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Amanda Callas - Page 3

Amanda Callas

Amanda currently writes as a drama critic for Broadway World and Discover Hollywood Magazine, covering live theatre in Los Angeles. Her focus is on connecting arts and culture with the vibrant local community. She is a passionate theatre evangelist, hoping to inspire everyone to discover the kind of intimate, indispensable storytelling and luminous magic that can take place in person. 

An award-winning writer, Amanda’s work on arts, culture, music, travel, and parenthood has been published on many platforms including Hollywood Revealed, The Tour Guy, Parenthood Adventures, and Lickhouse Worldwide. She has worked as a storyteller in film, podcasts, books, and by engaging diverse digital audiences.

Amanda’s films have played, and won awards, in Vienna, Lisbon, Belfast, Iran, Scotland, Mexico, Australia, Bolivia, Capri, Palm Beach, and Los Angeles. She has done science writing for NASA, reconstructed Egyptian papyri, worked as a sushi chef, and played a nervous elf bride on a sitcom.

Drawing from her literary and film background Amanda brings an eye for cultural criticism and relevance to her discussion of theatre and its unique and vital pleasures. She is particularly interested in engaging children and new audiences in the connection of immersive live storytelling, exploring theatre for the first time, digging into the rich, elevating pleasures of the classics, and discovering a bold new work they never thought they would enjoy. Amanda has a B.A. from UC San Diego and an M.Phil from the University of Cambridge in classical literature, art, philosophy, and drama.




Favorite Show:

One of my favorite shows of all time is Turandot by Puccini, with an incredible staging by British artist David Hockney. I love it how it is dipped in acid color and beautiful, surreal scene-scapes, with of course, that lavish, sublime music.The Dapper Dans barbershop quartet at Disneyland are another childhood perennial favorite. I could listen to them all day.

Favorite Stories:

  • Review: THE RAINMAKER at Laguna Playhouse - Gorgeous, luminous staging and pitch-perfect performances, the transcendent joy and restorative optimism of this production made me feel uplifted for weeks.
  • Review: 70, GIRLS, 70 at Lonny Chapman Theatre - A great undiscovered, underrated musical that deserves its place in the pantheon, celebrating mischievous and delightful septuagenarian in New York City. The performances were utterly delightful, and I left the theatre humming great songs that are STILL stuck in my head.
  • Review: ON BROADWAY at Smothers Theatre in Malibu - Absolute of embarrassment of riches with four stupendously talented Broadway singers, some of the most extreme talent I've ever seen concentrated in one place at one time. It was glorious. Unforgettable music, at one of my absolute favorite venues in Los Angeles, the Smothers Theatre, on the beautiful, secluded Pepperdine campus in Malibu.
  • Review: SANTASIA – A HOLIDAY COMEDY at Whitefire Theatre - Off the rails indie holiday show was wildly entertaining, one of the funniest things I've ever seen, with real heart. Delicious cider and free cookies in the lobby. AND, I got to meet the Yeti. It doesn't get better than that.
  • Review: BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA at Odyssey Theatre -


Review: ALEX EDELMAN'S JUST FOR US at Mark Taper Forum
Review: ALEX EDELMAN'S JUST FOR US at Mark Taper Forum
November 14, 2023

Just For Us is a brilliant, award-winning, one-man comedy show by Alex Edelman at the Mark Taper Forum downtown, coming after sold-out hit runs on Broadway, and in London, Edinburgh, and Melbourne. This is must-see, hilarious stand up tackling identity and antisemitism, and it is hard to think of a more essential show at the moment.

Review: LINES IN THE DUST at Matrix Theatre
Review: LINES IN THE DUST at Matrix Theatre
November 8, 2023

Chronicling the story of school residency fraud in the affluent township of Millburn, New Jersey, Lines in the Dust fearlessly tackles uncomfortable, vital issues of identity, education, class, race, and access to opportunity. While describing it, I feel it’s almost inevitable that I am making this play sound like a policy discourse or social treatise, but this enthralling drama is also incredibly human, passionate, and emotionally shattering. Lines in the Dust is a significant tour de force.

Review: NERVOUS UNICORNS at Cat's Crawl
Review: NERVOUS UNICORNS at Cat's Crawl
November 2, 2023

Nervous Unicorns is a gripping world premiere play by Jake Sidney Cohen at The Cat’s Crawl in Hollywood. This is a meditative drama about a group of eight people who participate in recovery meetings and then, quite unexpectedly, a supernatural experience changes them all.

Review: METHUSALEM OR THE ETERNAL BOURGEOIS at The Actors' Gang
Review: METHUSALEM OR THE ETERNAL BOURGEOIS at The Actors' Gang
October 30, 2023

Hallucinatory, astoundingly visual, and provocative, this absurdist, surreal satire runs through December 16

Review: THE ANGEL NEXT DOOR at Laguna Playhouse
Review: THE ANGEL NEXT DOOR at Laguna Playhouse
October 26, 2023

The Angel Next Door is a glittering, effervescent hit romantic comedy by Paul Slade Smith at the historic Laguna Playhouse. It’s an elegant, sweet-dry glass of champagne, bubbling over with non-stop laughs, merriment, glamor, and high-spirited hijinks. It’s hard to think of more fun you could have at the theatre right now, or really, more fun anywhere.

Review: BEFOK (OR THE DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO IMPRESS IÑÁRRITU) at Odyssey Theatre
Review: BEFOK (OR THE DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO IMPRESS IÑÁRRITU) at Odyssey Theatre
October 22, 2023

Gutsy and gonzo, this wild ride runs through November 5th at Odyssey Theatre

Review: BABY FOOT at Rogue Machine, The Henry Murray Stage At The Matrix Theatre
Review: BABY FOOT at Rogue Machine, The Henry Murray Stage At The Matrix Theatre
October 18, 2023

Sexy, gritty, funny, and adult, this recovery drama is a triumph for Rogue Machine playing through November 20

Review: OLIVER! at Kavli Theatre At The Bank Of America Performing Arts Center
Review: OLIVER! at Kavli Theatre At The Bank Of America Performing Arts Center
October 16, 2023

Don't miss this delightful, gorgeously produced classic musical running through October 22nd

Review: ON BROADWAY at Smothers Theatre
Review: ON BROADWAY at Smothers Theatre
October 14, 2023

With a fresh lineup of new musical tunes and favorite classics, it’s pretty much the perfect Broadway concert show.  I’m still humming “Popular” from Wicked and “Razzle Dazzle” from Chicago nonstop, floating in a giddy haze of joy-soaked musical elation.

Review: BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA at Odyssey Theatre
Review: BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA at Odyssey Theatre
October 15, 2023

Birds of North America Is a brilliantly well produced drama with a quiet, luminous, elegiac quality, at the Odyssey Theatre in West Los Angeles. With exquisite subtlety and sensitivity in the writing by award-winning playwright Anna Ouyang Moench, it chronicles the relationship of a father and daughter over the course of roughly a decade.

Review: THE RAINMAKER at Laguna Playhouse
Review: THE RAINMAKER at Laguna Playhouse
September 29, 2023

Run, don’t walk, to the Laguna Playhouse’s production of the classic 1954 hit play The Rainmaker. I absolutely love this show. It's impossible to leave the theater after watching The Rainmaker without feeling lifted up by its transcendent joy and restorative optimism. 



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