Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Cabaret has undergone much alteration from Harold Prince’s original 1966 Broadway production. In 1972, wunderkind Bob Fosse revamped the story line for the film version, commissioning the composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb to write new songs, such as “Mein Herr,” “Money,” and the pair’s trunk song “Maybe This Time.” … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania A Christmas Carol is perfect fare for the holidays. It captures the importance of giving, sharing with loved ones, and reevaluating past choices. A Noise Within‘s co-producing artistic director Geoff Elliott has created his own adaptation, which has been performed at the theater for the last six years.Read more…
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Both a gentle parody of the celebrity Christmas specials that ran on network television in the ’60s and ’70s, and a poignant memory play, is a goofy, spirited, lark running at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.Read more… Now running through December
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania No one parodies the Great White Way like Gerard Alessandrini. For 35 years, he’s made audiences sidesplittingly laugh with his Forbidden Broadway series where, through song, he’s shattered the idols of Broadway like Ethel Merman, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Mary Martin. In Spamilton, Alessandrini tightens his target to assassinate the biggest musical sensation of … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze “Bright Star” is a fairly new musical by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. It had a life on Broadway last year and has arrived at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre.Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Bright Star has so many winning attributes that one can easily forget its shortcomings and simply enjoy … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze It seems Arye Gross hasn’t aged well. As the actor emerges onstage at the Geffen’s Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater, he puffs and sweats and walks creakily.Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania The biggest mystery of Underneath the Lintel is how the unspectacular quest for the late fees of a 113-year-old past … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania In Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, the Stage Manager guides audiences through the fictional New Hampshire town of Grover’s Corners. She confides in the audience, shares secrets, and points out revelations. Which is why the casting of Jane Kaczmarek in Pasadena Playhouse‘s production makes sense. Read more… Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review When … Read more
Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review Every once in a while one comes across a performance which may outweigh the play it takes place in. In this case, a good play becomes greater because of one person who takes a playwright’s words and their own and their director’s understandings and makes of them something … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Jean Giraudoux’s The Madwoman of Chaillot (translated by Maurice Valency) has always been one of my favorite plays. Written in 1943 and premiering after the playwright’s death in 1945, it’s a witty whimsical takedown of perfidious capitalism and a paean to the artists and free spirits who oppose them.Read more… The Stage … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City tosses around the word “funny” often. Besides landing in the title itself, the characters constantly tell others they are funny, declare that they themselves are funny, and attempt funny jokes… … Read more