Judy Garland's legendary triumphs and tragedies, dish and dirt have been chronicled so often and in so many forms, it would seem no nuance is left to be unearthed. Then there is Tracie Bennett, a performer whose colossal vocal and emotional power in End of the Rainbow pull us eagerly into a... More >>

There's a memorably tender moment, in this production of Graham Reid's 1984 Irish play, when two widowed seniors, Bert (Mik Scriba), a Protestant, and Theresa (Diana Angelina), a Catholic, kiss for the first time. The two always meet in a cemetery, where they regularly tend the graves of their... More >>

The seductive appeal of this musical hagiography by writer-director Randy Johnson is no mystery. Nineteen-sixties rock acts have proved effective boomer bait for fundraising PBS stations for years. That the trend should have morphed into the tribute-concert stage musical merely speaks to... More >>

Build a better mousetrap, it is said, and the world will beat a path to your door. Or at least to Atwater Village, where playwright Jami Brandli's clever, three-character riff on the venerable West End murder mystery The Mousetrap is attempting to give Agatha Christie a run for her money. Call... More >>

Though iconic Hollywood bombshell Marilyn Monroe's story has been examined and re-examined from almost every possible angle over the years, Marilyn: My Secret, Odalys Nanin and Willard Manus' take, treads ground yet unworn as it explores the star's bisexuality and lesbian affairs. Just after... More >>

There are no weak links in Michael Michetti's staging of The Grapes of Wrath. It is a study of characters adrift, American refugees of the Great Depression, starting with the decision of the Joad family to leave Dust Bowl–cursed Oklahoma for California. On the horizon of the dusty plains... More >>

Playwright Sarah Ruhl's melancholy and slightly surreal drama is a whimsical take on the classic Greek myth of Orpheus, the divinely inspired musician who defied nature and descended into Hades to retrieve his slain wife. This exciting modern interpretation shifts the emphasis throughout the... More >>

This ensemble piece from the Latino Theater Lab serves as a disquieting reminder that the fortunate survivors of war quite often become its most heart-rending victims. Directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela, Melancholia tells the story of Mario, an idealistic young man from East Los Angeles who... More >>

Remember last year's Are You There God? It's Me, Karen Carpenter, the musical spoof that used Judy Blume's '70s coming-of-age book set to the Carpenters' music? Writer-director Dane Whitlock has done it again, this time integrating the decade's classic TV series Little House on the Prairie with... More >>

Composer and musical director Gregory Nabours' 90-minute musical is smart, sexy, funny and heartbreaking, with 18 appealing songs (five of them new for this production). Presented as the opening number, the title tune is catchy enough to hook you in immediately. The attractive and searingly... More >>

This vast equestrian spectacle (the stage, the size of a hockey rink, encompasses 15,000 square feet) created by Normand Latourelle and directed by Wayne Fowkes, features 67 horses of 11 breeds as well as 45 international human performers, including riders, trainers, acrobats, aerialists,... More >>

Playwright Doris Baizley consulted with defense attorney Anne Raffanti before writing this revealing one-act about a law-enforcement officer who realizes that the man he wants to entrap is not that different from himself. Estranged from his family, stressed-out FBI agent Richard Roe (Gregory... More >>

Director Roger Mathey and Seat of the Pants Productions return with a solid revival of their 2002 production about four lower-class Edinburgh youths prematurely entombed in a hellish world of sex, heroin addiction and violence. The story is based on the 1993 novel by Irvine Welsh (the source... More >>

Director Marco Gomez's mostly straightforward but pleasingly intimate staging of Tom Eyer and Henry Krieger's now classic Motown rock musical engagingly captures the ferocious ambition, passion and inevitable disappointments of the story of the rise of a girl band -- a tale whose incidents... More >>

Given that so many examples of children's theater are simply appalling -- the equivalent of Muffin the Puppet singing "Sharing Is Caring and Obey your Parents" or some such rubbish -- what a pleasure it is to see a work, aimed at a young audience, that possesses both intellectual heft and... More >>

If you've forgotten the childlike joy and sublime wonderment of seeing magic performed, Albie Selznick's theatrical show is an enchanting reminder. The accomplished actor-magician puts on a bewildering tour de force that has more "how did he do that" flashes than can be counted. The show also... More >>