Dana Martin – Stage Raw. Jonathan Larson’s semi-autobiographical rock musical tick, tick…Boom! opens the 2023 season at Long Beach International City Theatre. The production is earnest but struggles to find synthesis… Ernesto Figueroa’s Jon is charming and gently guides the musical’s throughline, sometimes struggling to find the character’s emotional range. Samantha M. Lawrence is a versatile performer, … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw. Not every new work is stage worthy. Laguna Playhouse’s new comedy Staged by Martin Bergman and Rita Rudner finds charm in fits and spurts but the world-premiere production is clunky and underwhelming…The play behaves and moves like an old-school sitcom, with the characters crafted in broad strokes. Both Fenella and Jarvis … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw Cori Cable Kidder is channeling the star power of country music icon Patsy Cline at the Sierra Madre Playhouse this holiday season. A Patsy Cline Holiday Concert promises the most wholesome two hours of country music crooning this side of anywhere. Read more… Through December 23
Dana Martin – Stage Raw Have you ever wanted to be a star or would you rather remain a mere mortal? Stardust: An Immersive Theater Experience produced by Alterea Inc. at the Sassafras Saloon in Hollywood offers you the chance to experience both. Read more… Through November 20
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Taking a break from their usual musical fare, Center Theatre Group-Ahmanson is offering2:22-A Ghost Story by Danny Robins through December 4. The opening night was November 4, missing Halloween by a few days. Little costumed trick or treaters may have provided more scares than what transpired on stage. The reviewers … Read more
Jonas Schwartz-Owen – Theatermania The final five minutes in Part 1 of Matthew Lopez’s epic Tony-winning The Inheritance, now running at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, are some of the most gut-wrenching moments in theater. At the performance I attended, the entire audience sat connected — some teary-eyed, some crying — but it seemed everyone was … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw The Chance Theatre is pulling nothing but power moves this season. Kristoffer Diaz’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, is masculinity on overdrive. Macedonio Guerra, or The Mace (Rudy Solis III) knows his wrestling history. What’s more, he reveres the form as high art worthy of praise and … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw International City Theatre’s latest production of South African playwright Athol Fugard’s Valley Song is a welcomed beacon of light. First produced in 1995, Valley Song is Fugard’s first work post-apartheid. He searches for hope through the messiness and confusion of a rapidly shifting world and finds it in a younger generation ready to step … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw Prom night is a big theme at the Ahmanson this season, what with the January’s production of Everybody’s Talking about Jamie, and now The Prom (book by Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin, music by Matthew Sklar and lyrics by Chad Beguelin), which is the very model of a clichéd musical. The show aims to … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw It is said that Xanadu is “a gift so grand that none of us truly knows what it is.” In that case, Xanadu (book by Douglas Carter Beane, music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar) is a gift that keeps on giving. Laguna Playhouse’s current production, the campy mashup of … Read more