Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw In 1981, a musical adaptation by Andrew Lloyd Webber of British poet T. S. Eliot’s collection Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats took London’s West End by storm. Cats was immediately transferred Stateside, where the Tony Award-winning musical still holds the record for being the second longest-running show in Broadway history. Read more… Jonas Schwartz … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw “I guess all families have their ups and downs,” says Eleanor of Aquitaine in James Goldman’s perennially popular comedy drama about 12thcentury royals. But in most families, the ups and downs don’t come as fast and furiously as in this play, and certainly they’re never expressed quite so articulately, with … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times That rarefied place where craft, collaboration and content create theatrical poetry is everywhere in “The Last Act of Lilka Kadison” at the Falcon Theatre. Indeed, this delicately potent West Coast premiere, a co-production between the Falcon and Chicago’s Tony-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company, often seems to be composing itself before … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts In LA Noël Coward’s A Song at Twilight first saw the light of day as the centerpiece of 1966’s Suite in Three Keys, a two-night triptych of works set in a single luxurious Swiss hotel suite. Eight years later, with one play jettisoned, Song reached Broadway as part of Noël Coward in Two Keys. Now it stands … Read more
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
Bob Verini – Arts in LA So you’re a distinguished playwright in your early 60s: a very Chekhovian age; an age when the mind drifts toward dreams once grasped, then compromised, then lost, and fixates on memories of simpler, happier times. You look around your Bucks County farmhouse and think, “Gosh, this looks a lot … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania The model for Bernard Weinraub’s play Above the Fold, premiering at the Pasadena Playhouse, is Tom Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize winner Bonfire of the Vanities. Though parallels can be seen between both works, the indictment of politicians, the press, and Caucasian and African-American leaders for instigating and celebritizing the racial divide, Weinraub’s work also maintains … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – Arts In LA Let’s Misbehave culls many of Cole Porter’s hits and some of his rarities to create a surprisingly touching love triangle. A winning cast of three takes what could have just been a revue of hit-parade songs and makes the audience believe these songs are originating from the characters’ hearts. Read more… … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA An exuberant celebration of language is the most apt description for actor Christopher Plummer’s self-created one-man show. A Word or Two is playing through February 9, 2014 at the Ahmanson Theatre, downtown LA. Early on in the show, Plummer selects a book from a heap and begins to read from a lectern. But this … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly “That’s the story!” repeated with droll unctuousness becomes a motif in actor Barry McGovern’s solo performance of stories by Samuel Beckett, presented by the Gate Theatre of Dublin at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The texts — “Molloy,” “Malone Dies” and “The Unnamable” — were selected by McGovern and Gerry … Read more