"Head of Passes," Tarell Alvin McCraney's play set where the land trails off into the sea in hurricane-prone Louisiana, has undergone quite a bit of tinkering since I saw it at Berkeley Repe…
In a posh Beverly Hills hotel suite overflowing with gift baskets, Michael, the central character of Paul Rudnick's tentative new comedy, "Big Night," is anxiously primping for what may be t…
Karla, a struggling stand-up comic, is furiously jotting in her notebook while trying out different versions of a new routine. "I've been single for so long, I've started having sex dreams a…
The straightforward production of "Iphigenia in Aulis" that opened Wednesday at the Getty Villa's outdoor Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater might be retitled "Clytemnestra," so enliven…
Who is Hamlet? This might seem like a strange question to ask about the most famous character in all literature, a figure incarnated by some of the most brilliant actors of the last four cen…
More than two years after "Hamilton: An American Musical" had its world premiere at New York's Public Theater, becoming the biggest theatrical sensation in at least a generation, it's still …
NEW YORK " Michael Moore looked like a fish out of water " or was it a deer in headlights? " at a preview of his Broadway show, "The Terms of My Surrender," which had its official opening at…
Jumping on bandwagons is my least favorite activity. Don't force me to tell you all the must-see movies I've skipped ("Forrest Gump" is all you'll get out of me), the No. 1 bestsellers I've …
Barbara Cook's career can be divided into two parts: her Broadway ingénue years, in which she enchanted audiences with her glittering soprano, and her cabaret years, in which she basically …
Add "Shout Sister Shout!" to the growing list of musicals that would make a more potent impression as a straightforward revue. The show, which is having its world premiere at Pasadena Playho…
Eugene O'Neil brought gravitas to the American theater. Tennessee Williams allowed it to lyrically sing. Arthur Miller raised its political temperature. And Edward Albee infused it with an a…
"Sweet are the uses of adversity," the exiled Duke Senior asserts from his campground in the Forest of Arden in "As You Like It." For a drama critic attending a lackluster production of Shak…
LONDON " For an American theatergoer in London this summer, there can be little doubt that the best new play of the year so far is Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" at the National Theatre.…
Since David Lean's 1945 film "Brief Encounter," no romantic has been able to look at a banal railway station as simply a commuter hub. Each connecting line poses new amorous possibilities; e…
Enter any theater and an usher will probably volunteer answers to the questions on everyone's mind: How many minutes is the show, and is there an intermission? Why the answers matter more th…
Dear Ted L. Nancy: Congratulations on the success of your series of "Letters From a Nut" books. I have to admit I never heard of them until I received an invitation to attend your show at th…
Shakespeare clearly lies outside the right-wing attack machine's area of expertise. While Breitbart News and friends were busy waging a full-scale war against the New York Public Theater's p…
'Escape to Margaritaville,' Jimmy Buffett, La Jolla Playhouse, Christopher Ashley
Hero Theatre organized a festival last year in celebration of Cuban American playwright MarÃa Irene Fornés, a key figure in the off-off-Broadway theater movement who has had an influence…
The opening scene of "Constellations," the play by British dramatist Nick Payne that had a Broadway production in 2015 with Ruth Wilson and Jake Gyllenhaal, offers variations of the meet-cut…
You know it's an interesting year for the Tony Awards when a critic is still arguing with himself in June over what should win best musical and best play. I'm divided between "Dear Evan Hans…
Inequality is a brute fact of American life and Broadway, increasingly divided between blockbuster hits and struggling also-rans, is hardly immune. But the Tony Awards tried to impose some j…
The secret to Tony Award nominee Laurie Metcalf's success? Brilliance and a whole lot of hard work
In turbulent times, history itself becomes a source of suspenseful drama, as anxious citizens look to the past to predict what fresh hell is in store for them. "Hold These Truths," a solo dr…
For many aspiring thespians, the dream is to become a working actor. For Laurie Metcalf, a three-time Emmy-winner for her role as hapless Jackie on the sitcom "Roseanne" and a strong contend…