Mayank Keshaviak – LA Weekly Bottom is the tops in New American Theatre’s take on the classic tale of love and mischief, here set in 1930s Greece. Director and company founder Jack Stehlin brings energy and cheeky wit to the character of Nick Bottom by fully exploring the hills and valleys of Shakespeare’s linguistic landscape.Read … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Writer-performer Jozanne Marie’s intense solo show encompasses the wrongs done to three generations of women — her grandmother, her mother and herself — but its primary motif is her struggle for a relationship with her sexually abusive father, whose approval she sought despite his pernicious assaults. Read more…
SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE – Music by Ben Toth, lyrics by Sam Forman. Hoyt Hilsman – Huffington Post After a long journey from the screen to the musical stage – which included numerous comings-and-goings of composer/lyricist teams – the Sleepless in Seattle musical has arrived at the Pasadena Playhouse. It is a huge challenge to adapt … Read more
THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS – music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb, book by David Thompson Les Spindle – Edge Los Angeles The 2010 musical “The Scottsboro Boys” now in its L.A. premiere, is among the most innovative and thrilling shows to have graced Broadway in recent years, justifiably earning 12 Tony nominations. Yet it lost … Read more
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