Los Angeles Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations

Review: ONCE UPON A MATTRESS at Ahmanson Theatre
by Jonas Schwartz-Owen - December 17, 2024

Lear deBessonet’s rollicking production of Once Upon A Mattress brings festive glee to the Southland....

Review: TROUBIES’ HOME ALONE-LY HEARTS CLUB BAND at Colony Theater
by Evan Henerson - December 15, 2024

The mixture this time around is entertaining if not the company’s A-game. HOME ALONE-LY HEARTS CLUB, while providing plenty of laughs, feels thin…thin on merriment, thin on satirical edge and certainly thin on script....

Review: LITTLE WOMEN BALLET at Wilshire Ebell Theatre
by Amanda Callas - December 13, 2024

Little Women Ballet is the world premiere of a charming new ballet at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Mid-Wilshire.  This is a lavish, romantic, nostalgic, family-friendly night of dance that is not to be missed....

Review: LIFE & TIMES OF MICHAEL K at Cape Town's Baxter Theatre And Handspring Puppet Company
by Andrew Child - November 22, 2024

If you have yet to see the work of Handspring Puppet Company, hurry to get tickets for Life & Times of Michael K in its limited run. No one to my knowledge is maneuvering puppets quite like these masters....

Review: THE GIRL WHO MADE THE MILKY WAY at The Colony Theatre
by Amanda Callas - November 20, 2024

Written by acclaimed actress and playwright June Carryl and produced by Imagine Theatre, this light-hearted, fantastical voyage through the savanna is inspired by folktales and origin stories from South Africa.  There is a charming Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland feeling of whimsy and adventure af...

Review: WAITING FOR GODOT at Geffen Playhouse
by Evan Henerson - November 19, 2024

As embodied by Rainn Wilson and Aasif Mandvi in the revival of GODOT at the Geffen Playhouse, Vladimir and Estragon are a formidable pair. Beckett’s play about the unknowable darkness of the human condition has - go figure! - long been catnip for comedians, and you get why Wilson and Mandvi would wa...

Review: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES at Pasadena Playhouse
by Andrew Child - November 18, 2024

Pinkleton has thrown every prop gimmick and novel idea in the book at the show, and in the process has disrupted the stuff that simply works about the piece....

Review: Jason Alexander Leads Outstanding FIDDLER ON THE ROOF at La Mirada Theatre
by Michael Quintos - November 15, 2024

Led by a brilliant performance by Jason Alexander, this lively, emotionally-grounded, classic-leaning staging still somehow manages to feel fresh, reinvigorated, and much more searing than prior iterations.This latest SoCal-area revival of the landmark 1964 musical—here directed by Lonny Price—is, a...

Review: NIGHTINGALE at Atwater Village Theatre
by Harker Jones - November 13, 2024

NIGHTINGALE is by turns stark, humorous, shocking, and devastating, revealing truths and realities obliquely but with the power of blunt force....

Review: BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL at Hollywood Pantages
by Evan Henerson - November 12, 2024

Is there some sort of formula for roping in both fans of a hit movie and stage hounds, to catch lightning in a new medium? Judging by what the musical's book writer Bob Gale, director John Rando and the musical team must have been thinking, the answer is you slavishly remake the movie on stage....

Review: SHPIDER! at THE BRICK HOUSE THEATRE
by Tracey Paleo - November 13, 2024

Before seeing this show, I knew nothing of it besides a quite comedically tantalizing Instagram promo video and a snazzy 60’s referencing sci-fi movie poster.  The script and plot however was as elusive as even the idea of a commonly puerile film executive attempting to write an exploitable and prof...

Review: South Coast Repertory Presents World Premiere Play JOAN
by Michael Quintos - November 11, 2024

Featuring a remarkable, gutsy performance by Tessa Auberjonois as the legendary comedienne, JOAN is an absorbing and hilarious new work that also feels like an on-going work-in-progress. The world premiere production continues performances at South Coast Repertory through November 24, 2024....

Review: THE STREETCAR PROJECT / A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE at Multiple Warehouse Spaces
by Amanda Callas - November 05, 2024

This production feels contemporary and fresh, with an edgy, f-you, punk rock rebelliousness.  Yet it also feels profoundly truthful to the original grittiness of A Streetcar Named Desire, how it was received when it premiered — its New Orleans funk and grime, its rough, perverse sexiness and sweatin...

Review: HADESTOWN at Segerstrom Center For The Arts
by Melissa Heckscher - October 31, 2024

In the end, the show is all about seduction, and it has all the dark, gritty sex appeal of a dingy French Quarter speakeasy. That is to say: It’s got the sultry rhythm and blues to sweep you into the fun even if you don’t know exactly why you’re there....

Review: BLOOD/LOVE at The Crimson
by Harker Jones - October 28, 2024

At a brisk 80 minutes, the rock opera flies by in a flash of opulence and sin with an infectious joie de vivre...

Review: THE PIANO LESSON at A Noise Within
by Evan Henerson - October 27, 2024

Barely six months since braving Wilson's KING HEDLEY II, the company and director Gregg T. Daniel are back an impactful - if leisurely – PIANO LESSON. Where HEDLEY was grim, this one is ghostly, rueful and full of music....

Review: DISNEY'S THE LITTLE MERMAID at Lewis Family Playhouse
by Amanda Callas - October 25, 2024

Vibrant, colorful, and charming, this Inland Valley Repertory Theatre production of the Academy Award winning 1989 animated Disney film is a delight.  Looking around the enthusiastic opening night audience, I see everyone from seniors and date-night couples to toddlers on laps completely enraptured ...

Review: Eric McCormack and Laura Bell Bundy Reunite for OC Cabaret at Segerstrom Arts
by Michael Quintos - October 24, 2024

Eric McCormick and Laura Bell Bundy recently stopped by Segerstrom Center of the Arts to present the OC debut of their cabaret show “A Blonde, A Brunette, and Some Duets: From Primetime to Sondheim,” a fun and cheeky night of silly songs and even sillier stories for a limited three-night engagement ...

Review: ROBBIN, FROM THE HOOD at The Road Theatre On Magnolia
by Harker Jones - October 24, 2024

The Road Theatre’s 2024–2025 season opener, Marlow Wyatt’s ROBBIN, FROM THE HOOD, is a smart and sensitive look at two kids in the projects of an unnamed tropical American city who strive for more....

Review: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at Antaeus Theatre Company
by Harker Jones - October 23, 2024

The Antaeus Theatre Company pulls off another triumph with the enchanting and handsomely mounted Oscar Wilde classic....

Review: Musical Theatre West Presents Spirited AIN'T MISBEHAVIN'
by Michael Quintos - October 23, 2024

Structured as a non-stop song-and-dance revue without any dialogue, the Fats Waller tribute musical relies on its spunky live band and its crazy-good, five-person cast to sing a songbook filled with (mostly) joyful and (some) sorrowful jazz tunes. The show continues through Nov. 3, 2024 at the Carpe...

Review: SHIPPING: A MUSICAL at Elysian Theatre
by Andrew Child - October 20, 2024

It’s hard to succinctly describe Shipping, a new musical by Jen Jackson and Louisa Kellogg with music by Brian Heveron-Smith. On one hand, it’s a scrappy little treat— a cobbled-together weave of local comedy talents that filled the Elysian Theatre with non-stop laughs from beginning to end.

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Review: KIMBERLY AKIMBO at Hollywood Pantages Theatre
by Andrew Child - October 20, 2024

The show is vibrant and candy-colored, featuring an earnest cohort of character actors perfectly placed into their roles, but with a stirring score by Jeanine Tesori and witty book by David Lindsay-Abaire, the piece is an instant classic of contemporary musical theatre. ...

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Review: AMERICAN IDIOT at Mark Taper Forum
by Evan Henerson - October 16, 2024

With a packed Taper house, a stage full of hot young singer/dancers performing, signing and middle fingering their hopes and disillusionments into an iconic rock score; yeah life doesn’t suck too much. Neither does this production, although ironically, here’s wishing that that the experience could h...

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Review: RENT at Jaxx Theatre
by Harker Jones - October 16, 2024

The beloved story of dreamers and lovers in late ’80s New York is marred by poor sound and a band that drowns the players out....

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