FIDDLER ON THE ROOF at the Westchester Playhouse

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Dany Margolies  –  Arts In LA The score of the classic Fiddler on the Roof is among American musical theater’s best. In this production, the music and lyrics get top-tier treatment. But the direction misses opportunities, while so tightly cramming performers into scenes that the audience may fear for the performers’ safety. Among those squandered elements, a … Read more

LEND ME A TENOR at Actors Co-op

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Neal Weaver  – Arts In LA The central character in Ken Ludwig’s farce is famous Italian tenor Tito Merelli (Floyd Vanbuskirk), who’s scheduled to appear in the title role in Verdi’s Otello for the Cleveland Opera Company. But Tito is well-known for his heavy drinking, womanizing, and general troublemaking. On the day of the performance, Tito has … Read more

TOP GIRLS at the Antaeus Company

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Pauline Adamek  – Stage Raw During the ‘greed is good’ ‘80s and the tumultuous era of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, London-born playwright Caryl Churchill informed her scathing political satires with an examination of feminist themes — challenging and charting the evolving notions of gender and sexuality in the workplace. Her plays were bold, different, … Read more

A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at the Torrance Theatre Company

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Dany Margolies  –  Arts In LA “A movie is cold comfort for a man who loves the theater,” says Alfie Byrne, this musical’s hero. That pretty much sets the tone for the character and for this show. Its major themes will be the making of art and admitting who we are. And the art here will … Read more

REUNION at South Coast Repertory Theatre

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Bob Verini –   Arts In LA Gregory S Moss’s Reunion at South Coast Rep is a capable production of a mostly derivative, predictable text, one most likely to be enjoyed by those with a real appetite for late ’80s nostalgia and a high tolerance for characters’ wild mood swings into and out of melodrama. A lot of … Read more

CINNAMON GIRL at Greenway Court Theatre

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Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Salani (Jennifer Hubilla), the central character in Velina Hasu Houston’s charmless chick lit musical, is a lovely orphaned teen, an upright individual who must contend with poverty, hard labor, and  arrogant or lustful employers before triumphantly attaining freedom and self-realization. The story is set in British Ceylon circa 1939; Read more… Neal Weaver  – … Read more

HARMONY at the Ahmanson Theatre

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Les Spindle –  Edge on the Net Beloved pop songwriter-singer Barry Manilow (“Copacabana,” “Mandy”) and his longtime collaborator, lyricist-librettist Barry Sussman, are fulfilling a longtime dream with “Harmony,” their seriocomic musical. The show was introduced in an appealing production in 1997 at La Jolla Playhouse in Southern California. This project had always aimed for Broadway, though additional … Read more

SLOWGIRL at the Geffen Playhouse

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Margaret Gray – LA Times In Greg Pierce’s “Slowgirl” at the Geffen Playhouse, 17-year-old Becky (Rae Gray) comes to visit her Uncle Sterling (William Petersen), who left the U.S. years earlier for Costa Rica. She’s freaked out by his primitive jungle lifestyle, which is charmingly evoked by Richard Woodbury’s sound design and the tropical leaves … Read more