Sunday, January 27, 2019
IT COULD HAVE BEEN MURDER Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a musical that never fails to impress, no matter how many times it’s been seen. It te…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:56PMFriday, January 25, 2019
SAINT BERNADETTE Now that she’s hung up her late-Victorian hat after taking over for Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway last year, the inimitable Bernadette Peters has embarked …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:57AMSunday, January 20, 2019
SOMETHING SWELL FOR MUSICAL LOVERS A studio recording of Cole Porter’s 1943 boisterously farcical musical Something for the Boys has just been released, and producer and PS Classics …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:15PMTuesday, January 15, 2019
YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION? How remarkable to have been a fly on the wall when the creators of 1776, the 1969 musical receiving a terrific La Mirada Theatre/McCoy Rigby revival, were dec…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:29PMFriday, January 11, 2019
GREAT CHORUS, GREAT BRIDGE, GREAT INTRO WONKY SUPERSTRUCTURE A middle 8 is a section in song structure — usually in the middle and consisting of eight bars — that is used to add…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:15PMWednesday, December 26, 2018
SOCIETY UNDER CLOSE INSPECTION An Inspector Calls was first performed in 1945 at a time of great change — both World Wars were fresh in the minds of the people, women had become more …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:20PMWednesday, December 5, 2018
LITTLE SHOP OF HAPPINESS I’ll be the first to admit that it may be impossible to create a bad production of the 1963 jewel-box musical She Loves Me. This perfect show, based on the 1937 pl…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:58PMMonday, December 3, 2018
SOME ENCHANTED EVENING INDEED At about 8 am on December 7, 1941, Japanese planes filled the sky over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Bombs and bullets rained onto the vessels moored below on the Unite…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:42PMFriday, November 30, 2018
TIME TO SAY GOODBYE She stands on the cover of her latest album, Hymn, like a diva who just came down from Sinai with the word of God, but instead of 10 Commandments, the British Broadway, W…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:29PMThursday, November 29, 2018
A NEWFOUND(LAND) WAY OF LOOKING AT MUSICAL THEATER This intimate ensemble piece may only have one stand-alone song, and it may not even be the best-crafted musical or have the emotional impa…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:05PMFriday, November 16, 2018
BEAUTIFUL DESPAIR BY A MASTER THESPIAN The river of lost souls can be found in Westwood, and your magnificent tour guide is Brian Dennehy. In this coupling of one-acts by Eugene O’Neil…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:54PMWednesday, November 14, 2018
TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT An ill wind hit Disney Hall last weekend with this collaboration between LA Phil’s Guest Conductor Susanna Mälkki and Old Globe Theatre’s Artisitic Director…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:52PMTuesday, November 13, 2018
VALLEY OF THE HEART ON ITS SLEEVE Captivating stagecraft and a winning, although not always authentic, cast fuel this epic tale of war-time love. But the riveting aspects of a relationship b…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:38PMWednesday, October 31, 2018
IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME In 2011, Playwrights Horizon Artistic Director Jon Lawrence Rivera staged Donald Jolly’s bonded, which explored the restrictiveness of gays based on their si…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:47PMMonday, October 29, 2018
IMAGINATIVE PHANTASMAGORIA DOESN’T PLUMB THE DEPTHS OF PLUMMER’S HISTORY One of the most bemusing, bewildering affairs in recent memory, Señor Plummer’s Final Fiesta is an inc…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:49PMFriday, October 26, 2018
CREEPY FUN, BUT NOT AS BLACK AS IT COULD BE Pasadena Playhouse’s production of The Woman in Black is a delicious, handcrafted thriller of the classic style, at once dingy and disturbing. …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:58PMGOING, GOING, VIETGONE Prior to last night’s L.A. premiere of Vietgone, the actor playing playwright Qui Nguyen tells us that his 2015 play is about his parents (“who this play is ab…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:50PMTuesday, October 23, 2018
A SHOW FOR FOREVER That songwriters and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul — critical darlings for La La Land (film), Dogfight (Off-Broadway), and A Christmas Story (Broadway) …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:22PMThursday, October 4, 2018
HERE’S SOME GOOD NOOSE FOR YOU Amid the jukebox musicals and feel-good issue plays of the moment, thank the macabre heavens for two grippingly disturbing entertainments. The first is E…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:52PMWednesday, October 3, 2018
IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS If anyone should dislike the confrontational and cynical aspects of Echo Theatre’s knockout L.A. premiere of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Gloria, I assert it…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:57AMWednesday, September 26, 2018
THE PUZZLE BOX OF THE SOUL Sharr White’s riveting and affective play, The Other Side, concerns Juliana, a neurologist and holder of a billion-dollar patent, whose life suddenly starts crum…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:38PMSaturday, September 22, 2018
A SURE(GUN)FIRE HIT The team of Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow, the most famous robbing, murdering, loving couple in U.S. history, is as unlikely a subject for a musical a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:43PMFECKIN’ GREAT While the horror and suspense aren’t as palpable as previous productions of The Beauty Queen of Leenane — Martin McDonagh’s 1996 black comedy — the dark h…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AMThursday, September 20, 2018
JAZZ, GENIUS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS Wynton Marsalis’s wildly enjoyable composition, a new dance suite called Spaces, combines modern dance with big band jazz in a playful and entirely …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:26AMWednesday, September 19, 2018
AN EARNEST HEART THAT SHAKES, THROBS, PALPITATES & FLATLINES For all of its sincere heart and driving rock ‘n’ roll, this new jukebox musical inspired by Huey Lewis and the N…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:52PMMonday, September 17, 2018
MORE THAN BROADWAY, THIS PRODUCTION IS MORE INTIMATE WITH MORE HEART AND MORE FUN Wise and warm, funny and tender, this 100-minute family memory-play musical charts the twisted courses of a …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:26PMThursday, September 6, 2018
THE WORLD IS FLAT Musical revues are a tricky business. While highly enjoyable and entertaining, even high profile compilations such as Side by Side by Sondheim and the Fats Waller songboo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:45AMMonday, August 20, 2018
AND NOW, WITH FURTHER ADO… Not only is it one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, but Much Ado About Nothing contains a favorite character: Dogberry. This bumbling constable arrives much …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:17PMSaturday, August 18, 2018
A STORY OF IMPORTANCE Unlike manipulative Broadway machines such as Priscilla and Kinky Boots, which shove issues down our throats, the societal consequences for a homosexual in A Man of…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:14PMWednesday, August 15, 2018
LOOKING FOR PROOF Proofreading: It may be a lost art. As an editor, I have become accustomed to scanning copy everywhere for mistakes, either in grammar or with facts. But lately, the effect…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:26AMWednesday, August 8, 2018
WORD FOR WORD’S PERSONAL VICTORY LAP MAY BE THE BEST DEEP KISS YOU’VE EVER HAD San Francisco’s Word for Word has been transforming classic and contemporary fiction into amazing…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:31PM 
