Category: Theatre

Fantasy, Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’

Edward Hong

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child finally arrives in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, and for what I watched at opening night yesterday, the jaw-dropping wonder of seeing the incredible special effects and experiencing the fantastic soundtrack by Imogen Heap cover up the over-the-top forced acting from most of the main cast and the rushed blitz pace of the first act.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘Macbeth’

Edward Hong

I do have a sincere (and most likely minority) belief that Shakespeare plays need to be retired as more often than not, it just does not need to be done. It is however an often safe and boring choice for many PWI theatres and a guarantee to hire mostly white actors dishing out their favorite monologues to varying amounts of success.

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Gaming, Theatre

Popular Web Series ‘The Guild’ Becomes a Musical with One-Day Only Performance

Laura Sirikul

In the early days of the internet, online gamers didn’t have the best social reputation. There were plenty of these negative stereotypes of gamers and geeks/nerds back in the day. Geek and gaming culture weren’t seen as popular back then as they are now.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘Fake It Until You Make It’

Edward Hong

The satirical farce genre isn’t commonly utilized for global majority stories but it is always most welcome to see. Such is the case for the world premiere of Larissa FastHorse‘s Fake It Until You Make It at the Center Theatre Group (in association with Arena Stage) which sets its story in the Indigenous non-profit sector in the most wacky manner. While it is occasionally rough and uneven in terms of the comedic writing, the play is overall a romping good time that has some wonderful physical comedy moments to be remembered for.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘Wish You Were Here’

Edward Hong

The West Coast premiere of Sanaz Toossi‘s Wish You Were Here at South Coast Repertory is a resounding play with its stunning writing, its beautiful simplicity & grace from director Mina Morita, and the incredible ensemble cast who have such endearing chemistry with each other.

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News, Theatre

World Premiere of Palestinian American Play ‘The Cave’ at A Red Orchid Theatre

Edward Hong

One of my biggest goals for the 2025 year is highlighting and amplifying more works of art by Palestinian artists around the world.

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Animation, Interview, Theatre

Gerald Faitala Ramsey on Voyaging from ‘The Lion King’ to ‘Moana 2’ and Beyond

Lauren Lola

Actor Gerald Ramsey has had quite a year of milestones. After nearly a decade of playing Mufasa in the North American touring production of The Lion King, he bowed out of the Pride Lands back in September. In November, he made his voice acting debut in Moana 2 as Tautai Vasa; the ancestor of Moana who summons her on her new mission to reunite the people of other islands.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’

Edward Hong

I was about a week old when I learned there was a staged musical version of the 1996 Disney animated classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame (this still ranks as the best Disney animated film opening of all time, with The Lion King being a close tie) so when I learned that a 99-seat theatre company called CASA 0101 was going to mount their own production of it with a largely Latino cast, I knew I had to check it out.

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Reviews, Theatre1 Comment

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’

Edward Hong

I’ve come to realize that the longer I’ve been reviewing theatre, the more exasperated I get in reviewing works written by dead white men when there are so many incredible and undiscovered global majority artists out there.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘The Piano Lesson’

Edward Hong

I applaud A Noise Within‘s passionate commitment to put up all ten of August Wilson‘s The Pittsburgh Cycle plays and as someone deeply invested in global majority representation in Los Angeles theatre, I want to be there in watching all of them even though I am starting to notice the aging cracks in his plays which I’ll get more into later.

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Music, Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘American Idiot’

Edward Hong

The Green Day album American Idiot was one of the most influential rock albums that affected our lives in ways too numerous to count. Considering the album structure, it also wasn’t a surprise that it easily converted into a musical that has been a riveting Tony and GRAMMY award-winning success since 2009.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘Luzmi’

Edward Hong

It’s odd to say when you look forward to a theatre project’s journey but that is exactly the case with the world premiere of Luzmi by Diana Burbano, performing at The Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts in Los Angeles.

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Theatre

World Premiere of June Carryl’s ‘The Girl Who Made the Milky Way’

Edward Hong

Imagine Theatre in partnership with The Colony Theatre presents a world premiere, family-friendly theatrical experience inspired by a Khoisan myth. An original commission by Imagine Theatre, The Girl Who Made the Milky Way is written by acclaimed playwright June Carryl and directed by Imagine artistic director Armina LaManna.

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Reviews, Theatre

‘A Good Guy’ is David Rambo’s Examination of Gun Violence and Morality

Elijah Isaiah Johnson

It was quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat as the room darkened to a pitch black inside the small room with its angled roof, inside Matrix Theater on Melrose.

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Theatre

‘Encuentro 2024: We Are Here – Presente!’ National Latiné Theater Festival at The LATC

Edward Hong

In what may be one of the most exciting and ambitious endeavors I’ve ever seen from the Latino Theater Company, nineteen theater companies (including their own) and 165 artists from across the U.S. and Puerto Rico will be coming to downtown L.A. during a three-week national theater festival of dynamic, contemporary Latiné theater. Latino Theater Company presents Encuentro 2024: We Are Here – Presente!, at The Los Angeles Theatre Center from October 24 through November 10.

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News, Theatre

Brooklyn Premiere of ‘My Name is Rachel Corrie’

Edward Hong

This is a relatively unknown fact but beloved and renowned late actor Alan Rickman was a co-editor and director to My Name Is Rachel Corrie, a powerful play based on the diaries and emails of activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli soldier when she was aged 23.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: “Duel Reality”

Edward Hong

In what may be a first for me reviewing Los Angeles theatre is reviewing a dance performance or in this case with The 7 Fingers (also known as Les 7 doigts de la main), a circus troupe that makes their Center Theatre Group debut with Duel Reality, their acrobatic tour-de-force for all ages inspired by the star-crossed tale of Romeo and Juliet. Fusing circus, theatre, illusion, music, and dance, the show was an utterly delightful and breathtaking work of art that cannot be missed with the “cast” that’s mostly comprised of artists of global majority.

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Music, Theatre1 Comment

‘100 Seconds to Midnight’ Challenges Perceptions of South Asian American Dance

Edward Hong

For one night only on September 28 at The Ford, Blue13 will be having an extraordinary dance performance that blends contemporary and traditional dance forms with everything from hip-hop to Bollywood and ballet, challenging perceptions of South Asian American dance.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’

Edward Hong

It’s not often I encounter a play that clocks in at over three hours and when I do, it better be gosh darn worth it with the play’s writing, acting, and directing at the top of its game. Fortunately, the new Pasadena Playhouse production of Cyrano de Bergerac (by Edmond Rostand and freely adapted by Martin Crimp) directed by Mike Donahue earns its long stay by imbuing you with such crackling energy and wit that burns all the way through, never leaving you bored or restless.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘The Skin of Our Teeth’

Edward Hong

Launching the new 2024-25 “True Grit” season at A Noise Within, co-artistic directors Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott co-direct The Skin of Our Teeth, the 1942 Pulitzer Prize-winning, time-bending comic romp by Thornton Wilder.

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Movies, Theatre

New ‘Wicked’ Trailer Captures More of Elphaba and Glinda’s Magical Friendship

Laura Sirikul

Wicked: Part One is almost here! As one of the year’s most anticipated films, Universal released a new trailer, giving audiences a glimpse into the lives of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) and their magical friendship, which eventually turned into what we know from L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz.

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Reviews, Theatre

A Los Angeles Theatre Review: ‘God Will Do The Rest’

Edward Hong

This may be very inside theatre knowledge but there hasn’t really been an Asian American family play that fully utilizes multiple family members throughout different generations quite like Nicholas Pilapil‘s God Will Do The Rest, now having its world premiere directed by Fran De Leon in a co-joint Artists at Play and Latino Theater Company production.

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Theatre

A Round of Applause for The Writers’ Room at Geffen Playhouse for 2024-25

Edward Hong

Geffen Playhouse today announced its selection of LA-based writers to participate in the 2024/2025 cycle of The Writers’ Room, a forum for engagement and collaboration between Los Angeles playwrights. The participants are Sunny Drake, Keiko Green, Andrew Zepeda Klein, maatin, Samah Meghjee, and James Anthony Tyler. There are some serious global majority representation in this writers’ group so we can’t wait to see their work in the coming years! Read on to learn more about them.

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