Photo by J. Coldize
Terry Morgan - Stage Raw
Matt Morillo’s compelling comedy/drama All Aboard The Marriage Hearse depicts what happens when a longtime couple discovers they fundamentally disagree about the concept of matrimony. Read more…
Now running through June 19
(© Jim Cox Photography)
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania
Sandra Tsing Loh has a lot to say about menopause and the suffering and confusion it causes for women. The award-winning essayist’s first play, The Madwoman in the Volvo, reveals very personal travails, but does it in a superficial way, so that the audience cannot always identify with her or understand the motives for the major upheavals she makes in her life. more…
(photo by DJ Corey Photography
Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw
Though he is not as well known or recognized as Malcom X or Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, a.k.a., Kwame Toure, was a firebrand Black Nationalist, revolutionary and civil rights activist who left an indelible mark on the stormy era of the 1960’s. The man who coined the phrase, ‘Black Power’ was, as historian Peniel Joseph writes, “an organizer who had his hand in every major demonstration and event that occurred between 1960-1965.” Read more…
Now running through June 11
Photo courtesy S.T.A.G.E.
Jonas Schwartz - Arts In LA
The Los Angeles theater community has not forgotten the battle against AIDS, and it continues to take the fight to the S.T.A.G.E. The Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event (S.T.A.G.E.) has partnered with AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) for the last 32 years to raise money for AIDS education and prevention by presenting musical delights from some of Los Angeles’s biggest theater talents. This year’s concert, Sondheim No. 5, will take place at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts for a matinee and an evening performance June 18.
Photo by Karianne Flaathen
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
If you’re someone who usually dismisses 19th-century theater classics as stuffy and stiff, you might want to reconsider and go see Hedda Gabler at Antaeus Theatre Company, where Jaimi Paige delivers a mesmerizing performance as the beautiful and manipulative title character. Read more…
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
Who is Hedda Gabler? Of course she’s the crux of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 play. But who is she, deep down? Read more…
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw
Heinrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler remains a titanic creation that still demarcates the theater’s passage into modernity. Its protagonist is the embodiment of contradiction, from the diamond-like clarity of her individuality to her ultimately inscrutable motives. Read more…
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA
When Ibsen’s thoroughly modern drama was first staged in Munich in 1891, the response from the critics was damning. They almost universally decried the play, declaring it was a presentation of a monster whereas the art of theater was supposed to elevate and refine. Read more…
Now running through July 17
Photo by Scott Morgan Photography
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Fans of “swing” and the singing of Billie Holiday will appreciate the music in Billie Holiday: Front and Center. The show, directed by B’Anca, features Sybil Harris as the renowned songstress, who suffered racist affronts throughout her professional career but ultimately wowed audiences at Carnegie Hall before dying prematurely of cirrhosis of the liver at age 44. Read more…
Now running through June 19
Photo by Laura Carson
Terry Morgan - Stage Raw
The thrill of creating an experimental theatre piece lies in being able to express something one couldn’t in the standard mode. The downside is that not all experiments are a success. Read more…
Now running through June 19
Photo by Tim Sullens
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
There’s been no shortage of political satires on local stages, but all too many of them have been broad, obvious and stridently partisan. Jason Wells’ black farce, here receiving its world premiere production, is several cuts above the rest. It’s literate, sophisticated, hip, hilariously funny and relatively free of political bias. Read more…
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
The Engine of Our Ruin, now having its world premiere at the Victory Theatre Center under the direction of Maria Gobetti, is a wildly uneven comedy. Written by Jason Wells, it runs the gamut from your basic physical farce (better-hide-in-the-closet-because-you’re-drunk-and-the-boss-is-coming sort of thing) to a thoughtful, if somewhat wordy, satiric take on international diplomacy. Read more…
Now running through June 26