Les Spindle – Frontiers L.A. Featuring an appealing score by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin) and a charming though rather thin book by Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof, Zorba), based on a 1931 French film, this 1976 musical remains more a cult favorite than a classic. Read more… Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Among the most gratifying of musicals being presented in … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Brimming with imagination, humor and macabre themes, The Ghoulmaster’s Haunted Playhouse is a high-concept and highly inventive cabaret production expressly created for the Halloween season. Read more… Now running through October 31.
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher’s drama artfully combines a threatening atmosphere with a charged debate on art and politics. And, if the conversation on the nature of art occasionally edges into the cerebral, the grounded performances and pleasantly nuanced arguments are enough to keep the work vivid and compelling. Read more…
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA First of all, this is indeed your father’s The Sound of Music, in its national tour now launching here. The stage version birthed the film, which retained much of the theatrical book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Read more… … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw The 24th Street Theatre has distinguished itself by staging plays that have something to say to children and adults alike. While the productions display elements of fun and fancy, they also deal with disappointment and aging and loss – experiences we all encounter as part of our human condition. Read more.. … Read more
Don Shirley – LA Observed Center Theatre Group, which continues to call itself “L.A.’s Theatre Company,” also continues to demonstrate virtually no interest in LA stories. When CTG recently announced the next Mark Taper Forum season, after previously revealing new seasons for the coming year at CTG’s Ahmanson and Kirk Douglas theaters, I began counting. … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA “Anything can happen,” sings Mary Poppins in the musical bearing her name. On its opening night at Norris Theatre, nearly everything did happen—good and bad. Read more… Now running through October 4.
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly Though sexual assault is never not timely, it’s been getting an extra-special dose of attention due to Bill Cosby and his 50-and-counting accusers, as well as the scrutiny directed at colleges before and after the discredited Rolling Stone account of campus assault and news generated by a White House rape-prevention initiative. Read more… … Read more
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA When Awake and Sing! was produced in 1935, it was a transformative experience for theatergoers. Playwright Clifford Odets was an early member of the Group Theatre in New York, a lab for Stanislavski’s system of acting with a shared commitment among the collective for social change through theater. Read more… Now … Read more
Bob Verini – Stage Raw After well-received productions in Chicago and Off-Broadway, Hit the Wall delivers nothing less than a gut punch in its West Coast debut at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Playwright Ike Holter calls his absorbing treatment of the 1969 Stonewall Inn riots a “remix” of scholarship, oral history and legend…..Read more… David C. … Read more