Photo by Ryan Miller
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw
Three siblings and their father — all estranged — reunite at their mother’s ramshackle country homestead shortly after her death to uncover her will and to sling recriminations at each other. Despite its flashes of black humor, Charlotte Miller’s gutsy, messy and heavy-duty family drama Thieves is about as jolly as that hackneyed premise suggests. Read more…
Now running through April 4.
Photo by Karianne Flaathen
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
Shakespeare could wield a neat dialectic as deftly as Bertolt Brecht, though he didn’t talk about it as much. In almost every play, the Bard shaped his plots to depict forces eternally at odds. Here, he ranges Prince Hal (Ramon de Ocampo) and Hotspur (Joe Holt), believers in the chivalric code, and single combat upon the Field of Honor, against the scoundrel Falstaff (Gregory Itzin) who debunks their high-minded words….. Read more…
Photo by Jim Cox
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly
The basis for the much beloved, happily-ever-after musical My Fair Lady, George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion takes a much firmer tack on questions of class distinctions and female independence. Those themes, so dear to Shaw’s progressive heart, end up rather charmingly watered down in the 1964 Audrey Hepburn film version. Read more…
Jonas Schwartz - Arts In LA
Shaw’s seminal text that this show seems listless. In the right hands, the century-old play can still be engrossing. But here it lacks bite, even with a pitch-perfect performance by Paige Lindsey White as Eliza Doolittle. Read more…
Now playing through April 12.
Photo by Alex Madrid
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
Being told “I love you” is nice. But there are more effective ways of expressing love. The characters at the heart of “The Curious Savage” — at Torrance Theatre Co. through April 19 — clearly know this. They, however, are locked up in a sanitarium. Read more…
Now running through April 19.
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
The rarely revived “Mame” is running at Kentwood Players’ Westchester Playhouse through April 18, and that alone should evoke gratitude. But only the memorably joyous melodies of Jerry Herman’s score, the set, and very few competent performances keep this production from verging on the disastrous. Read more…
Now running through April 18.
Photo by Jason Niedle
David C. Nichols – LA Times
Never underestimate the power of stagecraft. Case in point: ”Carrie: The Musical,” now receiving a mind-blowing immersive production at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. Read more…
Jonas Schwartz - TheaterMania
Few musicals are as infamous as the 1988 Broadway bomb Carrie. That notoriety was enhanced by the bootlegged CDs and videotapes of the original cast that made the rounds for years in the days before YouTube. Utilizing the major rewrite for the 2012 off-Broadway production, La Mirada Theatre performs the show for its intimate “On Stage” series where audiences sit on the stage in bleachers, making them practically players in the proceedings. Read more…
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw
Probably no musical has ever been more maudit than this adaptation of the Stephen King novel, Carrie The Musical (the material perhaps best known from the 1976 hit Brian De Palma movie starring Sissy Spacek, also fashioned, as here, by writer Lawrence D. Cohen). Read more…
Now running through April 5.
Ryan Miller / Capture Imaging
David C. Nichols – LA Times
“Sandra, I’m home. No go on the Dunkin’ Donuts job.” Thus the title character of “Trevor,” presented by Circle X Theatre Co., grabs our attention in a 200-pound death grip. Read more…
Now running through April 19.
Photo by Charlie Mount
Margaret Gray – LA Times
Theatre West has revived Jim Beaver’s play “Verdigris,” a hit for the company 30 years ago, about a young man’s absorption into an offbeat Oklahoma family in the summer of 1972. Read more…
Now running through April 19.
Photo by Ed Krieger
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
The most interesting scene in this production of Donald Margulies’s 1992 play involves an encounter between Jonathan (Jason Weiss), a successful Jewish-American painter having a much-touted exhibition in London, and Grete (Casey McKinnon), an art journalist of German extraction who is interviewing him. Read more…
Les Spindle – Frontiers L.A.
The career of accomplished playwright Donald Margulies (Dinner with Friends, Collected Stories) first kicked into high gear with this 1992 Obie-winning dramedy, which explores pretensions of the arts world alongside the specter of anti-Semitism. This revisit to the vintage work, directed by Nicole Dominguez, seems less focused than one might hope, despite capable efforts from the four-member cast. em>Read more…
Now running through April 26.
Photo by Ben Horak
Margaret Gray – LA Times
There are plenty of fish in the sea, we console ourselves when loved ones escape our nets. But in Kimber Lee’s new play, “tokyo fish story,” having its world premiere at South Coast Repertory, the truth of this old proverb is in doubt. Read more…
Bob Verini - Stage Raw
Admirers of the 2011 documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” should settle in comfortably for Kimber Lee’s tokyo fish story. Read more…
Now running through March 29.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
David C. Nichols – LA Times
Eighteenth century subversion meets Larry David lunacy in “Figaro” at A Noise Within. Ingenuity permeates this buoyant adaptation of Beaumarchais’ classic account of one crazy day at the Almavivas’, circa 1784 or 2015, take your pick. Read more…
Now running through May 10.
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly
The Game Against Bobby Fischer, a new play written by Dennis Richard and directed by Gregory Fuller at the Secret Rose Theatre, purports to enter the troubled mind of renowned American World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer (Robert Weiner) as he approaches his final days in his adopted home of Reykjavik, Iceland. Read more…
Now running through March 29.