Let’s get this out of the way right up front: Crescent City is a difficult piece, and it’s not for everyone. It’s not being uncharitable to say it’s not even for most. That said, if you fancy yourself a connoisseur of the avant-garde, then this one’s for you! There is a snootful of ideas percolating [...]

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 [...]

The Sunset Safari, an after-hours visit to the Los Angeles Zoo for SAFARI CLUB families hosted by the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association (GLAZA), took place on April 21. The evening showcased the new LAIR habitat (living amphibians, invertebrates and reptiles) and the beautiful Tom Mankiewicz Conservation Carousel. Also featured were keeper talks where families [...]

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 [...]

A Noise Within has an amazing new theater in Pasadena. Granted, these actors were mesmerizing on the group’s previous stage in Glendale, so a new, state-of-the-art venue can only enhance their work and add to the audience’s enjoyment in what are perhaps less significant ways. That said, when a company designs a theater that seats [...]

Fair warning: You ought to disregard this review. Read it if you like, then forget it because it is likely to have little to do with “The Seagull” you may see at the Deaf West Theatre. That’s because director Andrew Traister has chosen to double cast each of the twelve characters (save one minor role) [...]

“Imagine a boot stamping upon a human face—forever.” Indeed, you won’t have to do too much imagining in the current run of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ by The Actors’ Gang in Culver City; the brutality, rage and paranoia seething within the claustrophobic totalitarian world of Oceania bubbles vigorously on the surface at the Ivy Substation [...]

It is said that history does not repeat itself, but it frequently rhymes. This adage is wonderfully demonstrated as you watch the events in Simon Boccanegra unfold. For composer Giuseppe Verdi, his 1857 opera dramatizing the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines (warring factions in 14th-century Genoa) was undoubtedly also a commentary on the revolutionary [...]

All good things must come to an end, and Gustavo Dudamel’s epic exploration of Mahler’s symphonies with the LA Phil and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela — his hometown orchestra — is no exception.  The Los Angeles part of the Mahler project ends this Sunday, Feb. 5, with a performance of Mahler’s Ninth [...]

“Art,” the 1998 Tony Award winner for Best Drama, gets a smooth polish from nine-time Emmy Award-winning director David Lee in The Pasadena Playhouse’s current re-mount.
Playwright Yasmina Reza’s (who also wrote the 2009 Tony Award-winning “God of Carnage”) fast and witty repartee flows with ease from the mouths of the talented trio on stage — [...]