WHEN GRIEF MEETS THE ALGORITHM The terrible beauty of grief is that it makes us do irrational things with the most rational tools. In Lauren Gunderson‘s anthropology, now in its North American premiere at Rogue Machine Theatre, a Silicon Valley software engineer named Merril uses artificial intelligence to resurrect her missing sister Angie, only to […] The post Theater Review: ANTHROPOLOGY (Rogue Machine Theatre) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
GHOSTS OF WAR, SHADOWS OF BROTHERHOOD Looking back fifty years, who doesn’t wish they’d acted differently? Decisions made in a moment can have eternal consequences. Ever help your brother commit a murder? Was it self-defense? What would the police think? Is violence ever justified? Tom Jenkins and Alan McRae In Parallel Process, written and directed […] The post Theater Review: PARALLEL PROCESS (Odyssey Theatre) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
READY FOR A SWIFT MOVE? Veronica Electrifies the Pacific Jazz Orchestra Gala The Pacific Jazz Orchestra opens its 2025–26 season with a night that promises both elegance and swing: an intimate dinner and concert on Thursday, October 9 at Bel Air’s Vibrato Grill & Jazz. The evening features an extraordinary lineup—Shelly Berg on piano, Ed […] The post Highly Recommended Concert: VERONICA SWIFT (Pacific Jazz Orchestra at Vibrato) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
A NEWFOUND(LAND) WAY OF LOOKING AT MUSICAL THEATER It’s always a joy — and a rarity — to see a musical I’ve witnessed before reemerge as something fresher than the first time I saw it. Such is the case with the astounding production of the popular musical Come from Away at Paramount Theatre in Aurora. […] The post Theater Review: COME FROM AWAY (Paramount Theatre) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
STANDING UP FOR HUMANITY Here are my criteria for a good night of comedy: 1) It needs to be surprising. 2) It needs to make me think. 3) It needs to promote values that make us better human beings. 4) Oh, it needs to be funny. Chris Grace Both Sardines (a comedy about death) at […] The post Theater Reviews: SARDINES (The Huntington’s Maso Studio) & 300 PAINTINGS (A.R.T.’s Farkas Hall) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
SINK YOUR TEETH INTO THIS BLOODY CUT OF MEAT At some time in the future, a band of rebels have staged a successful coup against the United States. The prevailing system of order has been violently overthrown. Cities are razed to the ground, with surviving citizenry housed in camps. Food is scarce. Medicine is scarcer. […] The post Theater Review: VEAL (A Red Orchid Theatre) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
SIRENS, BELLS AND WHISTLES Conductor Andris Nelsons led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a richly anticipated program of Nocturnes by Claude Debussy and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No 4 in G. The program is part of the BSO’s recognition of the 125th anniversary of Symphony Hall by performing some of the works that premiered around the […] The post Concert Review: MAHLER SYMPHONY NO. 4; DEBUSSY “NOCTURNES” (Boston Symphony Orchestra) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
SMALL IS EPIC In his exceptional how-to book Storyworthy, author and storyteller Matthew Dicks advises us to stop recounting tales that few can relate to — like the time you climbed Mt. Everest — and instead share stories that help others see themselves in similar moments. That’s how a story connects. Robert Montano does exactly […] The post Theater Review: SMALL (The Old Globe in San Diego) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
When creation becomes choreography in Frankenstein, the laboratory turns into a stage of desire Mary Shelley’s creation continues to haunt not only literature but the stage, where movement and music conspire to make visible the tremors of his unnatural birth. The late choreographer Liam Scarlett’s Frankenstein, brought vividly to life by San Francisco Ballet, joins […] The post Dance Review: FRANKENSTEIN (San Francisco Ballet at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa) appeared first on Stage and...| Stage and Cinema
[Contributing writer: Nick McCall] The Radiant Disorder of Tim Venable’s Teenage Inferno Rogue Machine is presenting Tim Venable’s intense and disquieting new play Adolescent Salvation, which arrives not as a tidy debutante but as a brilliant troublemaker. It lurches, it burns, it contradicts itself. It is alive in ways most new plays are not. Venable […]| Stage and Cinema
WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY Late in the first act of Lauren Gunderson’s The Book of Will, a character makes an impassioned plea to her husband, John Heminges, one of William Shakespeare’s original troupe of actors. In the immediate context of the play, she’s trying to convince him to take on the herculean […] The post Chicago Theater Review: THE BOOK OF WILL (Promethean Theatre Ensemble) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
NOBODY PUTS THIS BABY IN A CORNER A set doesn’t get any sparser than the one for Gangsta Baby, in the sense that there isn’t one. You step in off the street into a basement with two dozen chairs arranged along the walls. In a corner is a small built-in kitchenette, original to the building. […] The post Theater Review: GANGSTA BABY (Open Space Arts) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
WEST SIDE SNORING Astoundingly unsatisfying, LA Opera’s many-headed Hydra production of West Side Story, directed with no sense of urgency by Francesca Zambello, opened tonight to a crowd largely made up of donors and subscribers dressed to the nines. Oddly cast, oddly acted, and oddly staged, my head was reeling at the amount of money […] The post Theater Review: WEST SIDE STORY (Los Angeles Opera) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
STAR STRUCK Awe-inspiring lighting design (Eduardo M. Ramirez) and beautiful sound effects and music (Kai Bohlman with Violet Wang) elevate Lauren Gunderson’s fictionalized biography of astronomer Henrietta Leavitt (1868–1921) to a meditation on the meaning of human life in relation to the cosmos. This Brit d’Arbeloff Women in Science Production, directed by Sarah Shin, also […] The post Theater Review: SILENT SKY (Central Square Theatre) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
DIGITAL DREAMS, SUPERCHARGED What happens when you combine a century-old boiler room, an army of graphics processing units (GPUs), and some of the most imaginative digital artists? You get SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render, a new exhibition by Artechouse. Now in its second edition, SUBMERGE is an immersive art show, part gallery and part creative experiment. […] The post Art | Theater Review: SUBMERGE: BEYOND THE RENDER (ARTECHOUSE NYC at Chelsea Market) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
Years ago, all a magician needed was a top hat and a live rabbit. Magic has come a long way. Jamie Allan’s Amaze uses props, videos, projections and cell phones to do exactly what the title of his show predicts. But Allan does much more than simply overwhelm the audience with slights of hand and […] The post Off-Broadway Review: AMAZE (Jamie Allan at New World Stages) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
A FAR CRY FROM MISERABLE (UNLESS YOU’RE ONE OF THE CHARACTERS) There’s a lot to gripe about in the world in 2025, but you know what? Spend a little time in 1815 France and you’re going to feel a lot better about your week. Victor Hugo’s novel takes us in deep and the musical version […] The post Theater Review: LES MISÉRABLES (National Tour in San Diego) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
ONE MAN, TWO HOURS TOO LONG Ask yourself how much you liked The Play That Goes Wrong series. That’s a pretty good indicator as to your enjoyment of Richard Bean’s 2011 play, One Man, Two Guvnors, now running at A Noise Within. If you liked it, stop reading and go. You’ll have a great time. […] The post Theater Review: ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (A Noise Within) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
THE WIVES HAVE NEVER BEEN MERRIER The point of The Merry Wives of Windsor was to give Jack Falstaff a bit more time on the stage, beyond the bounds of Shakespeare’s history plays, where his comic genius is hemmed in by the serious matter of battles for land and succession. The character is a big […] The post Theater Review: MERRY WIVES (Shakespeare Theatre Company) appeared first on Stage and Cinema.| Stage and Cinema
AN AUTHENTIC, FUNNY ACCOUNT OF SOBRIETY, STUMBLES, AND SURVIVAL Recovery from substance abuse isn’t just about putting down the drug of choice and living happily ever after. The “recovery” part then starts. It involves dealing with who you are in the world without being drunk, stoned or high. It becomes a lifelong process of self-examination. […]| Stage and Cinema
WHO NEEDS A HEALTHY CORTEX WHEN YOU’VE GOT THIRTY-TWO SHOWSTOPPERS? The urge to create has served as a muse for countless forms of art: literature, opera, film, and theatre are littered with examples of the form. Opening the new season of Pride Arts at Center on Halsted A New Brain, a musical by multiple Tony winners, […]| Stage and Cinema
MOTHERFUCKER! WHAT A COLOSSAL MISSED OPPORTUNITY With heightened and relentless dialog, Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Motherfucker with the Hat follows Jackie, a recently paroled ex-con and recovering addict whose fragile new life teeters when he finds an unfamiliar hat in his girlfriend Veronica’s apartment. The discovery ignites suspicions of betrayal that ripple through his relationships—with […]| Stage and Cinema
Let there be no mistaking it, Mark Vigeant is so funny that if he was performing on an amphitheater set up in front of Mount Rushmore, after the first five minutes milk would be shooting out of Lincoln’s nose, Washington would be laughing so hard his cumbersome dentures would go flying out of his mouth, […]| Stage and Cinema
A VOICE THAT SPANNED CONTINENTS AND CENTURIES The trouble with singers who insist on being versatile is that they make everyone else look lazy. Dame Cleo Laine, who died on July 24th at her home in Wavendon, England, aged 97, was particularly guilty of this sort of thing. Her nearly four-octave voice wandered from gravelly […]| Stage and Cinema
LIFE ON REWIND In a co-production with HorseChart Theatre, Rogue Machine Theatre continues its astounding season with John Kolvenbach‘s gem of a play, Reel to Reel, a heart-warming, but definitely not sappy, time-jumping story of a 55-year marriage between the determined Maggie Spoon (Alley Mills Bean), a sound and performance artist, and her more reticent […]| Stage and Cinema
DÉJÀ LOUCHE Just to Be Close to You opens with an immaculately coiffed and mustachioed Cam Poter stepping before the packed audience at the Broadwater Studio as his alter ego, the renowned lounge singer, Carl Poteraychke, and immediately announcing, “For my last song – ” And we are off to the races. Poter is a […]| Stage and Cinema
A DUPLEX THAT’S GOING TO THE DOGS Those who flocked to the “Sunshine State” during the population boom of the 1920s and ’30s, were mostly “easterners” who had only known tenement living, cut off from the world outside on the upper floors of some aging brownstone and reduced to the numbers of their apartment door. […]| Stage and Cinema
Have you ever wondered how some businesses manage to leave such a lasting impression on people just by sharing a short video? You might be thinking, can a simple video make such a strong impact? Well, the answer is yes. Today, more and more businesses are turning to videos not just to explain what they […]| Stage and Cinema
A candid 2025 review of Golden Pokies Casino for Australian players. Slots, table games, payments, support, plus if the Golden Pokies Casino login is worth your time.| Stage and Cinema
A NEW MUSICAL HAS ARRIVED TO PUMP UP PATRONS FOR DECADES TO COME Allen Moyle’s 1990 film Pump Up the Volume starred Christian Slater as Mark, a graceless, socially awkward high school student in Phoenix, Arizona, a town so conservative that even the Saguaro cactus wore Bush/Quayle campaign buttons. Unable to fit in, Mark resorts […]| Stage and Cinema
From the monthly archives:| Stage and Cinema
CAST TRAVELS LIGHT-YEARS, SCORE FINDS A NEW UNIVERSE, THE BOOK GETS LOST IN SPACE. CAN THE WRINKLES IN THIS NEW MUSICAL BE IRONED OUT? Round about a lifetime ago, in the shadow of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War, Madeleine L’Engle wrote a fable for precocious children that she was pretty sure no one […]| Stage and Cinema
THE DEVIL’S IN THE FINGERS: TRIFONOV TAKES FLIGHT AT A THUNDEROUS TANGLEWOOD OPENING Conductor Andris Nelson led the Boston Symphony Orchestra at last night’s opening of its 2025 Tanglewood concerts season with an all-Rachmaninoff program. The piano soloist was Daniil Trifonov (dan-EEL TREE-fon-ov), who Stage and Cinema hailed as the “Big Thing of the piano world” […]| Stage and Cinema
Stage and Cinema Reviews Theater, Dance, Music, Opera, Art and more across the country.| Stage and Cinema
A SUSPENSEFUL ONE-MAN MURDER MYSTERY The Gay community in San Francisco was shocked and terrified by a series of murders between 1974-75 committed by a serial killer known as “The Doodler.” Believed to have killed between six and sixteen men, most of whom were gay, he was known for meeting his victims in bars, and […]| Stage and Cinema