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BEST OF BEST OF THIS WEEK THIS WEEK, Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre

Photo by Chris Phipps
March 22, 2023Martίn Hernández – Stage Raw Following in the satirical footsteps of Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, this Open Fist Company production takes the past year’s cream of the crop of its Thursday night comedy sketch show, This Week This Week, and skewers our calamitous society with mostly hilarious results. Creator and director Ron
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TWELFTH NIGHT At The Broadwater Studio Theater

Photo courtesy of Foolish Production Co.
March 22, 2023Tracey Paleo – BroadwayWorld Notwithstanding that they fell into many textbook Shakespeare traps, and that there was zero chemistry between any single one of the characters, the Foolish Production Company cast actually knew what they were doing. And mostly their 1-hour rendition of TWELFTH NIGHT (playing in rep with MEASURE FOR MEASURE at The Broadwater)
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CARDENIO at City Garage Theatre

Photo by Paul Rubenstein
March 22, 2023Rob Stevens – Haines His Way City Garage, the resident theatre company at Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station Arts Center, built their thirty-plus year reputation for doing heavy lifting with productions of Greek tragedies and the works of Brecht and Beckett among other dramatists. With their latest offering, Cardenio, they prove they can let down their
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THE THIN PLACE, Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre

March 22, 2023Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld Tony-nominated playwright Lucas Hnath’s THE THIN PLACE is an eerie meditation on grief, regret and the need for closure, though it is undermined by the lack of a satisfying conclusion… Obie Award- and Outer Critics Circle Award-winning Hnath (“Red Speedo”; “A Doll’s House, Part 2″) carefully delineates each character with precise
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ONCE at Laguna Playhouse

Photo by Jason Niedle
March 22, 2023Socks Whitmore – Stage Raw In Dublin, a struggling Irish musician bumps into a young Czech woman and his life changes forever. This is the premise of the 2007 musical film Once, and likewise the stage musical of the same name, both featuring songs by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová (including the infamous “Falling Slowly”),
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TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992 at the Mark Taper Forum

Sabina Zúñiga Varela. Photo by Craig Schwartz Photography.
March 22, 2023Dana Martin – Stage Raw Center Theatre Group meets the moment with Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, conceived, written and revised by Anna Deavere Smith. The original production premiered on Broadway in April, 1994. Smith wrote it as a solo piece, which she developed from hundreds of interviews following the 1992 L.A. uprising. This updated version
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THE LONELY FEW at Geffen Playhouse

Lauren Patten. Photo by Jeff Lorch.
March 18, 2023Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites World Premiere: The Lonely Few @ Geffen Playhouse – 8 out of 10 – Good Show! LA Theatre Bites Recommended! More… Jonas Schwartz-Owen – Theatermania The Lonely Few, a world premiere rock musical at the Geffen Playhouse, does away with conventional narrative. It immerses its audience in rock clubs
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Archive for April 2018

AMERYKA at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Saturday, April 28th, 2018
Lawrence K. Ho

Lawrence K. Ho

Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main

 In 2009, Ameryka’s writer/director Nancy Keystone was perusing a catalogue,Western Amerykański: Polish Poster Art and the Western, when she spotted a 1989 poster that celebrated the first democratic elections in Poland since World War II.

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Frances Baum Nicholson – The Daily Breeze

One of the more fascinating events at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City is the annual Block Party — a series of productions bringing the work of other Los Angeles theater companies to this Center Theatre Group space.
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Now running through April 29

 

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THREAT at the Whitefire Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Saturday, April 28th, 2018
Magdalena Calderon

Magdalena Calderon

Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

In the wake of mass shootings, one cannot help but wonder what particular disconnect made someone feel such an act was a good idea.
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Now running through May 4

 

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WILL VON VOGT LANDS HIS ‘SIGNIFICANT OTHER’

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Saturday, April 28th, 2018
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

Margaret Gray – LA Times

Will Von Vogt, who plays the endearingly neurotic gay protagonist of Joshua Harmon’s play “Significant Other” at the Geffen Playhouse, brings so much to the role — not least his big, blue eyes, quicksilver comic timing and eloquent dance moves — that L.A. audiences can’t help wondering where he’s been all our lives.
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SOUTH PACIFIC at La Mirada Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, April 27th, 2018
Michael Lamont

Michael Lamont

Jonas Schwartz -  TheaterMania

The overture fades in with the woodwinds as the strings wistfully play the motif of “Bali Ha’i,” the lush music that transports audiences to the magical islands of South Pacific. Just beyond the breeze and the luster of the sand, the entire world has clashed violently, and fascism has drawn most of mankind into the Second World War.
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Ellen Dostal – Musicals in L.A.

Glenn Casale directs this Rodgers & Hammerstein gem dealing with romance and racism in the South Pacific during World War II.
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Now running through May 13

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BELLEVILLE at the Pasadena Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, April 27th, 2018

 

(Photo by Philicia Endelman

(Photo by Philicia Endelman

Terry Morgan  -  Talkin’ Broadway

Labeling a work of art as being one particular thing can often be problematic, creating expectations that the piece doesn’t fulfill. Amy Herzog’s play Belleville is being promoted as a Hitchcockian thriller, which it is not. It’s only a thriller in the sense that Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a thriller, in that it depicts the emotional combat between a married couple.
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Frances Baum Nicholson – The Daily Breeze

There is no doubt that Amy Herzog’s “Belleville,” now at the Pasadena Playhouse, has dramatic power, and some extraordinary characters which must be an actor’s dream to perform. In many ways, this is enough to recommend the show.
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Jonas Schwartz -  TheaterMania

Amy Herzog’s thriller Belleville benefits from solid direction by Jenna Worsham and stellar performances by its leads, Anna Camp and Thomas Sadoski.
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Now running through May 13

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NATIVE SON at the Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, April 26th, 2018
Geoffrey Wade Photography

Geoffrey Wade Photography

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly

I wish one could say that Nambi E. Kelley’s incisive adaptation of novelist Richard Wright’s Native Son, brilliantly staged at Antaeus Theatre Ensemble under Andi Chapman’s direction, was testament to a 20th-century mindset we’ve long transcended. But as many of us are painfully aware, the stereotyping of minorities — and in this case black men in particular — persists like a grotesque contagion on our body politic.
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Lovell Estell III — Stage Raw

When it was published in 1940, Richard Wright’s groundbreaking novel about the tragic undoing of Bigger Thomas caused an outburst of reaction and controversy. Native Son ‘s unsettling depiction of racism, poverty, and class conflict in America have been surpassed by few in impact and stature over the years.
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Now running through June 6

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WHAT HAPPENED WHEN at Atwater Village Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 18th, 2018

 

Darrett Sanders

Darrett Sanders

Ellen Dostal – Broadway World

The air between the words is so thick you could cut it with a knife in Daniel Talbott‘s shadowy play about three siblings attempting to survive their dysfunctional family. Each is broken in his or her own way and, as the hairball unravels, the audience must piece together their fragmented story over a period of six years.
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Terry Morgan  -  Stage Raw

There are generally two types of ghost stories: those with haunted characters, and those in which it is the audience that becomes haunted — that is, where the tale lingers after the show like an unquiet memory.
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Harker Jones – Arts In LA

Daniel Talbott’s What Happened When is a claustrophobic, intense, and harrowing familial drama in the guise of a horror story. Set in a bedroom with red-paint (or blood-) spattered walls, three siblings huddle on a bed in an old farmhouse.
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Now running through April 26

 

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SIGNIFICANT OTHER at the Geffen Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, April 17th, 2018
Chris Whitaker

Chris Whitaker

Jonas Schwartz -  TheaterMania

Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other, now playing at the Geffen Playhouse, explores friendship as a buffer, a support system, and a crutch when navigating the precarious world of love. Often funny, the comedy will remind audiences of their own singlehood, past or present. Unfortunately….
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Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze

What a lovely protagonist Jordan Berman is. Sure, he’s a little too chatty and perhaps a touch too insecure, but he’s honest, caring, bright and perceptive. And he has a delightful sense of humor.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

“Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” That seems to be the fate of nebbish-y Jordan Berman (Will Von Vogt) in Joshua Harmon’s very funny and intuitive play, Significant Other, being given a first-rate production at the Geffen Playhouse. Read more…

Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw

Watching Significant Other is something of a sadomasochistic experience for single people. I mean that in the best possible way. Joshua Harmon’s play achieves a singular sense of catharsis, which is no small feat.
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Now running through May 6

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LOVE NEVER DIES at the Pantages Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Sunday, April 15th, 2018
Joan Marcus

Joan Marcus

Ellen Dostal – Musicals in L.A.

Romance based on obsession is a challenging tale in today’s world. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 hit musical The Phantom of the Opera might have had a more difficult debut if it had taken place today amid the #MeToo movement. But it didn’t, and the British composer’s masterpiece went on to conquer the West End, Broadway, and the rest of the world, creating legions of fans in its wake.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

It is not clear whether the sentiments expressed in Glenn Slater’s lyrics for the title song of Love Never Dies, currently at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, are true or not.    Read more…

Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen

The Phantom of the Opera is the longest running show in Broadway history. For this reason alone, I suppose it makes sense that composer Andrew Lloyd Webber decided to write a sequel, Love Never Dies, the national tour of which is currently playing at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.
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Now running through April 22

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MACBETH. HIS STORY. HER TRAGEDY. at the McCadden Place Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Sunday, April 15th, 2018
Macbeth 750x500 (1)

Fearless Imp Entertainment

Ellen Dostal – Broadway World
This adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy has been reconceptualized to connect with the modern day #MeToo movement by offering an alternative explanation for one of its leading character’s actions. It is built on the notion that all of the women are victims of sexual abuse – most specifically, Lady Macbeth – who, in this version, has been raped by King Duncan while her husband is off fighting the war.
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Now running through April 29

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MOUSETRAP at Crown City Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Saturday, April 14th, 2018

mousetrap11

Frances Baum Nicholson – The Daily Breeze

Agatha Christie’s play “The Mousetrap” has been running, interrupted, in London’s West End since 1952, making it the longest-running play in the English language anywhere in the world.

With that kind of longevity (66 years and counting), traditions and tales are inevitable. A favorite story, perhaps apocryphal, says that taxi drivers taking patrons to see “The Mousetrap” in London will reward stingy tippers by shouting out the murderer’s name as the playgoers exit the cab.
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Now running through

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CONFESSIONS OF A MULATTO LOVE CHILD at Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, April 13th, 2018

Matt Richter

Matt Richter

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly

Writer-performer Bellina Logan was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of a British-born Caucasian woman and an African-American man. Her play is titled Confessions of a Mulatto Love Child, but its central character isn’t Bellina so much as it is her mom, Averil — a spirited and decidedly non-commonsensical person whose eccentricities are the fount for the show’s dynamic.
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Now running through May 6

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