MIDDLE8
Monday, November 19th, 2018
If Thornton Wilder were still alive to write a rock opera about five musicians dealing with issues of love, life, death, and what comes after, he might choose to title it Our Band. Stefan Marks calls his play-with-songs Middle8, and for anyone who’s seen the playwright-actor-director-musician-designer’s past work, it should come as no surprise that Middle8 is label-defyingly special.
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REMEMBERING BOYLE HEIGHTS
Saturday, November 17th, 2018Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, its past, its present, and the challenges it faces in the future, make for an eye-opening theatrical experience in Casa 0101’s World Premiere docudrama Remembering Boyle Heights.
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DEATH AND COCKROACHES
Friday, November 16th, 2018
A man-sized cockroach with the body of a gay porn god offers a cock-addicted aspiring TV writer unexpected aid in dealing with his father’s imminent death in Eric Reyes Loo’s raunchy, risk-taking, emotionally rewarding dysfunctional-family dramedy Death And Cockroaches, a Chalk Repertory Theatre World Premiere.
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LEGALLY BLONDE
Thursday, November 15th, 2018
Legally Blonde, already as perfect a musical adaption of a hit movie as any romcom lover could wish for, proves just as perfect a vehicle for a couple dozen UC Irvine student performers with bright professional careers ahead.
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WAITRESS
Thursday, November 15th, 2018
Broadway aficionados with a thing for romantic comedies will be in musical romcom heaven this week and next as the Segerstrom Center For The Arts welcomes Waitress, the winningest Broadway musical romcom since Elle Woods stole hearts in Legally Blonde.
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BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)
Tuesday, November 13th, 2018Clementine, Maddy, and Antonia are women on the verge of a nervous breakdown in North Orange, New Jersey circa 1960 in Jami Brandli’s BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!). That they’re also Clytemnestra, Medea, and Antigone reincarnated is one reason Brandli’s take on mid-20th-century suburbia works considerably less well than it would if she had stuck to satire. The other is the play’s two-and-a-half-hour running time.
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ZORBA
Monday, November 12th, 2018
Musical Theatre Guild’s one-night-only Zorba proved a perfect example of everything a concert staged reading should be, i.e., a superbly performed, imaginatively staged revival of a rarely produced Broadway gem well worth a second look.
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THE COLOR PURPLE
Monday, November 12th, 2018
Sensational performances and an intimate theatrical setting make Greenway Arts Alliance’s The Color Purple an exciting addition to the L.A. holiday scene if not as spectacular a revival as the musical’s 2012 99-seat L.A. debut.
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