PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT by Stephan Elliott Bob Verini – ArtsinLA Anyone who thinks national tours are always done on the cheap need only take a quick gander at the Pantages’s Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the musical version of the 1994 cult cineclassic whose title begins The Adventures of….Read more…
THE MATCHMAKER by Thornton Wilder. Neal Weaver – LA Weekly Thornton Wilder, who wrote this zany philosophical farce, is a paradoxical figure. He was both deeply conservative — intent on conserving the theatrical conventions and traditions of the past — and an innovator who burst the bounds of realistic theater with plays like The Long Christmas Dinner, … Read more
RENT by Jonathan Larson. Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly Because of its repetitive musicality, rock opera Rent lives or dies on the vocal strength of its cast. This production has mostly excellent, robust and irrepressible singing that is only occasionally obliterated by the mediocre live band. The plot of Jonathan Larson’s legendary Broadway smash clings to its … Read more
Written by Brian Friel. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA A study of language and identity, Irish playwright Brian Friel’s Translations charts the beginning of a grim passage of Irish history where the imperialism of the brutish British government threatened to wipe out their culture.Read more… Neal Weaver – LA Weekly Brian Friel’s 1980 play is set in 1833. … Read more
HOT CAT by Richard Alger Dany Margolies – ArtsInLA Throughout its first half, this production is a fun and intellectual reworking of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Where Williams “told” us, writer Richard Alger and director-choreographer Tina Kronis “show” us.Read more… Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly Choreographer-director Tina Kronis and her husband, playwright … Read more
THE FANTASTICKS – Book and lyrics by Tom Jones, music by Harvey Schmidt. David C. Nichols — L.A. Times The delicate theatricality of “The Fantasticks” has weathered countless editions worldwide since its off-Broadway premiere in 1960. But Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s “Les Romanesques” has perhaps never before enjoyed the elevated insight of … Read more
THE CRUCIBLE by Arthur Miller. Neal Weaver – LA Weekly Arthur Miller’s play, first produced on Broadway in 1953, was Miller’s impassioned response to McCarthyism and the witch-hunts launched by the House Un-American Activities Committee. But the fact that it has become an oft-produced American classic and the basis for two films (including a French version with … Read more
CHESS – Book by Richard Nelson, lyrics by Tim Rice, music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus Mayank Keshaviah – LA Weekly Like the 1980s, this revival of the Cold War-themed musical that produced the hit song “One Night in Bangkok” is kitschy, colorful and full of spectacle. Yet its return also reveals the contrived, confusing … Read more
DYING CITY by Christopher Shinn. Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly When Peter (Burt Grinstead) unexpectedly shows up at Kelly’s (Laurie Okin) Lower Manhattan apartment, the mood is prickly and awkward. It’s understandable; Peter is the identical twin of her husband Craig, a hard as nails soldier who recently died in a military accident in the Gulf. But … Read more
THE BALD SOPRANO and THE CHAIRS by Eugene Ionesco. Shirle Gottlieb – The Gazette Newspapers Written in 1948 shortly after World War II, “The Bald Soprano” was Eugene Ionesco’s first play. As the transplanted Romanian struggled to write in French (the language of his adopted country), he realized how banal everyday communication had become. He had … Read more