Photo by Jill Mamey
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw
The talented Troubadour Theatre Company once again presents their annual holiday-themed show featuring their signature brand of madcap nonsense. Their tried-and-tested formula: Take a Christmas story, add some pop songs and send it up. Read more…
Now running through January 17.
Photo by Doug Engalla
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Although this biopic of the Righteous Brothers is pretty dead in the water from a dramatic standpoint, the opportunity to recall their music (especially for people of a certain age like yours truly) compensates at least in part for the stagey narrative. Read more…
Now running through January 24.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
“I have a powerful urge to communicate with you, but I find the distance between us insurmountable.”
That refrain, repeated at various points throughout Lucas Hnath’s powerful, richly textured The Christians, could be the motto for any number of American ideological divides. Read more…
Jonas Schwartz - TheaterMania
Religion can be a great separator. Though it can bind people together, it can also create an us-vs.-them mentality. In The Christians playwright Lucas Hnath lights a charge in his audience by confronting head-on the dangers of absolute faith, particularly when that belief excludes others viewpoints. Read more…
Now running through January 10.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
David C. Nichols – LA Times
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 Christmas Eve journey to redemption, this deftly performed, meta-theatrical edition stands out for fidelity to text, witty stagecraft and heartfelt embrace of message. Read more…
Margaret Gray – LA Times
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 picturesque bridges. The photographers have drifters’ souls and hide from true intimacy behind their cameras. Read more…
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw
A runaway bestseller like Robert James Waller’s romantic novel, The Bridges of Madison County, must be irresistible to adapt to more popular media. What’s intriguing is that both as a movie, and now as a Broadway musical, first-rank creative talent have been enticed to tackle the purplish passion as a challenging technical exercise. Read more…
Now running through January 17.
Photo by Gary Gangi
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
In his 1954 Lord of the Flies, William Golding wrote about cruel behavior, herd mentality and the will to power among a community of adolescent boys. The same disturbing themes are present in British playwright Dennis Kelly’s DNA, which premiered in 2007 at the youth-oriented Theatre Connections Festival in London. Read more…
Now running through December 20.
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
If you’re looking for a fun holiday show that’s free of both sentimentality and Christmas propaganda, the folks at Crown City Theatre have obligingly provided one. Read more…
Now running through January 17.
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
Since it premiered on Broadway in March 2014, a number of theater writers have commented on how the range and power of lead diva Idina Menzel transforms Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s so-so musical into a show well worth seeing. Read more…
Bob Verini - Stage Raw
The Pantages is playing happy host to Idina Menzel in the national tour of If/Then, the latest crest in a really remarkable career to date.
She first came to prominence in 1996 by creating the role of Maureen in Rent, and copping a Tony nomination for her work. A few years later she brought home the Tony as the very first Elphaba in Wicked, then tore up the soundtrack of Disney’s Frozen as Elsa the Ice Queen, and scored another Tony nomination and a year’s run for If/Then on Broadway. Read more…
Dany Margolies – The Daily News
“If/Then” posits the astounding revelation that if each of us had taken a different path, our lives would be different. Running for a month at Pantages Theatre, the musical’s national tour also brings along its Broadway stars, for better or worse. Read more…
Now running through January 3.
Photo by Alice Reyes
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
Josh Carson’s lovingly crafted theatrical tribute to the action franchise starring Bruce Willis opens in darkness, until an offstage cappella chorus sounds the familiar crescendo and theme music that herald a 20th Century Fox movie. Read more…
Now running through December 19.
Photo by Ed Krieger
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Michael Cooney’s Cash on Delivery typifies the sort of humor you find in a quintessential English farce. It’s very funny when it’s well done and a big boring yawn when it’s not. I’m pleased to report that the production at the El Portal, directed by Cooney’s father Ray (who was knighted for his contributions to British theater) falls in the former category. Read more…
Now running through December 20.
Photo by Roger Nygard
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw
In a month where various iterations of A Christmas Carol proliferate like mistletoe, an antidote is required for those of us who prefer our holiday spirits bottled.
Bob’s Holiday Office Party, written by Joe Keyes and Rob Elk, has been fulfilling this duty for two decades. Unfortunately, this twentieth anniversary production is scattershot in its effectiveness, perhaps relying too much on the affection of longtime fans rather than working to entertain new audiences. Read more…
Now running through December 20.
Photo by Kevin Parry
Margaret Gray – LA Times
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 Depression-era gamblers and others on the seedy side of the street of dreams inspired the great American musical “Guys and Dolls: A Musical Fable of Broadway. Read more…
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
Writer-director-adapter Mary Zimmerman is perhaps best known in Los Angeles for Metamorphoses, her adaptation of Ovid’s epic poem (and other myths), which played at the Mark Taper Forum in 2008. Years before, I caught her 1993 staging of The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. Read more…
Dany Margolies – The Daily News
Considering it combines the imagination and experience of director Mary Zimmerman with the resources of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the staging of “Guys & Dolls” at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts ought to have been sheer heaven. It’s not. Read more…
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw
A tremendously successful Broadway musical, Guys & Dolls ran for 1200 performances, winning five Tony Awards in 1951 including the award for Best Musical. The popular romantic comedy — written by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows and featuring Frank Loesser’s catchy tunes and clever lyrics — sparkles with humor, drama, song and dance.
Now running through December 20.