Dear Evan Hansen Flashes its Way into History
By Patrick Hurley
Stories of teenage turmoil have been being told for centuries. The misunderstood youth trope nearly always serves a narrative wherein a moral dilemma serves as edification to an ignorant, older audience. Shakespeare killed his young star-crossed lovers. The adults in their lives had driven them to suicide because of their inability to reconcile differences with each other, thus preaching the dictum of embracing each other’s differences. Dear Evan Hansen, the Broadway phenomenon, which is currently on its first national tour, playing at the Ahmanson Theatre, is the most recent iteration of the misunderstood youth narrative, and this time, as is the custom with today’s YA fiction, it wants to feel like an inside job. Read more 
A Big and Distracted Amélie
By Patrick Hurley
There is a moment, less than a minute into the production of Amélie, a new musical playing now at the Ahmanson, where anyone who is familiar with the 2001 French film must abandon the expectation that all of the cinematic devices that made the film alive and vibrant will be translated into hyper-theatrical ones. This does not happen. Instead, we are taken into a world of frenzied activity and cluttered design disguised as a day-dreamy internal landscape. Read more
