Jonas Schwartz-Owen – BroadwayWorld South Coast Repertory presents the Broadway musical Million Dollar Quartet at the Mission San Juan Capistrano under the stars as part of its new Outside SCR program, and the quality production recalls the good, old days of Summer Stock. SCR has collected a talented cast and put on an enchanting evening. Read more… Now … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw It may seem like nothing much happens in Thornton Wilder’s most important work, Our Town. It is a play, after all, about ordinary people living ordinary lives. But the 1938 Pulitzer Prize winner is quietly deep and profoundly moving. Edward Albee once described Wilder’s play as “the greatest American play ever written.” Read … Read more
Dana Martin– Stage Raw Pearl Cleage’s romantic comedy, What I Learned in Paris, proves that politics and office romance are not compatible… The play feels simultaneously fresh and dated; weighed down by too many predictable plot points. Regardless, What I Learned in Paris does speak to the current moment; change has come. Cleage weaves messages of … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Every once in a while we experience a flare-up of puzzlement about why so few women pursue careers in math and science — even now, despite progress in gender equality.Read more… Now running through March 24
Ellen Dostal – Musicals in LA Done right, the first notes of a musical will tell you exactly what kind of world you’re stepping into. When it comes to the masters, Stephen Sondheimdoes it better than just about anyone.For Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, all it takes is one crashing dissonant organ chord … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times As a punctuation nerd, I may be reading too much into the parentheses in “Culture Clash (Still) in America,” the satiric troupe’s latest anthology of sketches at South Coast Repertory.Read more… Now running through January 20
Margaret Gray – LA Times It is a truth universally acknowledged that a stage or screen adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, however well-intentioned, must be unfavorably compared to the original.Read more… Now running through September 30
Terry Morgan – Talkin’ Broadway These days, films are regularly being converted into musicals, some which actually benefit from the change. It’s rarer to see a film made into a dramatic play, perhaps because of the belief that there’s less box office profit to be had.Read more… The 1998 period romantic comedy Shakespeare in Love … Read more
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Mounting the first regional production of a show that recently played on Broadway puts the creative team between a rock and a hard place: Is it better to do a new take on the material, or is it better to emulate the original production? With Once, playing at the South … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw One of the most intriguing uses of art is a conversation between an acknowledged masterpiece from the past and a current artist commenting upon it or adding to it in some way. Of course, this doesn’t always work, but when it does, the results are often fascinating. Such is the case with Lucas Hnath’s A … Read more