A HOUSE NOT QUITE WORTH LOSING Antaeus assembles a superb cast for Shaw’s comedy of a doomed society, but the production lacks the grandeur and dread to make its downfall devastating In 19…
ALL’S WELL THAT BEDS WELL Keiko Green’s provocative comedy finds plenty of laughs in the tangled relationships of college life, but its questions about consent are harder to resolve Mari…
A LANDMARK CASE GETS THE SITCOM TREATMENT A pivotal civil-rights case deserves sharper comedy and deeper drama than Howard Skora’s overstuffed retelling provides On September 17, 1998, a 9…
GUILT IS SOMEONE ELSE’S BUSINESS Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy makes murder a profession, morality a technicality, and laughter increasingly uncomfortable Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen ope…
A TOWN LEARNS WHAT IT’S WORTH Darko Tresnjak’s blistering production watches Güllen purchase its way toward murder When the Burgomaster (mayor) of the Güllen rises in his most solemn c…
ROUGHING IT This new musical still has considerable work to do Carl Jung called the work individuation: integrating the selves we invent with the self that has to live in the world. Wild Chi…
A LITTLE WHISKY, A LOT OF SPACE Daphne Roubini makes restraint the defining virtue of a quietly distinctive jazz album Start with the credits. Voice, two guitars, bass, tenor, trumpet. Nobod…
DONIZETTI’S BURIED TREASURE AND RUBBLE POP finds music worth hearing in a comedy better left buried Pacific Opera Project did not pull Il fortunato inganno (The Fortunate Deception) from a…
A MOST ACCOMMODATING DISASTER Frisch’s comedy leaves no one comfortably outside the joke Gottlieb Biedermann tells his wife and his maid that even if he had three spare beds standing empty…
GREASE STILL HAS ITS GROOVE Altadena Music Theatre returns after devastating loss with Rydell High, right on schedule The year is 1959. Rock and roll is reshaping American culture, the Sexua…
ALL ABOUT EVE… WITH JAZZ HANDS Bruce Kimmel’s affectionate revival proves that a sturdy backstage classic and a committed cast can still earn plenty of applause, even when there are rese…
A PILL THAT’S HARD TO SWALLOW Chance Theater’s committed cast sells the songs in this jukebox musical, but can’t overcome a sprawling script When Alanis Morissette released Jagged Litt…
SEXY, SINCERE… AND SLIGHT Outstanding chemistry can’t quite compensate for an opera that compresses too much Andy Acosta has sung Timothy Laughlin enough that the role has started to fee…
NO STRINGS ATTACHED? THINK AGAIN Erik Patterson’s provocative world premiere boasts superb performances but mistakes repetition for depth In F**king Strangers, receiving its world premiere…
WHAT THE MUSIC BOX REMEMBERS A lavish production overcomes a book that never fully solves its own mystery A music box opens. A grandmother sings a lullaby to a five-year-old girl who will sp…
BALANCHINE IN A BOX ACB proves intimacy can be both an asset and a liability George Balanchine said he needed nothing but a stage, some light, and dancers. He also had the New York City Ball…
PEOPLE WHO NEED PEOPLE (TO MIND THE STORE) Michael Mullen shines in Jonathan Tolins’ affectionate backstage fantasy Jonathan Tolins built his 2013 solo play around one of the stranger fact…
CONLON’S LAST SPELL A beloved production returns as James Conlon brings his remarkable LA Opera tenure to a close James Conlon walked to the podium last Saturday night and the house was on…
LONG-DISTANCE DAMAGE Samuel D. Hunter finds devastating intimacy across thousands of miles Sam Shepard built True West on a kitchen and two brothers who could not stay out of each other’s …
A COUNTERTENOR WHO KNOWS WHERE THE POWER LIVES Key’mon Murrah and Les Talens Lyriques turn familiar Handel into something freshly urgent The program announced the obvious: nine arias from …
EMPIRE STATE OF MIND A rare jukebox musical that finds fresh life by letting the songs tell the story A jukebox musical is an inheritance. Someone else wrote the songs, lived the life, banke…
SLIGHTLY TOO BIG FOR HIS WORLD Eboni Booth’s Pulitzer-winning drama offers comfort, compassion, and just enough unease beneath the surface A bell rings before the lights come up. Out of th…
THE JOINT IS JUMPIN’, IT’S REALLY JUMPIN’ Ebony Rep finds the joy, sorrow, and swing hidden inside Fats Waller’s enduring revue Ain’t Misbehavin’ does not tell the story of Fats …
PULLED OUT OF MYTH AND INTO THE HEADLINES Kenneth Cavander relocates Thebes to a near-future America, and something is lost in the move I first read Antigone in a basement college classroom …
LORCA IN DRAG, WITH HIS CLAWS INTACT Rodrigo García and Ugho Badú reimagine a Spanish classic without dulling its edge Lorca wrote for women’s voices and then watched the world go silent…