Profile for Someone in a Tree2

I'll counter the above poster with an absolute RAVE for Civilian! We've stayed there 3 of our last 4 Bway trips. Negatives: There's no lobby at all, just a single bench stolen from one of David Rockwell's sets to sit on. There's no walking space around the queen beds that plug the end of each guest room. And the smaller rooms have zero storage space (--ask for a larger room to get a freestanding closet-rack). BUT...

Positives: those rooms are designed with high

By and large a pretty magnificent night of relived memories at the Ahmanson last night! Huge cast, gloriously staged, with an impeccable 16-piece orchestra, and a proper set design that provided actual built-scenery set changes throughout the evening. Wow, how lucky were we!

The show started off a bit bumpily, with some worthless introductory remarks from Bernadette and Lea (please cut them before the Bway premiere!) and a very by-the-numbers "Comedy Tonight" a

Yeah, the "no drug use at Studio 54" comment elicited guffaws from the audience I saw it with in West Los Angeles last week (where the honorable Bruce Vilanch happened to be in attendance).  

I too was bugged that after 2 hours of footage (some of it glorious), Liza still had nothing to say about her propensity to marry gay guys, or her substance addictions during shows like The Rink (everything was chalked up to prescription meds), or even a simple statement of her spec

Of the nominated films, our favorite is ANORA, with A COMPLETE UNKNOWN a close second. (And this year I was inducted into the Academy so my tiny vote actually counts!)

We also loved the polarizing (and awards-overlooked) QUEER, and the completely brilliant Latvian animated film FLOW. 

If THE BRUTALIST had ended around the intermission, it would have been one of our very top films, but alas, the god-awful second half discounted all the good will engendered by Act 1. I r

Sigh-- It's so painful waiting and waiting for the world to cheer the return of the moribund movie musical artform, and then to find the movers and shakers heralding EMILIA PEREZ, one of the most AMATEUR examples of the genre ever mounted! Lame songs, lousy staging, nonsensical story line (how to suspend belief enough to accept Selena Gomez can't recognize her ex-husband when it counts???)-- I just shook my head in sadness at the sorry pass movie musicals had reached by Nove

Oh Dame, I hope you can be back in your home safe and sound very soon.

We're in Silverlake where except for the air thick with smoke, we've been very very lucky. In fact we've been hosting a good friend from Eagle Rock who had to evacuate on Tuesday when the Eaton Fire first broke out. 

The scariest night for us was Wednesday when we could easily watch the Runyon Canyon Fire from our bedroom windows. But around us the outlook has improved a good deal by

Sorry to say I can only echo the critiques the above posters have written. If the sets, costumes, lights, staging and choreography are ALL deliberately ugly, trashy and amateur, one has to conclude this must be the very deliberate choice of director Sam Pinkleton. In a show about the glamor and gorgeousness of the art of drag, with lyrics like: "What we are is an illusion", where in God's name was the illusion, the Shalimar, the Maribou? Would one gorgeously designed w