Martín Hernández – Stage Raw A tongue-in-cheek musical melodrama replete with a vile villain, a temptress or two, and a hearty hero and heroine, the show features a book by Suzanne Buhrer and Gene Casey, and music by Buhrer, Casey, and Jan Casey. It’s also directed with comic flair by Stan Mazin. The result is … Read more
F. Kathleen Foley – Stage Raw Becker efficiently orchestrates over a dozen actors, most of whom play multiple roles. It’s a logistical feat — still, she can’t quite smooth over the shortcomings of an uneven cast, or the feeling that the sum of the play adds up to less than its clanking moving parts. Read … Read more
Martín Hernández – Stage Raw Playwright Kelly McBurnette Andronicos’s muddled world premiere work critiques a patriarchal and class-based society that punishes women for actions that men merely receive a mild reprimand for — or walk away from scot-free. Read more…
Philip Brandes – Stage Raw A rowdy, bawdy, over-the-top production of the Off-Broadway hit spoofing Bram Stoker’s seminal 1897 gothic horror novel. Imagine a theatrical love child between Charles Ludlum’s flamboyant gender-bent, cross-dressing antics and Mel Brooks’s spot-on genre parodies and you’ve got the general idea. Best of all, it doesn’t suck. Read more…
F. Kathleen Foley – Stage Raw As for the production itself, director/choreographer Jeremy Lucas and a vigorous cast remind us of why Rent remains an important theatrical milestone, even after the shadow of AIDS has been largely dispelled by life-saving medical advances. Read more… Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld The Jaxx Theatre is an intimate location, … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw Guys and Dolls lands firmly in the entertainment and nostalgia categories and it a prime example of the golden age of American Musical. First produced on Broadway in 1950, the story and characters are full of wit and humor. The story itself is most definitely outdated and a relic of … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Just in time for Halloween, this gothic rock “popera” has taken over the ground floor of the historic space adjacent to the Bourbon Room on Hollywood Boulevard and transformed it into a mad gothic nightclub. It’s the quintessential place to give revelers past the trick or treating and school carnival … Read more
Philip Brandes – Stage Raw While “achingly beautiful” may be a far-too overused trope nowadays, it’s an entirely apt description for the current pitch-perfect revival presented by Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre Company. For anyone who’s only seen the film, or even another stage production, Once is not enough. Read more…
F. Kathleen Foley – Stage Raw Barry’s two-hander consists of six distinct scenes detailing the relationship between Sarah (Meeghan Holaway) and Molly (Andrea Flowers). The gimmick here is, half an hour before each performance, audience members choose the sequence of the scenes — a playing order that varies from night to night. Read more…
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw The 24th Street Theatre almost always impresses with their tech, and Pascal & Julien (tech director Nick Foran) lives up to that reputation. Read more…