By Shari Barrett
It’s always difficult for me to select my favorite plays each year since there are so many I really enjoyed. But I limit my “Best Of” list to those that stick in my memory for the overall emotional impact of being present in the audience for the live performance. After going through all my 2024 reviews, here are my favorite musicals, plays, solo shows, and staged reading from the past 12 months, grouped by theater. If you missed any of my reviews, you can read them on the Culver City News or Gardena Valley News websites on the Entertainment page. https://www.culvercitynews.org/category/entertainment/ or https://gardenavalleynews.org/category/entertainment/
Musicals: Once Upon a Mattress, Funny Girl (Center Theatre Group Ahmanson Theatre); American Idiot (Center Theatre Group & Deaf West Theatre at Mark Taper Forum); Mrs. Doubtfire, Back to the Future, Company (Broadway in Hollywood at the Pantages Theatre); Fiddler on the Roof (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts); The Life and Times of Michael K (The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts); Pacific Overtures (East West Players); Footloose the Musical, The Troubies: Duran duAnthony and Cleopatra, The Troubies: Home Alone-ly Hearts Club Band (The Colony); It’s All Your Fault, Tyler Price (Broadwater Backstage Theatre); Reefer Madness (The Whitley Hollywood), First Date: A Musical Comedy (Zephyr Theatre).
Plays: Fatherland (The Fountain Theatre); Crevasse (The Victory Theatre); A Good Guy (Rogue Machine); A View From the Bridge (The Ruskin Group); The Bespoke Overcoat (Pacific Resident Theatre); The Civil Twilight (Broadwater Studio Theatre); The Witness Room (Whitefire Theatre); Mercury (The Road Theatre).
Solo Shows: Sugar Daddy, Dragon Lady (The Geffen Playhouse); Kristin Chenoweth with LA Opera Orchestra (Dorothy Chandler Pavilion); DIVA the Play (Zephyr Theatre); My Mother Doesn’t Know I’m Kinky (The Broadwater Second Stage).
Staged Reading: Tesla: A Radio Play for the Stage (Cal Tech)
Here’s to a great year gone by and to the exciting one ahead! Please support your local theaters by visiting their websites and purchasing tickets to live performances to keep the Arts alive in Los Angeles. For lower cost tickets, please consider subscribing to Sold Out Crowd at https://soldoutcrowd.com. And for local theater news delivered to your email, sign up for daily eBlasts from Broadway World Los Angeles at https://www.broadwayworld.com/los-angeles.
And remember, anyone who says L.A. is not a theater town has no idea about the artistic greatness in our city.
