LA Times

Love, Chaos & Dinner, Teatro ZinZanni

by

Teatro ZinZanni: Love, Chaos & Dinner by Norman Langill, Kevin Kent, Joe de Paul, Mat Plendl, Juliana Rambaldi, Duffy Bishop, Manuela Horn, Hans Teuber and Jane Langill. David C. Nichols – L.A. Times Federico Fellini and Toulouse-Lautrec meet Garrison Keillor and Wolfgang Puck by way of Bricktop and Bob Fosse in Teatro ZinZanni’s “Love, Chaos & Dinner,” now catapulting its way around the collective id of Costa Mesa. This latest high-concept spectacle from the iconoclastic … Read more

42nd Street, Musical Theatre West

by

42nd Street by Mark Bramble, Michael Stewart, Harry Warren and Al Dubin. David C. Nicols – L.A. Times Audiences craving unbridled pizazz should race to 42nd Streetat the Carpenter Center in Long Beach. Musical Theatre West opens its 60th season with the indestructible backstager, and scores a toe-tapping triumph.  Read more… Shirle Gottlieb – Gazette Newspapers If you’re a musical theater buff, you’re undoubtedly acquainted … Read more

Bad Apples, Circle X Theatre Co

by

Bad Apples by Jim Leonard. Terry Morgan – LAist.com Circle X Theatre Co. has been one of the best theatre companies in Los Angeles for fifteen years now. One thing the company has never lacked for is ambition, and this admirable quality is on display in their current world premiere, Bad Apples. It’s a musical concerning the Abu … Read more

Justin Love, Celebration Theatre

by

Justin Love — Book by Patricia Cotter and David Elzer, Story byDavid Elzer and Bret Calder, Music by Lori Scarlett and David Manning, Lyrics by Lori Scarlett. Sharon Perlmutter – TalkinBroadway.com Justin Love gives an old plot a modern twist, shines it up with with a bright and upbeat score, adds genuinely clever dialogue and lyrics, and wraps it all up in a Hollywood that only exists in fairy … Read more

Three Views of the Same Object, Rogue Machine

by

Three Views of the Same Objectby Henry Murray. Sharon Perlmutter – TalkinBroadway.com It’s a play about aging—Stop! Wait! Don’t turn away! It’s an honest, frank-and-sometimes-funny look at people making difficult life decisions at a time of life when their conversation focuses just a bit too much on bodily functions. Read more… David C. Nichols — L.A. Times … Read more

Focus Group Play, Katselas Theatre Company

by

Focus Group Play by Carrie Barrett. David C. Nichols — L.A. Times The working title says it all in Focus Group Play. Carrie Barrett’s dark-tinged satire of nutritional marketing research gone awry skewers corporate product testing with agreeable, albeit predigested gusto.  Read more…

Incident at Vichy, Sierra Madre Playhouse

by

Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller. David C. Nichols – LA Times Resolute craft drives the cautionary content of Incident at Vichy at the Sierra Madre Playhouse. Arthur Miller’s 1964 study of detainees in Nazi-occupied France isn’t exactly top tier, but when executed as intensely as this gripping revival, it might as well be.  Read more…

West Side Story, Chance Theater

by

West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim andArthur Laurents. David C. Nichols – LA Times It’s not just the exposure to countless editions of West Side Story that causes us to stagger dazed and elated from the Chance Theater. Less a revival than a whole-scale reinvention, this stunning chamber version of the landmark 1957 musical by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur … Read more

The Pianist Of Willesden Lane, Geffen Playhouse

by

The Pianist Of Willesden Lane by Mona Golabek. Mayank Keshaviah – LA Weekly History is most powerful when we see the “all” through the small — the panorama of the textbook through the peephole of the personal. Acclaimed pianist Mona Golabek give us just that in sharing the story of her mother, Lisa Jura, a budding piano … Read more

Macbeth, The Antaeus Company

by

Macbeth by Shakespeare. Dany Margolies – ArtsinLA Are we, as an educated audience, expected to know exactly when Macbeth “turns”— when the pathologically evil ambition overtakes his soul? Or must the change in him be left open to interpretation? The answer may determine which cast to see in this double-cast production of Shakespeare’s “Scottish play,” illuminatingly directed by Jessica Kubzansky.  Read … Read more