[Blog] ‘Chess’ at East West Players in Little Tokyo
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[Blog] ‘Chess’ at East West Players in Little Tokyo

I saw my first musical when I was five. It was Chess: A story of Cold War hostility set during an international chess competition — U.S. versus U.S.S.R., of course — and the lovers’ lives who get tangled up and mangled up amid the scheming….The musical, which premiered in 1986 with music by ABBA songwriters Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson and lyrics by Tim Rice, runs at East West Players in Little Tokyo until June 23…. Continue reading

LA Times / THEATER

[LA Times] Throw these puppets a line

Warning to all nostalgic “Sesame Street” fans: The puppets in “Stuffed and Unstrung” are not the Muppets.

They do hail from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and they do exude childlike charm. An orange-haired girl with spongy purple skin accessorizes her tweed suit with pearls. Another, whose bright yellow nose sticks out 5 inches, wears blue hair tied in pigtails. And a rock-star gorilla sports sunglasses, studded bracelets and hoop earrings. Continue reading

LA Times / MUSIC / THEATER

[LA Times] A modern opera run at full throttle

With “Nissan” painted in big, gray letters on its outer wall, a massive, bulky warehouse on Washington Boulevard in Culver City reveals nothing of its new identity as experimental performance. Only upon entering the venue is there any indication of the unusual experience that awaits inside the drab abandoned building — 21 distinct sets spread across 25,000 square feet of space, meant for an audience to traverse scene by scene on a “train” or on foot as the production unfolds…. Continue reading