The Ambassador at BAM Harvey Theater

Detective fiction drunks and Die Hard villains[1], race riots and natural disasters, urban blight and Richard Neutra[2] homes are all fodder for this deeply personal portrait of Los Angeles from singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane. Using a dozen LA street addresses as entryways into a varied cast of characters—from James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce to the doorman of the now-demolished Ambassador Hotel[3]—Kahane offers lush, labyrinthine songs that mine the pathos of Southern California. With direction by John Tiffany (The Glass Menagerie, Black Watch, Once), set design by Christine Jones (Spring Awakening, Queen of the Night, Theatre for One), and movement by Steven Hoggett (Black Watch, American Idiot), The Ambassador is a love letter—both droll and melancholic—to a city long misunderstood.