In Stichic

Another gem from the Onion.

Upper West Side or Westside?

Another one-woman show, this one Off-Broadway, reminded me of L.A. I guess it's because, despite Judy Gold's New York address, "25 Questions for a Jewish Mother" is the kind of New York show that would play well in L.A. It works pretty well here, too.

Keeping Up With Jones

The first Broadway show of the year is a winner.

Moved In, Unmoved

He starred in one of my favorite movies, he learned his craft under the tutelage of Lanford Wilson and Mike Nichols and Woody Allen, and in general he just seems like good folks. So I wish I had liked Jeff Daniels' play Apartment 3A a bit better. Alas not.

Rome If You Want To

My review of a new play about Ovid and Augustus is here.

A New Stage Beat

Well, this didn't take long. Yesterday was his last day at the L.A. Times, and already Don Shirley has a new gig:

Beginning next week, I’ll write a weekly theater column for Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat, the alternative newspaper and web site now in its third year, with a circulation of 100,000 throughout the L.A. area and in some adjacent counties. CityBeat currently has no regular theater coverage, so I’m excited to open a new weekly arena for discussion of Southern California theater. Besides the column, I’ll also contribute brief capsule reviews to the theater listings.

That strikes me as good news, both for Don and for the L.A. theater community.
Meanwhile, McNulty debuts a little drily, if I may say so (here and here). "Throat-clearing" does seem to be the operative word.

P.S.: I can't believe I scooped Kevin on this.

Score One for Tom

I'm no fan of Phantom, which I saw eons ago in L.A. And I'm a dissenter on Lion King. But I've got to second the broad-minded wisdom of Disney's theatrical impresario Tom Schumacher, quoted in this LA Times' piece on Phantom's landmark Cats-scratching performance:

"There's one myopic thing on Broadway, and that's 'if it didn't happen on Broadway, it didn't happen.' It's not just this eight-block radius we're talking about tonight...Right now there is great work being done all over this country, from the West Coast to the East Coast, that could lead to the next record-breaking hit. And it won't be the marketing, or the critics, or the producers, who'll make it that. It'll be the audience."

PS: As I wrote this, this song by my late colleague Joel Hirschhorn came up on my iPod. 2006 looks better already.