Nudity in "Linda Vista" at the Mark Taper Forum is so abundant, actors can hear the audience gasp when it begins. Lead actresses Cora Chantal Thuy and Cora Vander Broek, director Dexter Bull…
As Pasadena Playhouse revives "Ragtime," the theater's leader wonders whether he'll receive letters from viewers who believe the piece has been altered. The 1996 show is based on E.L. Doctor…
With a gorgeous staging and glorious singing, the musical based on the E.L. Doctorow novel captures the momentous turn of the 20th century " the song of a nation stepping toward its future.
"Ragtime: The Musical," based on E.L. Doctorow's sweeping historical novel, swings for the narrative fences. The saga of three sets of characters at the turn of what would come to be known a…
Anna Moench's "Man of God," having its world premiere, centers on young Korean Americans on a religious mission to Bangkok, their pastor and a discovery that upends their world.
Every good comedy has a human engine, and in Anna Moench's funny, creepy and unflinchingly observed "Man of God," that engine is Mimi, played with powder-keg force by Sandy Nguyen. Mimi is o…
Capsule reviews are by Philip Brandes (P.B.), F. Kathleen Foley (F.K.F.) and Daryl H. Miller (D.H.M.). Openings Antony & Cleopatra Harry Hamlin and Joely Fisher star in a staged reading of S…
William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past" " which rings particularly true in the theater, where plays remind us of lost joy, exorcise pesky ghosts, heal wounds, so…
Mark Murphy will step down as executive director of REDCAT at the end of the season, the organization said Tuesday, leaving a key vacancy at one of downtown L.A.'s primary homes for boundary…
As part of its politically incisive season, Tim Robbins' company takes on the Nobel Prize winner's wild play about corrupt authority, "Accidental Death oh an Anarchist."
Opportunities to see high-caliber productions of the work of Dario Fo " the Italian clown, political radical and Nobel laureate who died in 2016 " don't come around all that often. My one go…
If you love pop-driven R&B, singer-songwriter John Legend will headline opening night of the Hollywood Bowl's 2019 season. Fan of Hugh Jackman's boisterous brand of musical theater? The Tony…
Capsule reviews are by Philip Brandes (P.B.) and Daryl H. Miller (D.H.M.). Openings All About Valentina The L.A. native, drag artist and "RuPaul's Drag Race" regular sings, lip-syncs, dances…
The national tour of director Jerry Zaks' exuberantly received revival of "Hello, Dolly!" has finally reached the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. And though it brings us neither Bette Midler, wh…
The celebrated company turns "Negro Folklore From Texas State Prisons" into a stereophonic seance linking generations of African American experience.
The Wooster Group has developed such a signature multimedia aesthetic over the decades that it's refreshing to see this veteran avant-garde troupe willing to take a break from its playfully …
A radically revisionist "Antigone" made in the Black Lives Matter era seems the ideal vehicle to launch us into Black History Month and lead our weekly look at L.A.'s theater scene. Other pi…
John Malkovich will grace the London stage this summer to play an unpleasant yet prominent Hollywood movie tycoon accused of sexual misconduct. On Tuesday, producers announced that the Oscar…
Two South Africans, desperate to escape the impoverished futility of their lives, break into the home of an aging academic who walks in on them as they're ransacking the place for money. A p…
As I was leaving the theater the other night, an older gentleman with a lapel-grabbing voice and a friendly jack-in-the-box manner stopped me dead in my tracks. "What was the point of that?…
Consider this a friendly public service announcement from a concerned theater critic: Please, unless there's a truly compelling reason, let's agree to a moratorium on revivals of "Hamlet," "…
It might be heresy for a theater critic to admit, but Hollywood has done a better job of skewering the theater than the theater has done skewering Hollywood. Give me "All About Eve" over "On…
An emphasis on storytelling rather than star performances or staging pyrotechnics drives a crisp production of the macabre musical "Sweeney Todd" at South Coast Repertory.
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 Charo and John Davidson The guit…
Director Stephen Daldry made his name with the National Theatre whodunit "An Inspector Calls." Now the London revival comes to Beverly Hills, seeping with commentary about class divisions.