DOMA Theatre Company presents a mixed bag of vocal talents backed by a bang-up band in Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown’s “Songs for a New World,” an hour-and-45-minute theatrical cabaret of his songs strung together without dialogue at the MET Theatre.
Standout of the four-member cast, Andrea Arvanigian has the vocal chops, the smooth dance [...]
A revival of Charles Busch’s 1987 camp classic “Psycho Beach Party” has been mounted at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre with mixed results.
Busch has a reputation for being a little off-center in his entertainment pieces. He had previously taken upon himself to essay “Psycho’s” lead ingénue role of the virginal Chicklet to great acclaim. “Campy” would be [...]
Based on the 1985 cult classic “H.P. Lovecraft’s Re-Animator,” “Re-Animator: the Musical,” currently at the Hayworth Theatre, takes enthusiastic audiences to a new high, or should I say a new low, as in the best of lowbrow. Think Saturday afternoons in front of the old black-and-white television watching cheesy sci-fi flicks in which you can [...]
The Pasadena Playhouse should inherit a healthy box office with their current talented-cast revival of the surprisingly delightful “The Heiress.” Having not experienced past incarnations of writers Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s classic on film or stage, I was more than pleasantly surprised that this period drama, suggested by the Henry James novel “Washington Square,” was [...]
“Pieces,” currently at the Complex Hollywood Flight Theatre, ignites with a strong cast of five, tightly reined by director Brian Zimmer in their compelling interpretation of Chris Phillips’ powerful script.
Phillips’ intense script cleverly misdirects your focus with dialogue duplicitous in its meaning and intent. It seems like anything said about one person or group can [...]
The Geffen Playhouse scores a bingo with the West Coast premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Good People,” nominated for a Tony Award for best play.
The strong cast of six is headed and fueled by Jane Kaczmarek as the unapologetic, take-no-prisoners, steamrolling Margie, a just-fired single mother of a grown-up mentally-challenged daughter living in [...]
The current re-mounting of Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap” at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre ranks as one of the best technically produced productions in Los Angeles; comparable with, and even surpassing, the production values of major theater venues.
Entering the tiny 50-seat black box theater, the stunning, detailed two-story living room set created by Joel Daavid [...]
In the world premiere of Matthew Leavitt’s “The Boomerang Effect,” director Dámaso Rodriguez smoothly weaves the separate tales of five semi-related couples in a fast-moving show that clocks in at just under 90 minutes without intermission at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles.
The simple, basic, yet chameleon bedroom set by John Iacovelli brilliantly morphs (aided [...]
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Love Never Dies,” his sequel to his widely popular “The Phantom of the Opera,” has been successfully transferred to the silver screen for viewing by those not able to fly to Melbourne, Australia, to experience this most entertaining musical.
This 165-minute film begins with interviews with Lloyd Webber and various members of his [...]
The Katselas Theatre Company world premieres in tandem two one-man shows, “The Yellow House” and “Special Delivery,” written and performed respectively by Burke Byrnes and Harry Hart-Browne. The directors of each piece have different issues to overcome: Michael Kearns in focusing and energizing the rambling Byrnes and Mark Bringelson in calming down the multiple personalities [...]
