So Cal Arts & Entertainment

Bernadette Peters returns to OC, Archy & Mehitabel in LA
Very few people could entice me to listen to an evening of Broadway show tunes. Not my drug of choice. But Bernadette Peters is one of the chosen few. She could sing selected passages from the Yellow Pages, the Racing Form, or the glossary of a textbook on...
read more
Pre-Nazi sci fi, Lorre, Chaney, burlesk on Blu-ray
F.P. 1 DOESN'T ANSWER (1932) is a German science fiction film made just before the Nazis turned their movie industry into a propaganda machine. Recently released on video, it would be wholly unfamiliar if not for one detail—Peter Lorre appears in a comedic supporting...
read more“Pericles” at UCI’s New Swan, OC-centric at Chapman Greg Ungar in “The Pericles Project” (New Swan). Seldom does the Shakespeare aficionado get the opportunity to see a play he’s never seen before, so it was with great anticipation I returned to the New Swan...
read more
“Chorus Line” in revival, Jolson, Brice & Cohan rarities on CD
On my first visit to New York in 1975, I met with a friend who was working at the Public Theatre. There was a line around the block—if memory serves—for a show that had opened the night before. “A Chorus Line” soon transferred to Broadway and the rest is history. The...
read more
“Tiger Style!” at South Coast Rep, “Intimate Apparel” at Long Beach Playhouse
Orange County actors are releasing a tremendous amount of wild, pent-up energy these days, as I’ve witnessed this past week in Costa Mesa Playhouse’s presentation of the zany farce “The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged)” and Newport Theatre Arts Center’s...
read moreSF’s Silent Film Fest, Les Ballets’ “R&J,” Panndora’s “remarkable things”
Best reason to get outta Dodge (and So Cal) this week I can think of is The San Francisco Silent Film Festival (www.silentfilm.org), returning May 5–11 to the Castro Theatre. And as changes are afoot at the Castro, with the venue being renovated for live events, it...
read more
Chazz Palminteri at Segerstrom, Keb’ Mo’ at Musco Center
It’s not every day a director calls you with an invitation to see a new show. The director was Mark Travis and the show was called “A Bronx Tale,” starring a cast of one, a young actor I’d never heard of named Chazz Palminteri. I was knocked out by it. Here was a guy...
read more
“Next to Normal,” at Anaheim’s Chance Theater, Argentinian noir on Blu-ray
Not too sure about the so-called New Normal, but the new “Next to Normal,” at Anaheim’s intimate Chance Theater through Feb. 27, is a smash. Granted, a show about mental illness will not be everyone’s cuppa, and this Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning musical might hit...
read more
Claudette Colbert drama, Joe E. Brown & Bela Lugosi books recall 1930s
While I’m waiting for live theater to come back to life I’m catching up on vintage films, and books about entertainment personalities of the past. And I have a lot of catching up to do, at the rate Kino Lorber and other companies are putting out Blu-ray releases....
read more
Dael Orlandersmith’s “Yellowman” at Anaheim’s Chance Theater
Remember when actors were the special effects? The OC premiere of Dael Orlandersmith’s Yellowman (at the Chance Theater in Anaheim through Oct. 24) exemplifies what makes live theater so magical, at a pivotal time in this era of pandemic—the art of storytelling, a...
read more
Recent Comments