Theatre

Following its critically acclaimed Broadway engagement, the Atlantic Theater Company and Roundabout Theatre Company production of English, Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winningplay directed by Knud Adams, will have a limited run April 4–26 at the Bram Goldsmith Theater at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.

Toossi’s comedy/drama about an Iranian ESL class studying for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) debuted at Roundabout Theatre on Broadway in 2025 after its off-Broadway premiere at the Atlantic Theater in 2022. The play won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and nominated for five 2025 Tony Awards including Best Play, Direction, and Scenic Design. It arrives in Los Angeles with quite a pedigree.

The intricate, profound and quietly powerful play is about four Iranian adults preparing for an English language exam in a storefront school near Tehran where two words — English Only — is a mantra ruling their classroom.  Family separations and travel restrictions drive them to learn a new language that may alter their identities and represent a new life.  Chasing fluency through a maze of word games, listening exercises, and show-and-tell sessions, they hope that one day, English will make them whole.  At the same time, it may be splitting each of them in half.  It’s no secret that the themes of English currently have particular relevance.

For more, click here.

You can sit with us! The Broadway smash hit Mean Girls will make its regional premiere at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts on April 11.

The show is based on the 2004 movie of the same name, which stars Rachel McAdams as queen bee Regina George, who is threatened when newcomer Cady Heron (played by Lindsay Lohan) comes to town and begins to rise in popularity to threaten her own. Hilarity, hijinks, and high-calorie snack bars ensue, and the two girls face off in a showdown of epic high school proportions. The film was adapted for the stage in 2018 by original writer Tina Fey, alongside Nell Benjamin of Legally Blonde and Jeff Richmond of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, before being re-adapted into a musical movie in 2024. Suffice it to say, audiences agree that Mean Girls is ‘so fetch’!

You may have caught the national tour of Mean Girls when it swept through town in 2025, but the regional production boasts a fresh cast and a new director. The La Mirada production stars Katie Roche as Cady Heron and Adrianna Rose Lyons as Regina George, both up-and-coming talents with a number of credits under their belts. Lyons was most recently performing in the Frozen National Tour, while Roche spent the last several years appearing on prestigious cruise lines in a variety of roles.

For more, click here.

One of the most powerful pieces of protest theatre returns to the Geffen Playhouse April 8th. Set in the charged atmosphere of 1950’s Apartheid South Africa, Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold”…and the Boys is a gripping, deeply personal drama confronting the realities of race, power, and betrayal.

The story unfolds on a rainy afternoon in a tea shop, centering on Hally, a white teenager, and the two black waiters who helped raise him, Sam and Willie. Harold”…and the Boys begins with the playful memories of childhood, with Sam and Willie filling in the gaps of a broken home with warmth, wisdom, and laughter. However, as stories are told, a single moment threatens to shatter the fragile bond between them forever.

John Kani returns to Fugard’s story as Sam, the older Black waiter and father figure to Hally. Kani and Fugard’s relationship spanned decades and across various plays confronting the brutality of the apartheid era. Kani played Willie in the 1984 film, Master Harold, and returns as Sam for the Geffen engagement. Kani is joined by Ben Beatty as Hally, a white teenager, whose nickname is “Master Harold.” Nyashi Hatendi is Willie, the second Black waiter, who dreams of winning a ballroom dancing competition. The directors are Emily Mann and Tarell Alvin McCraney.

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Ever wonder how Michael Jackson came up with his moves — that intense, emotionally charged body language perfectly synced to every beat of his music? MJ THE MUSICAL offers a compelling behind-the-scenes look at the creative process behind one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived.

Yes, it’s a jukebox musical. But this isn’t just about the Moonwalk, it’s about the process. The show centers on rehearsals for Jackson’s 1992 Dangerous World Tour, a production so extravagant it featured a $2 million wardrobe, with some costumes crafted from 18-karat gold.

The production announces itself from the very first moment. Roman Banks, as Michael, is launched vertically onto the stage via the “toaster”, a catapult originally engineered for the Dangerous Tour and faithfully re-created here. From that electrifying entrance, the show traces the perfectionism and creative collaboration that drove Jackson to extraordinary heights. A peek backstage at the spectacle to reveal the obsessive, perfectionist, singular artist beneath the icon.

MJ THE MUSICAL was created by Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon (An American in Paris) and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, the first and only woman (to date) to receive that distinction twice in Drama. Together, they have built a show worthy of its legendary subject.

Playing the Hollywood Pantages April 21–May 3, click here.