REVIEW: MAN OF LA MANCHA BY RYAN LUÉVANO “To dream … the impossible dream,” the lyrics to the hit song of the 1964 musical Man of La Mancha have never meant as much as they do in A Noise Within Theatre Company’s revival of this work. This production eschews the customary opulence of traditional staging […]

REVIEW: ONCE ON THIS ISLAND BY RYAN LUÉVANO The musical Once on this Island may not be a household name like West Side Story or Wicked, however this show, with a book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty, takes audiences to an exotic island in the Caribbean boasting messages of goodwill and […]

REVIEW: HALLELUJAH, BABY! BY RYAN LUÉVANO Making a career in the performing arts has always been a challenge, now imagine trying the same thing as a minority in a time when equality does not exist. That’s the basic premise the 1967 musical Hallelujah, Baby! (music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, […]

TOP THEATRE PICKS STILL PLAYING: 1) THE LAST FIVE YEARS  La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, JANUARY 21 through SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12 Imagine witnessing the last five years of one of your failed relationships played out on stage for all to see—that’s what the Jason Robert Brown musical The Last Five Years accomplishes. The show written in 2001 is […]

REVIEW: THE LAST FIVE YEARS BY RYAN LUÉVANO Imagine witnessing the last five years of one of your failed relationships played out on stage for all to see—that’s what the Jason Robert Brown musical The Last Five Years accomplishes. The show written in 2001 is directly inspired by Brown’s failed marriage to Theresa O’Neill. Audiences […]

REVIEW: ZANNA DON’T BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO Step into the topsy-turvy land of the sugary 2003 off-Broadway musical Zanna Don’t, by Tim Acito and with additional lyrics and material by Alexander Dinelaris, now playing at Chromolume Theatre. In this high school musical spoof homosexuality is the norm and heterosexuality is a taboo. So when a […]

REVIEW: URINETOWN BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO L.A.’s ‘pay what you want’ theatre company, Coeurage Theatre Company, returns with an extended run of the satirical musical Urinetown. The musical’s story that centers on a town suffering from a severe drought certainly rings true to California’s recent drought issues. Of course the premise here is magnified as society […]

REVIEW: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO The show everyone’s talking about right now is Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s 1981 Broadway flop Merrily We Roll Along. Within weeks of this production opening at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, the documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened by […]

REVIEW: LETTERS TO EVE BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO The new musical Letters To Eve by Daniel Sugimoto makes is world premiere at the The Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica. Although the musical is still in its development stage, the stories are powerful and the potential is eminent. This WWII musical follows a Japanese American […]

TIN PAN L.A. EXCLUSIVE BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO Stephen Sondheim’s masterwork Merrily We Roll Along is coming to the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts this November. In this Tin Pan L.A. exclusive get a behind the scenes peak into rehearsals of this new production set for the Bram Goldsmith Theater stage at the Wallis […]