Musicals’ outlook

IT is interesting to contrast your piece [“It’s Not Quite Time to Mourn the Musical,” May 28] with Ben Brantley’s critique of the musical season on Broadway last week in the New York Times. Maybe it takes 3,000 miles to give perspective to the current state of the musical theater. Pacheco had it and was able to highlight some of the remarkable young talent like Adam Guettel and Jason Robert Brown. Los Angeles will be fortunate to see both Guettel’s “Light in the Piazza” and the world premiere of Brown’s “13” next season. Combine that with the U.S. premiere of “The Drowsy Chaperone” in the season just concluded, and I’d say the musical theater is alive and well in L.A.

BOB KLEIN

Malibu