West Coast Theater

I've seen a number of excellent productions in Los Angeles on trips over the years. The Ahmanson and Pantages house mostly touring productions. There are a number of smaller theatres that do excellent, locally produced work. I usually use this website to glean what's playing and what might be worth my time.

https://www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php

Updated On: 10/16/17 at 04:30 PM

Also the San Francisco Playhouse does great productions in a nice little theater, convenient to downtown Union Square. They'll be doing "A Christmas Story" Also, the Curran will be presenting the limited tour of "Bright Star" with Carmen Cusack until Dec 17.

Updated On: 10/17/17 at 05:11 PM

It might be worth considering driving down to San Diego to either La Jolla Playhouse or the Old Globe Theater. For my money, that's consistently where I've gone to see strong, new original work versus any place in Los Angeles. The Geffen Playhouse is probably the largest theater outside the Pantages and those run by Center Theater Group (Ahmanson, Mark Taper Forum & Kirk Douglas) and I find its productions to be consistently more miss than hit.

I second LaJolla Playhouse, they do excellent work. And starting next month they are presenting SUMMER which is the musical based on the life of disco queen Donna Summer, which I have tickets for. Be aware that getting to San Diego can take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours depending on traffic. I highly recommend taking the Amtrak down which is a really beautiful ride along the pacific stopping in many quaint beach towns. And most importantly, there is a bar on the train:)

I think it depends on what you want to see. There is a lot of theatre in LA but sometimes its just wading through all the smaller houses to find the gems. As anywhere, quality can vary greatly from production to production.

https://www.lastagetix.com/ is a great resource in addition to the theatre in la website mentioned above.



Some reliable venues:

CTG (Ahmanson/Taper/Kirk Douglas) is an awesome company but think the Ahmanson and the Taper are mostly dark in December. Spamilton is playing at the Douglas.

South Coast Rep (3 stages one of which will be taken up by their yearly Christmas Carol)

Wallis Annenberg Ctr for the Performing Arts

Antaeus Theatre Company

A Noise Within

Pasadena Playhouse

Ray of Light is dark which is too bad. Every production I've seen is great; I still think about their CARRIE from a few seasons back and wonder how did this awesome show flop? (Yeah, I know, the revival was heavily revamped from the original.) I can still feel the rush of wind when the gigantic gym wall backdrop crashed to the stage narrowly missing Carrie. That young actress had nerves of steel to so calmly have that fall just behind her.

Bay Area Musicals is a relative newcomer doing fairly good quality productions. They've got 42nd Street in early December. https://Www.bamsf.org

And for something completely different, I can so highly recommend Golden Girls Live, especially if you are a fan of the old TV show. Each December, a drag troupe acts out two TGG scripts verbatim. I've been many times and laugh so hard I wet myself ... or almost. It really is a riot and cheap tickets, too. The Victoria Theater is at Mission and 16th Streets which, if you're familiar with the city, is a bit sketchy, but there are usually lots of people out and about. BART is a block away to get you to/from downtown or you can Uber or cab it. https://www.goldengirlssf.com

Sapsorrow said: "Oh, hey, I was the mother in that production. Happy to hear it's still thought of fondly. (And yeah, that gym wall was TERRIFYING.)"

Glad to have the opportunity to thank you for a GREAT performance. (and that wall drop was a great coup d' theatre)
We saw the final matinee of ROLT's Reefer Madness last week. I was heartbroken that there were no more than 50 in the audience. And the cast was uniformly excellent with more extensive choreography than I've yet seen before from them. I suspect that their usual financial stresses (hello, Wild Party) caused them to have this abbreviated schedule this year with less publicity.

MarkBearSF said: "Sapsorrow said: "Oh, hey, I was the mother in that production. Happy to hear it's still thought of fondly. (And yeah, that gym wall was TERRIFYING.)"

Glad to have the opportunity to thank you for a GREAT performance. (and that wall drop was a great coup d' theatre)."

I appreciate the opportunity as well! I always like seeing and hearing you perform around the Bay Area, with 42SMoon and others. I particularly loved you as the Edie’s in GG, another wonderful production. It was a funky little theater space but it worked very well for GG. I look forward to your future performances!

This is probably the production of Forum you heard about.



https://www.garrymarshalltheatre.org/a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-the-forum/

QueenAlice said: "This is probably the production of Forum you heard about.



https://www.garrymarshalltheatre.org/a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-the-forum/"

Thanks

Does this venue have high production values?



Also interested in seeing Tyne Daly in Chasing Memories at the Geffen Playhouse, however this finishes the day before I arrive, does the Geffen Playhouse ever extend? I mean it's a bit strange to stop performances 2 weeks before Christmas, when the box office gets warmer.

That's:

http://musical.org/

To be honest, while he was alive, I thought the Gary Marshall theater presented pretty terrible stuff. But this year they are under new leadership and they seem to have raised the bar. They have a production of Master Class currently playing which has received rapturous reviews.

I have seen a couple of shows at Musical Theater West, and I thought they were OK. Summer stock level.