You could call it Cirque du Soleil: The Theater Geek Edition. Known as a theatrical circus for its no-animals, acrobatics-forward, story-framing format, the French-Canadian company has been …
Manga, anime and other sensations of 1990s pop culture made cosplay a fashionable pastime, but before that happened there was Tsuruya Kokei. An artist working at Tokyo's renowned Kabukiza Th…
Arthur Miller's play gets a timely revival by the Roundabout Theatre Company, director Jack O'Brien and costar Benjamin Walker, whose anguish and sorrow help to propel a domestic drama into …
The carpentry of an Arthur Miller play, all that sawing, hammering and sanding of wood, can sometimes distract from the impressiveness of the house that has been theatrically constructed. "A…
When Phylicia Rashad returns to Broadway, she will do so as a director. The Tony-winning actress is set to direct the Broadway premiere of "Blue," producers announced Monday. The new staging…
The Broad Stage in Santa Monica will announce on Monday that it has hired a new artistic and executive director, Rob Bailis, who comes from Cal Performances at UC Berkeley. Bailis, who succe…
What begins as a comic road trip of ancestral rediscovery takes a hairpin turn into tragic history as "Everything Is Illuminated" makes its Southern Californian stage debut courtesy of Santa…
No contemporary play better captures America's cultural divides than Eleanor Burgess' "The Niceties," in which a standout black student and a distinguished white professor clash over race an…
College campuses have become the crucible of the new and expanded culture wars embroiling America, and no contemporary play does a better job of capturing the tenor of this fierce battle tha…
In the first scene of the play "Steel Magnolias," Robert Harling's 1987 love letter to small-town Southern women, two Louisiana friends share favorites from their recipe boxes. Cuppa Cuppa C…
Squeaks of anticipation greet the opening strains of familiar songs at a local revival of the stage musical "Singin' in the Rain," adapted from the 1952 MGM movie that keeps Gene Kelly, Debb…
How would have Yuval Sharon's bewildering new production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" gone over in Los Angeles? That was the first thing that crossed my mind as I walked out of the opera ho…
Questions of gender and identity drive headlines daily, so it's only natural to find the topic taking center stage in our theaters. With emotional tones ranging from light to dark, this week…
The first half of the musical "Falsettos" is set in 1979, the second in 1981 " years when Marvin, who leaves his wife and son for a man, was on the wrong side of sodomy laws in a number of s…
"Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event" was a celebration of Merce Cunningham on what would have been the 100th birthday of one the most pioneering and influential choreographers in contemp…
Merce Cunningham died 10 years ago at 90. He was easily the greatest choreographer of the second half of the 20th century and a teeny bit into the 21st. He left behind an enormous body of wo…
Before Adam Driver opened "Burn This" on Broadway on Tuesday night, he had earned his first Oscar nomination for Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman." He also had devotees from his Emmy-nominated ro…
"We need someone young to fix this," Oskar Eustis decides. My new, top-of-the-line recording device, purchased for this interview, is not working, and I don't know why. I make a joke about a…
Nia Vardalos reprises her role in Pasadena Playhouse's profoundly moving adaptation of Cheryl Strayed's "Dear Sugar" columns.
Character, the way we conduct ourselves in the world, is in decline in America. Consider the evidence: A president who lies so prolifically that media outlets have assigned teams of reporter…
Ellen Reid, the Los Angeles composer whose debut opera centered on a young woman's agonizing struggle with the psychological effects of sexual assault, has won the Pulitzer Prize for music. …
Extra Ancestral A celebration of the African diaspora in L.A. features performers including Viver Brasil Dance Company. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A. Sun., 7 p.m. $…
Capsule reviews are by Charles McNulty (C.M.), Philip Brandes (P.B.), F. Kathleen Foley (F.K.F.), Margaret Gray (M.G.) and Daryl H. Miller (D.H.M.). Openings Tiny Beautiful Things Nia Vardal…
The locale of "Southernmost," presented by Playwrights' Arena in Atwater Village, is as compelling as any character in Mary Lyon Kamitaki's entertaining but limited new play. Naalehu on the …
Journeys into the past is the common theme on the 99-Seat Beat, our weekly look at Southern California's small-theater scene. Reminiscences " comical and poignant " drive "The Lost Virginity…