102 stories by "Michael M. Landman-Karny"
Synthwave Romance: The Wedding Singer Grooves on Camp, Chemistry, and Crimped Hair If you still belt out "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" in your car or secretly miss the days when big hair …
St. Clair's Swan Song: Pacific Symphony's Volcanic Verdi's Requiem Last night, the walls of the Segerstrom Concert Hall didn't merely vibrate. They braced. Verdi's Requiem opened not with re…
STERILE STAGING, FEROCIOUS VOICES: LA OPERA'S RIGOLETTO BLEEDS DESPITE ITSELF Let's be clear from the jump: this isn't your Nonna's Rigoletto. No 16th-century Italian costumes, no jester's h…
ECHO: A CUBE WITH BIG DREAMS IN A SHOW STILL FINDING ITS SHAPE It opens with a cube. Glowing, two stories tall, and unmistakably the star of the show, this bold architectural gesture doesn't…
Fractured Reflection: The Chinese Lady and the Cost of Being Seen She doesn't enter. She appears"still as a painting, but alive, watching. In Lloyd Suh's The Chinese Lady, now haunting the C…
Wilde at Heart: The Quiet Theatrics of A Man of No Importance Some musicals don't announce themselves. They drift in quietly, settle beside you, and before you know it, you're sitting there,…
MEMORY LOOPS AND ECHOES IN GARDNER'S THE STAIRCASE Rain doesn't fall in The Staircase. It lingers, heavy and waiting. Like a secret no one asked to hear. Like a mother halfway between a lull…
THE TRUTH IS RARELY PURE, AND NEVER SAFE, IN TASTY LITTLE RABBIT There is a tender brutality in the way Robert Mammana shatters a glass plate negative under his heel in Moving Arts' ac…
REASONABLE DOUBT? NOT ABOUT LEGALLY BLONDE'S PINK POWER Let's get one thing straight. Legally Blonde: The Musical is not highbrow theater. It is not Sweeney Todd with meat pies and too-close…
When There's A Second Knock On The Door: Love and Lockup in Furlough's Paradise In Furlough's Paradise, a. k. payne has crafted something that moves like a whisper but hits like a reckoning.…
END-OF-WORLD TRAGICOMEDY CRACKS, BLEEDS AND THRIVES The end arrives not with a sob, but with a drag queen in a glittering black pantsuit, standing in a celestial spotlight, grinning like the…
IN CORKTOWN '39, THE LIVING ARE JUST GHOSTS WITH BETTER TIMING Mark Mendelson's tightly composed set at The Matrix Theatre is a room cloaked in aging wealth at the Keating family's Philadelp…
A RIOTOUS CARRIAGE RIDE THROUGH TIME Somewhere between empire waistlines and leather harnesses, Regency Girls carves out a raucous, messy, and strangely moving place for itself onstage at Th…
EXIR, PURSUED BY MOVEMENT THAT CUTS DEEP Jealousy doesn't sneak in. It bursts. You can see it take hold of Leontes the second doubt flickers behind his eyes. His body folds in. Hands clutch …
THE FAIRY TALES BREAK" AND THAT'S THE POINT The stories are still here. Cinderella. Jack. Little Red. Rapunzel. A Baker and his Wife, tangled in a curse and each other. Into the Woods has al…
SWINGS BIG, SHINES BRIGHT All Roads Theatre Company just set the bar sky-high with One for My Baby, a slick, jazz-soaked tribute to the music of Harold Arlen. This is old-school showbiz at i…
THE JAZZ AGE MEETS OPERA IN LA OPERA'S SEXY COSI Mozart's Così fan tutte started with royal scandal. In 1789, Emperor Joseph II commissioned the opera after a partner-swapping scandal sho…
A WHISPER THAT ECHOES There are plays that knock you over with intensity. And there are those that seep in, settle under your skin, and stay there long after the lights come up. Adam Szymkow…
YOU GO, GIRLS! San Diego's theater scene is about to get a jolt of excitement as The Old Globe prepares the pre-Broadway world premiere of Regency Girls, a bold and hilarious new musical com…
A SHAKESPEAREAN WESTERN MUSICAL? DON'T WORRY, IT MEASURES UP The wild west sizzles with song and chaos in Desperate Measures, the rootin'-tootin' Wild West musical shinin' bright at Internat…
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE THE SUN DOESN'T COME OUT, SEE THIS NATIONAL TOUR OF ANNIE If the sun will come out tomorrow, somebody better tell this production. The national non-equity tour of A…
ALEXANDER ROBERTSON. HIS NAME IS ALEXANDER ROBERTSON. At the tender age of 26, Alexander Robertson has made a mark on Broadway as a co-producer with his current show roster including Cabaret…
BACON SIZZLES If you're in search of a play that simmers with tension before scorching the stage with raw, emotional fire, English playwright Sophie Swithinbank's Bacon, currently searing au…
THE END OF THE WORLD COMES WITH A COFFEEE BREAK There's something eerily familiar about the way Michael Redfield and Hugo Armstrong zip and unzip their parkas in Will Arbery's haunting new p…
A MUSICAL PAIRING WRITTEN IN THE STARS Jason Robert Brown, the revered composer-lyricist who is considered by many as the natural successor to the late great Stephen Sondheim, graced Samueli…
