It's nearing midnight in Hollywood, and the Urban Man has joined his fellow Angelenos on a sacred pilgrimage. I've come with a rowdy club of 20-somethings to stand outside the Sunset Five in a long and happy line to see what has become known as "the Citizen Kane of bad...

Back in the early part of the 20th century, Eugene O'Neill brought a weight and importance to American theatre which had been sorely lacking. For a time, there was hardly a season without an O'Neill play opening on Broadway -- and not a single one was cheerful.

He was...

First published in the Los Angeles Downtown News

The current L.A. Opera production of Così Fan Tutte, Mozart's exquisitely problematic farce, is a special joy, and should be added it to the opera lover's not-to-be-missed list for the fall season. Those unfamiliar with opera may find it a good way...

(An Urban Man classic post. First appeared on KCRW.com. See www.theurbanman.com for more essays on modern life in L.A.)

Like most people, the Urban Man often says, "if only life were more like media." If only the women were reliably beautiful or wise, the men muscled...

The earth we occupy is built from minor miracles and major miracles. When Mark Morris choreographed L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato some 33 years ago, he created a major miracle.

But because this evening-length miracle requires 24 astoundingly lithe and lightfooted dancers, a full orchestra, four opera singers, and...

The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, now onstage at A Noise Within Theatre in Glendale, is not quite a romance and not quite a tragedy -- more a mystery of the human heart. Director Dámaso Rodriguez has captured the elusive beauty of this Tennessee Willliams' classic -- a rewrite of the...

If you hurry to the Broad Stage before April 24, you might just catch the best Merchant of your life -- The Merchant of Venice, that is, Shakespeare's tragi-comic masterpiece, often performed, but rarely performed well. In a dynamic and cleverly contemporized production from New York's Theater For A New...

A brilliant new production of Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs, now at A Noise Within Theater in Glendale, reminds us that genuine classics do not lose, but acquire meaning over time. Given the illusions we now imbibe on a daily basis -- VR, reality TV, social media friendships, action heroes playing...

It's dark. It's unsettling. And it's one of the finest operas of the post-war period. Benjamin Britten's 1954 The Turn of the Screw perfectly captured the ambiguous sexuality and perverse supernaturalism of Henry James' 1898 novel, pitting an innocent governess against the uncertain subconscious of a pre-pubescent boy.

In my first-ever video blog, I spend an entire day in L.A. trying to have "just one little thought" of my very own. It doesn't prove to be easy.

Released March 17, 2011. Based...

People complain that we in the media expect too much of actors. That we ask them deep philosophical questions and want them to reveal great truths when they're masters of nothing but illusion. Why should we care what they think about life and the universe? Shouldn't we be interviewing, like,...

I have a request for greater Los Angeles in the coming decade. It's not a simple request, but it's simply stated: Over the next 10 years, I want you to become a city--that's right, a real city, like London or New York, Paris or Tokyo.

Okay, maybe a collection of...