A Chorus Line | Photo by Paul Kolnik First brought to the boards of Broadway in 1975, Michael Bennett's stark, blunt, and brilliant musical about being in musicals became one of the longest-running musicals of all-time. Now in revival after over a decade's absence on the Great White Way, the national touring company of A Chorus Line has landed in LA's Ahmanson Theatre for a limited engagement. Considering that Line is wholly emblematic of......

The company of "Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" | Photo by DavidAllenStudio.com Written by Stephen Sondheim, the original "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is a classic. The most recent Tim Burton screen adaptation of Edward Sissorhands the musical was "meh." And last night's Los Angeles premiere under John Doyle's direction was, simply put, purely amazing. It begins as the lights go down in the house and up on......

It's CalArts lore -- and most likely true -- that Tim Burton, an alumnus of the art institute in Valencia (now a neighborhood in the later incorporated City of Santa Clarita), based the setting of Edward Scissorhands on the dichotomy between the blessed cookie-cutter Mormon Los Angeles bedroom suburb and the psychedelic Playboy-rated party art school on the hill. Even today, while Santa Clarita has become more diverse and the school has become less......

I call it Performance Row. That stretch downtown along Grand Avenue between Temple St. and the California Plaza. You can easily walk between 9 performance spaces in 5 minutes. Starting at the Music Center Plaza at Temple and heading South, you first are at the Ahmanson, Center Theatre Group's (CTG) proscenium stage that is used for dance, musicals and other traditional performances. Next is the Mark Taper Forum, a theatre used for newer theatrical......