Greggory Moore

Long Beach

Writer at Random Lengths News

I'm never quite sure. But occasionally I write, like 'The Use of Regret' (a novel).

Featured in: Favicon

randomlengthsnews.com

Articles

One-time “reality TV” star shows real talent in one-woman play

6 days ago | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

I don’t know who the fuck Bekah Martinez is. Google says “Former TV personality” — The Bachelor, 2018. I can’t tell you how many fucks I couldn’t give. It’s a sign of the apocalypse that this got her 850,000 Instagram followers. It’s a sign of the apocalypse that seven years later there are 850,000 people who want pics of her non-Bachelor hubby and kids popping up on their phones. These are end times. But never mind.
“The Library of Maps” locates Long Beach Opera at a peak

1 week ago | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

We are on a ship at sea. The captain has just died. A new mapmaker has been born unto a library that contains all the maps in the universe. Passengers and crew drift across the sea of time on a voyage without a fixed destination. Or something like that. The wisps of plot were beside the point in the second-ever staging of Pauline Oliveros and Moira Roth’s The Library of Maps: An Opera in Many Parts, performed aboard the Queen Mary on April 12 and 13.
Long Beach Symphony meets MTV for season’s final Pops concert

2 weeks ago | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

What do you get when you cross a symphony orchestra with 1980s MTV staples? What sounds like the setup for an inscrutable bad joke is in fact the premise for what should be a fun show: “Electric Avenue: ‘80s MTV Dance Party,” the closing event of Long Beach Symphony’s 2024–25 Pops season, which promises opportunities to dance to the likes of hits by The Police, George Michael, Soft Cell, The Cars, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, a-ha, and Prince. But this is a Pops show with a difference.
Musical Theatre West’s “Into the Woods”: Smart art, well-delivered

1 month ago | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

Speculations about who’s “the GOAT” — greatest of all time — are a bit silly even when it comes to sports, never mind in the far more subjective realm of arts. But no remotely rational debate about the GOAT of musical theatre could fail to include Stephen Sondheim, so layered are his creations, so smartly does he mine the work of the greats that came before him, so clever are his conceits, so witty and wry are both his lyrics and music.
“Tragedy Gift Shop” more fable than play

1 month ago | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

Commonplace gun violence. Exploitation. Sensationalism. Amoral corporate greed. This is today’s America, and it’s enough to make you want to scream. If you’re a playwright, your scream may make it to the stage. Hence Tragedy Gift Shop, Ryan McClary’s second world premiere at the Garage Theatre in four seasons.
Long Beach Opera dials up the ambition for season’s second aleatory offering

2 months ago | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

Having just seen/heard Long Beach Opera’s staging of El Relicario de los Animales, I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about on their website when they call it “one of [Pauline] Oliveros’ most emotional scores,” as I gather this season’s second aleatory exercise care of Oliveros is based on little more than the composer’s intended orchestration, spatial arrangement of the musicians, and general suggestions for content based on animal themes for four movements. Emotional content? Nada.
Garage Theatre turns 25 by the grace of community

2 months ago | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

When I sat down with a quartet of Garage Theatre co-founders in 2010 as they got ready to celebrate their 10th anniversary, they told me that nearly three times as many groups were doing theatre in Long Beach as when the Garage came on the scene. But that trend has reversed, and in 2025 you can count on your fingers the number of groups that don’t have “high school” in their name offering theatre of any kind in the 44th biggest city in the United States.
Long Beach Playhouse channels the spirit of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson”

2 months ago | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

According to the American Psychological Institute, the term ‘intergenerational trauma’ did not come into use until the 1960s. So while the clinical concept is foreign to the inhabitants of the mid-1930s that populate August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, the burden is a lived reality. Long Beach Playhouse has a cast that gets it right, both the struggle and the joy that can be found in its midst.
Lightweight “Jersey Boys” won’t disappoint Four Seasons fans

2 months ago | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

You may not love him, you may not like him, you may not even be able to stand his famous falsetto whine. But if you’re Gen X or older and even passingly familiar with the progress of Top 40 music in the 20th century, you damn well know his voice. In the pre-Beatles 1960s, Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons were rivaled only by The Beach Boys in terms of record sales. “Sherry”, “Walk Like a Man”, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” — the hits just kept on coming straight on into the ‘70s.
Bureau of Engineering won’t discuss delays, discrepancies in Warner Grand renovation

Jan 29, 2025 | randomlengthsnews.com | Greggory Moore

After several years of planning, in January 2024 the Warner Grand Theatre finally closed for renovations that are to include “restroom upgrade with ADA accessibility, new elevator for accessibility access, stage lift, VIP lounge with wheelchair lift”; “Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning, electrical, and Fire Life Safety system upgrades”; and “the complete renovation and restoration of various historic elements.”But work did not get underway for 11 1/2 months.