are on a rescue mission. Not only are they trying to salvage their wacko teacher's dream of transforming their nerdy selves in…
With his gray mane and gravelly roar, Al Pacino skulks around the stage like an old lion in "China Doll," David Mamet's yakking character study of an aging oligarch still trying to intimidat…