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 …
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 …
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 Class…
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 d…
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 a…
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 mor…
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 play…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 Direct…
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…
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…
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…
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. …
GOING, 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 abso…
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 (Broadwa…
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…
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…
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 crumbl…
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…
FECKIN’ 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 humor…
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 …
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…