Guest Contributor

The final 4--Herb, Aarti, Aria, and Tom--prepare to take on an Iron Chef America battle (Photo courtesy The Food Network/Used with permission) For its sixth season, The Next Food Network Star was shot in Los Angeles, and among the 12 finalists vying for their very own Food Network show are 3 locals, including food blogger and LAist alum Aarti Sequeira. Each week, Aarti will give us her take on the episode, from her unique...

Repertory East Playhouse revived a popular favorite last weekend, in a weekend-only production of A.R. Gurney's Love Letters. Love Letters chronicles the relationship from grade-school to late middle age between free-thinking artist socialite Melissa Gardner and her respectable, politically ambitious friend Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. Taking advantage of resources available by virtue of its L.A.-metro location, the production reunited Tony Dow and Janice Kent who played the title husband/wife duo on The New Leave it to Beaver in the 80s. The story is told entirely through the correspondence the two have kept throughout the course of their lifetime.

The world premiere of Moby Pomerance’s The Good Book of Pedantry and Wonder at Boston Court Performing Arts Center is a rare thing—a new play that is already superb which receives a stunning and satisfying staging. You’d be surprised how infrequently those two things occur simultaneously, but it’s happened here in a felicitous co-production by Theatre @ Boston Court and Circle X Theatre Company.

The final 5 in the kitchen for Episode 8 (Photo courtesy The Food Network/Used with permission) For its sixth season, The Next Food Network Star was shot in Los Angeles, and among the 12 finalists vying for their very own Food Network show are 3 locals, including food blogger and LAist alum Aarti Sequeira. Each week, Aarti will give us her take on the episode, from her unique insider's perspective. Will she be named...

Perhaps best known for his hit musical Spring Awakening, Steven Sater is an award-winning poet/lyricist/writer whose work spans stage, screen and the recording studio. A rock ‘n roll remake of an 19th century German coming of-age story about teenage sexuality, Spring Awakening won a litany of awards including a Tony Award for Best Book and Best Score, the Drama Desk and Outer Critics’ Circle Award for Best Lyrics, the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album and the 2010 Olivier Award for Best New Musical.

For its sixth season, The Next Food Network Star was shot in Los Angeles, and among the 12 finalists vying for their very own Food Network show are 3 locals, including food blogger and LAist alum Aarti Sequeira. Each week, Aarti will give us her take on the episode, from her unique insider's perspective. Will she be named The Next Food Network Star? We won't know until the finale. Last week the competitors catered a...

Aarti tames the curry beast in Palm Springs (Photo courtesy The Food Network/used with permission) For its sixth season, The Next Food Network Star was shot in Los Angeles, and among the 12 finalists vying for their very own Food Network show are 3 locals, including food blogger and LAist alum Aarti Sequeira. Each week, Aarti will give us her take on the episode, from her unique insider's perspective. Will she be named The...

Procreation, is a funny and ambitious dark family comedy that entertains but ultimately falls short of its potential. The world-premiere production at the Odyssey Theatre can’t be faulted—it has an ace director in David Schweizer, and the cast is talented and ready for whatever the story might throw at them. Unfortunately, the playwright can’t seem to decide on the balance of humor and drama; the work flirts with seriousness but then retreats into more jokes. A bigger issue is that there are 13 characters and the play is only an hour and 20 minutes long. This is frustrating, because they’re intriguing characters portrayed by good actors, and one wants to know more about them. You don’t hear this about plays very often, but this show might benefit significantly by being longer.

Make no mistake, The Sleeping Beauty is a bona fide ballet: There are tutus, fairies, sparkles, flowers, lots of little girls and even an American Girl Doll you can buy at the T-shirt stand. But, the American Ballet Theater’s (ABT) execution of Sleeping Beauty is an amazing union of the strength, athleticism, grace and precision of the dancers? on stage with the fluff that makes an evening at the ballet both lavish and glorious.

There are two things that the average American audience member might notice about playwright Martin McDonagh’s work. The first is that his characters like to say “feck” a lot--an Irish variation on our much beloved “f-word.” The second is that the people in the plays, from the homicidal brothers of The Lonesome West to the manipulative mother of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, tend to be bastards. All that, however, was just a warm-up for the sanguinary joys of The Lieutenant of Inishmore, a pitch-black comedy that serves up its violence with manic glee. The new production at the Taper is both horrifying and hilarious--not a show for the squeamish--but for the rest of us, it’s a dark delight.