Monday, September 10, 2012

Jeff Goldblum goes to the head of the class

By Naomi Pfefferman

Early in Theresa Rebeck’s comic play, “Seminar,” four aspiring writers cower in an Upper West Side New York apartment as Leonard (Jeff. . .

Monday, September 10, 2012

Benjamin Wallfisch has music in his genes

By Rick Schultz

Film composers who venture into the hallowed domain of the concert hall are sometimes greeted with raised eyebrows. Maybe that’s why film-music. . .

Monday, September 10, 2012

Fall Films: Identity crises, controversy, conflict, creativity and chicanery

by Iris Mann, Contributing Writer

A careful search has uncovered a small treasure trove of unusual and provocative films slated for release this fall.

Monday, September 10, 2012

From Salman Rushdie to Susan Straight, a fall harvest

By Jonathan Kirsch

Fall is high season for the publishing industry. Jewish Book Month, which arrives in November, may have a little something to do with it, and so does. . .

Monday, September 10, 2012

Theatre Dybbuk: Company invokes folklore, myth to stretch boundaries of Jewish theater

by Jonathan Maseng, Contributing Writer

When Aaron Henne decided to form a new Jewish theater company, he knew he needed to push boundaries and make bold statements to challenge the. . .

Monday, September 10, 2012

Fall Preview 2012: Calendar

By Ryan Torok

The Broadway debut of “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone satirizes organized religion in lewd, crude — and musical — fashion.. . .

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Laughter: It’s the best medicine in Rogen’s ‘50/50’

By Naomi Pfefferman

In a back booth at Canter’s, Seth Rogen is digging into his matzah ball soup with gusto as his close friend, screenwriter Will Reiser, sips a glass. . .

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Elfman circles back to the circus

by Jonathan Maseng, Contributing Writer

Danny Elfman is a huge success, but he doesn't want you to know it. Humility is a hard thing to hang your hat on when you've accumulated four. . .

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

A woman’s world?

By Danielle Berrin

It’s hard to tell, what with the requisite girdles, supervised weigh-ins and protocol panty hose (“not too dark; this isn’t a cabaret”), that. . .

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

How L.A. grew its own art

By Tom Teicholz

For those of us who are not native to Los Angeles yet live here (some for more of our lives than anywhere else), there is a compulsion to define Los. . .

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The romanticism of Matt Nathanson

By Ryan Torok

Pop-folkie Matt Nathanson had just returned from hanging in Hawaii, but it was a vacation he only enjoyed “50 percent,” he said.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Fall Preview Calendar 2010: September-November

By Ryan Torok

“Fight Club” director David Fincher charts the rise of Facebook, casting Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard undergraduate wunderkind. . .

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Sex, lies and social networking: A season of new films

by Iris Mann, contributing writer

Jewish “bad boys,” an alleged cover-up by our government and the outing of an American female spy are among the themes highlighted in this. . .

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A new Holocaust museum pushes toward the future

By Jonah Lowenfeld

When the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust officially opens in its new home in Pan Pacific Park on Oct. 14, it won’t just be moving to a bigger,. . .

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A mirror on the haunted self

By Naomi Pfefferman

Just weeks before she graduated from Yale University in May 1959, Eva Hesse — a child survivor of the Holocaust who would become renowned for her. . .

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A hip-hop, Shakespearean, operatic ‘Venice’

By Naomi Pfefferman

Matt Sax, the baby-faced composer-performer whose new show, “Venice,” was dubbed “the year’s best musical” by Time magazine, has a. . .

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Is Los Angeles ready for its dose of “Law & Order”?

Following last year’s cancellation of the original New York version of the series after a venerable 20-year run — a record matched in drama only. . .

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

’Neshoba’ probes truth behind 1964 civil rights slaying

By Tom Tugend

On June 21, during the Freedom Summer of 1964, two young Jews from New York and an African American from Mississippi were murdered while on a mission. . .

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Fall Season Promises a Potpourri of Films

by Iris Mann, Contributing Writer

Summer seems to have flown by, and, with fall approaching, it is once more time to examine some upcoming films of interest. Movie critic Emanuel. . .

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

‘Parade’ Takes a Second Turn

By Naomi Pfefferman

When the Donmar Warehouse production of “Parade” opens at the Mark Taper Forum on Oct. 4, starring T.R. Knight, it will mark the musical’s. . .

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Schwartz’s first opera a dark ‘Séance’

by Steven Rosen and Naomi Pfefferman

Long before his enormous success with “Wicked” and “Godspell,” composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz studied classical music in college and. . .

Friday, August 28, 2009

A certain magic

by Naomi Levy

Chasidic reggae and rap singer Matisyahu just released his fourth album, “Light” — his first full-length work in three years. He discussed his. . .