ABE AMONG THE GRAVES Death of Classical takes “Lincoln in the Bardo” where it was practically begging to go: the cemetery Talk about knowing your venue. Before the Metropolitan Opera unv…
YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION Ted Sperling and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra find new life in the music of a year that changed everything The summer of 1969 gave us Woodstock, the Harlem Cult…
IF THIS TREE COULD TALK Anne Gee Byrd listens for a voice from the past in Mike Kenny’s lyrical world premiere Trees talk to each other. Really. Scientists have discovered that beneath our…
Anyone who has tried to teach music at a distance runs into the same wall within about a week: the thing being taught cannot be written down, and it cannot be paraphrased either. A producer …
IVANOV GETS THE SHORT END Chekhov’s despair survives the cuts, but the production struggles to connect the pieces It is difficult to make depression theatrically vivid when its essential s…
THE FAMILY THAT PLAYS TOGETHER, SWAYS TOGETHER Generations of the Reyes family keep the Gipsy Kings’ irresistible rhythms moving forward Under a cool, clear moonlit sky at Wolf Trap last n…
THE BOSS STILL SUPREMES At 82, Diana Ross still knows how to turn a concert into an occasion From the moment Washington, D.C.’s DJ Heat began warming up the crowd, Diana Ross’s return to…
YOUNG VOICES, BRIGHT LIGHTS Two dozen aspiring performers take the stage with enthusiasm, confidence and plenty of personality It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to make an educated guess tha…
THE RHINOCEROSES ARE AMONG US; HERE COMES THE CRASH A.R.T.’s chillingly funny absurdist classic asks what happens when everyone else joins the herd Since its 1959 debut, Eugène Ionesco’…
BATISTE INFECTION Jon Batiste and the NSO make musical boundaries disappear From the very start of Jon Batiste’s performance with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap last night, I…
THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW, WHETHER YOU NEED ONE OR NOT Bill Irwin makes a house call on Molière There are hypochondriacs, and then there is Argan, the gloriously self-absorbed “professi…
GO WEST, MUSE/IQUE From the open range to Hollywood, MUSE/IQUE explores the music that made the West a legend Just what made the cowboy one of America’s most enduring exports? The hat? The…
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS Five headlines become five new plays, with one terrific entry leading the edition Jackalope Theatre Company’s 17th Annual Living Newspaper Festival, currently being per…
Now in its nineteenth year, Cinema Diverse returns to Palm Springs with another terrific lineup of queer cinema, offering an impressive selection of features and shorts from established and …
TEN KILOS, FIVE YEARS A trip to Bolivia lands a 20-year-old inside a prison ruled by violence, corruption, and cartels At 20, Sharon Yitzhaki traveled to Bolivia and wound up accused of tryi…
Without a doubt, comic conventions (or comic con) are the biggest events pop culture aficionados can and should join. Comic cons are packed with different activities and events that will sur…
TARTUFFE GETS A REMIX Mark Rylance meets Molière in a Nigerian-Jamaican reimagining of the classic comedy Molière is getting quite the makeover in London this fall. Oscar and Olivier Award…
HANG ON TO YOUR SEATS Gallows humor meets murder and mystery in Martin McDonagh’s wicked comedy I saw this play on Broadway and it rocked my world! Fun, intrigue, mystery and some jolts th…
A FINALE WITH A BRIGHT FUTURE Merola’s newest generation of opera artists brings plenty of promise to the War Memorial Opera House The Merola Opera Program’s 2026 Summer Festival came to…
KNOCK, KNOCK. WHO’S THERE? TOC TOC. Six strangers, one missing psychiatrist, and a waiting room full of compulsions Six patients walk into a psychiatrist’s waiting room. No, that’s not…
A THRILLER THAT TAKES A WHILE TO FLUSH OUT A perfectly matched cast and Andrew Block’s resourceful staging eventually ignite Tom Kelly’s pitch-black thriller, but the promised comedy rar…
EVERY BREATH WAS BREATHTAKING Cécile McLorin Salvant, Sullivan Fortner and The Knights turn a night of ballads into the greatest concert I have ever seen I thought I knew Cécile McLorin Sa…
RIGHT, LEFT AND NO WAY OUT Faith, politics and generational divides collide in a provocative portrait of an America at war with itself Will Arbery’s haunting Pulitzer Prize finalist Heroes…
MAMMA MIA! WHAT A NIGHT A terrific cast and irresistible ABBA score turn Sonoma’s Field of Dreams into a joyous summer dance party Several Broadway stars have escaped New York’s scorchin…
AGING GRACELESSLY A superb cast can’t keep David Lindsay-Abaire’s dark comedy from showing its age in a production that never finds its pulse There’s a very good reason Kimberly Akimbo…