Andrew Child

Los Angeles

Contributor at BroadwayWorld

Harvard '16, Yale PhD '21, Disney College Hopeful '22 He/him/his

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Articles

Review: COSÍ FAN TUTTE at LA Opera

1 month ago | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

I went into LA Opera’s current offering, Michael Cavanagh’s staging of Mozart’s Così fan tutte without any preconceived notions of the libretto, and the program prepared me for the worst. Notes discussing the opera’s “troubling study in power and agency” or warning that “those who are troubled by the story (…) are in good company” seem to foretell of an uncomfortable evening. What dated gender norms and misogynist humor was I about to be subjected to under the thin excuse of a ‘gorgeous score’?
Review: IDOL WORSHIP at Catalina Jazz Club

1 month ago | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

When drag queen Peaches Christ reached out to cult cinema icon Mink Stole over 20 years ago about appearing in her upcoming celebration of the John Waters film Desperate Living, she never could have anticipated the friendship and collaborations that would ensue.
Interview: Gregg T. Daniel of TOPDOG/UNDERDOG at Pasadena Playhouse

1 month ago | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

When director Gregg T. Daniel saw Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright in the premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog back in 2002, he knew it was a play he wanted to direct. “The writing is muscular, clever, funny, it just caught me,” he remembers. “I think the Pulitzers got it right,” he continues, reflecting on the play’s 2002 award, which made Parks the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer for Drama. “There’s a great sense of theatricality, an element of surprise.
Review: AN EVENING WITH JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL at Catalina Jazz Club

1 month ago | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

The Catalina Jazz Club is nestled in an industrial-looking building down a side street off Hollywood Boulevard. It is inconspicuous to say the least— one enters through a parking garage and waits in a courtyard that feels more like an office building than a performance venue. However, inside awaits a dinner club that boasts a surprising range of upcoming performances. John Cameron Mitchell’s cabaret show exhibited his demented, impish persona through a series of high-energy numbers.
Review: THE CAMP at Aratani Theatre

2 months ago | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

The team behind The Camp, a new opera currently premiering at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center’s Aratani Theatre should be commended for achieving precisely what they set out to do. With a superior level of artistry in terms of performance, composition, and design, the reality of the Japanese American concentration camps is relayed to contemporary audiences.
Review: MACBETH at A Noise Within

2 months ago | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

There are many reasons Macbeth is one of Shakespeareâ€™s most treasured works. It has a natural propulsion that can carry contemporary audiences through its deeply human narrative. It drips with sensationalismâ€” violence, sensuality, witches, ghosts, madness, and prophesy are well-placed throughout its five acts. It has a lot to say about gender, about power and its ability to corrupt, about the selfishness inherent to human nature.
Interview: Beth Leavel of OLD FRIENDS at Center Theatre Group

2 months ago | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

Beth Leavel is no stranger to LA audiences or to the Ahmanson Theatre, where she will open next week in the North American premiere and pre-Broadway engagement of Sondheim’s Old Friends: A Great Big Broadway Show. The photographic proof still hangs in the lobby: she traipsed these boards twenty years ago in the titular role of The Drowsy Chaperone before the show’s Broadway run. In chatting with her, it is clear she holds Los Angeles crowds in high regard.
Interview: Mwenya Kabwe of THE GREAT YES, THE GREAT NO at The Wallis Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts

2 months ago | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

“A dramaturg generally works as a kind of advisor to a playwright,” muses Mwenya Kabwe, a theatre-maker currently based in Cape Town, South Africa who served as dramaturg for The Great Yes, The Great No, a production conceived by William Kentridge with Phala O. Phala and Nhlanhla Mahlangu. How, then, does a dramaturg engage with a process in which there is no playwright in the strictest sense of the term?
Review: Kelli O'Hara in Concert at LA Opera

2 months ago | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

“Pure Imagination”, “Getting to Know You”, “Tomorrow”, a quick perusal of Kelli O’Hara’s selected repertoire for her concert at LA Opera may at first seem to flow through the frivolous and twee, showcasing only the most Pollyanna-approved, sanitized selections of the American songbook. However, O’Hara has approached the entire evening with such severe gravitas and humble respect that familiar messages seem to land fresh on even jaded ears. How else are we meant to keep singing right now?
Review: LIFE & TIMES OF MICHAEL K at Cape Town's Baxter Theatre And Handspring Puppet Company

Nov 22, 2024 | broadwayworld.com | Andrew Child

If you have yet to see the work of Handspring Puppet Company, hurry to get tickets for Life & Times of Michael K in its limited run at the Bram Goldsmith Theater. The mechanics and manipulations must be seen to be believed— no one to my knowledge is maneuvering puppets quite like these masters. From the moment the piece begins, the protagonist, a four foot tall puppet manipulated by three actor/ puppeteers is mesmerizingly lifelike.