Photo by Reed Hutchinson/CAP UCLA )
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
Memorable? Yes. Thought-provoking? Yes. Worthy of a production on the treasured stage of UCLA’s Royce Hall, which has over the decades housed world-class performing arts? Yes.
Groundbreaking? Not so much. Read more…
Now running through May 12
Margaret Gray – LA Times
In one of the most entertaining numbers in the musical “School of Rock,” which opened Thursday at the Hollywood Pantages theater, a substitute teacher rallies his 10-year-old students to “stick it to the man” by ignoring their stuffy prep-school curriculum and forming a rock band. Read more…
Ellen Dostal –Broadway World
As kid musicals go, SCHOOL OF ROCK isn’t half bad. It falls somewhere between ANNIE and MATILDA on the Richter scale of stories about downtrodden kids overcoming obstacles to win in the end.
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Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
School of Rock, directed by Laurence Connor at the Pantages Theatre, doesn’t bowl you over with its mostly forgettable music. What it does do is deliver well-staged and well-executed family entertainment, showcasing an impressive ensemble of preteen actors who sing, dance and act up a storm. Read more…
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the music for one of musical theatre’s first rock operas, Jesus Christ Superstar, in 1970. Nearly 50 years later the show is still popular…Read more…
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
It doesn’t have the cerebral and emotional heft of Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.” It doesn’t have the freshness and electricity of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton.” It certainly doesn’t showcase a lush score on par with those of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Yet “School of Rock” engenders every bit of the theatergoing joy these theatrical pillars provide….Read more…
Now running through May 27
Cooper Bates
Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main
ICE, Leon Martell’s family friendly play, takes place in 1988 and follows the misadventures of two undocumented immigrants: Chepe (Jesús Castaños-Chima), an avid baseball fan who dreams of making a fortune selling gourmet tacos; and his cousin Nacho (Tony Dúran), whom the beleaguered Chepe summons from Mexico to assist him in setting up his business.
Ellen Dostal – Broadway World
Seduced by the notion that, in America, winning is everything, an immigrant loses sight of what is really important in Leon Martell’s world premiere play, ICE. Commissioned by 24th STreet Theatre to commemorate its 20th anniversary, the 65-minute one act highlights the plight of every hopeful soul diligently trying to attain the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness promised by our founding fathers.
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Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
The simple but extraordinarily effective stage designs for 24th Street Theatre’s latest offering, “ICE,” immediately inform us of time and place.
A dilapidated truck, a cathedral’s stained-glass window, a quintessentially local street lamp — all these say Los Angeles. A Dodgers announcer excitedly narrating Fernando Valenzuela’s every move via two large television sets with display dials proclaims the 1980s.
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Now running through June 10
Lawrence K. Ho
Ellen Dostal – Broadway World
Somewhere in a cheap hotel in Chicago, circa late 1930s, three women are singing the blues. Two have been around the block and seen it all. One is woefully wise beyond her years. All have been burned by the flames of desire and lovers who have done them wrong.
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Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Blues in the Night was first produced in 1982 and has since been staged several times in New York and Southern California. Initially conceived and directed by Sheldon Epps, who also directs here, this latest production in the Lovelace Studio Theater at the Wallis Annenberg Center is a lush and lovely show.
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Now running through May 27
Craig Schwartz
Jonas Schwartz - TheaterMania
Farce is a science, a series of actions and reactions. People slam and swing open doors, they race up and down stairs, they misplace their clothing. If farce is a science, Noises Off deserves a Nobel Prize for physics.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
What has eight doors and revolves? Answer: Fred Kinney’s double-sided set for A Noise Within’s revival of Noises Off. This marks the company’s third revival of Michael Frayn’s farce in the past decade or so.
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Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Arguably one of the funniest farces in the contemporary British canon, Michael Frayn’s 1982 play revolves around a touring company of actors attempting to stage a frolicsome sex comedy called “Nothing On.”
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Now running through May 26
(Photo by Alex Rotaru)
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
Playwright Laureen Vonnegut’s dark comedy tackles a range of issues, from life and death to sexual identity, sexual confusion, and snarled emotional entanglements. It’s set in a Palm Springs cocktail lounge called, with heavy symbolism, The Last Stop.
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Now running through May 13