Kelly Stuart
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Part memory play, part social drama, Janine Salinas Schoenberg’s Las Mujeres Del Mar (Women of the Sea) tells the story of three generations of Mexican-American women who strive to love and support each other despite their past wounds and resentments.
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Now running through October 14
Craig Schwartz
Terry Morgan - Stage Raw
Ethan Coen is one of the greatest screenwriters of the past 50 years, with some of his works — Miller’s Crossing, Fargo and The Big Lebowski — standing as masterworks of the form. He’s also an accomplished short story author and poet, as attested to by Gates of Eden and The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way, respectively. So, it’s disappointing to report that his new show at the Taper, A Play Is a Poem, is at best a mildly amusing collection of four short plays, with an implacably bad, tough-to-endure one-act positioned right at the center.
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Now running through October 13
Michael C. Palma
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
Afong Moy was 14 years old when she was sold by her father and brought to New York City by traders Nathaniel and Frederick Carne and put on display in their museum. Admission was originally 25 cents (10 cents for children) but, because of the high volume of interest, the price was soon raised to 50 cents.
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Now running through September 29
Michael C. Palma
Lovell Estell III — Stage Raw
Gertrude Stein was a poet, novelist, essayist and playwright who is generally regarded as one of the more influential female writers of the 20th century. Her style was anything but conventional, and we have her to thank for such pithy expressions as “a rose is a rose is a rose” and “there is no there there.”
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Now running through November 10
Jessica Sherman
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
Herman Webster Mudgett AKA Dr. Henry Howard Holmes AKA H.H. Holmes is a name little known today. Holmes was one of the first and most prolific serial killers in American history.
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Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Numerous books have been written about H. H. Holmes, a 19thcentury serial killer and con man who was ultimately executed for the murder of his accomplice,Benjamin Pitezel, in 1896. Interrogated by police, Holmes claimed to have killed 27 people, including three of Pitezel’s five children, whom he did away with so he could claim their insurance money.
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Now running through November 2
Chris Whitaker
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen
Jodi Isaac (Idina Menzel) is feeling insecure. On paper, there’s no reason she should be—she is a successful lawyer at a top firm in Los Angeles, she has more or less successfully raised two young adult sons, and her father is a fashion retail mogul. But her husband recently left her for another woman—an affair she discovered when she caught them together, in her bed
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Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw
It’s tempting to think that what playwright Joshua Harmon does is easy. His way with language seems effortless, easily conveying characters’ backstories without feeling obviously expository. This high quality and ease of storytelling can be seen in this and his other plays (including Bad Jews and Significant Other, both of which appeared at the Geffen in previous seasons).
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
Beauty is skin deep. Families are difficult. Love is more difficult. Botox for everyone! Would you sleep on sheets made of human skin? What is the proper etiquette for sitting bare-assed on the sofa? Do Rolexes really cost nearly half a million dollars?
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Now running through October 12
Brandon Simmoneau
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen
What does intimacy look like after two people have been forever changed by a devastating tragedy? The Solid Life of Sugar Water, a play by Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) currently in its US premiere at Deaf West Theatre in Los Angeles, follows a young couple as they attempt to connect sexually for the first time after the stillbirth of their child.
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Margaret Gray – LA Times
There’s a reason so many love stories end with the wedding. What happens later — the daily intimacy of marriage itself, with its late-night misunderstandings and morning breath — is often less picturesque.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
British playwright Jack Thorne’s two-hander The Solid Life of Sugar Water is about a couple learning to recover from a horrific experience.
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Now running through October 13
Craig Schwartz
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Everyone is wounded — that’s the overarching theme of The Heal, writer/director Aaron Posner’s ironical, imaginative play about living with pain and choosing to do the right thing even if you’re unclear just what that thing might be.
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Now running through September 28
Matthew Murphy
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen
In his sixth one-man show, Tony winner John Leguizamo is back on stage with Latin History for Morons, a timely and engaging piece that is part comedy special, part solo revue, and part poignant academic lesson.
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Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw
John Leguizamo has a remarkable knack for drawing an audience in and making them feel comfortable immediately. Before you realize you’re even watching a one-man show, you’re well into it, you’ve unknowingly taken a leap of faith and you’re trusting this man to guide you through the next two hours.
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Now running through October 20
Emma Latimer
Lovell Estell III — Stage Raw
Stephen Adly Guirgis has a knack for scripting characters that “stick” with you, and a keen ear for dialogue that is, by turns, wrenching and humorous. In this dramedy, Guigis creates a gallery of raucous misfits who are brought together by the death of a beloved (and feared) mentor, teacher and friend.
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Now running through September 15
Darrett Sanders
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen
When the lights rise on Handjob, a play by Erik Patterson currently in its world premiere at the Echo Theater Company in Los Angeles, we meet Keith (Steven Culp). Keith is a gay, white writer, and he has hired Eddie (Michael Rishawn), a younger black man, to provide a service that at first glance seems sexual in nature. But it turns out Keith has simply hired Eddie to clean his apartment—while shirtless.
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Terry Morgan - Stage Raw
Erik Patterson’s new play, Handjob, aims to be provocative, and it succeeds in its goal. While the show features the explicit depiction of a sexual act (I bet you can guess which one), the playwright is going after bigger themes than sex alone.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
A gay writer hires a “shirtless cleaner” and thereby begins Eric Patterson’s World Premiere comedy Handjob at Echo Theater Company at the Atwater Village Theatre.
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Now running through October 21
Darrett Sanders
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
In The Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde’s title character makes a Faustian pact to preserve his beauty at the price of his soul, transitioning, in the course of the narrative, from a naïve, guilt-free youth to a cruel and vicious narcissist. The book speaks to the vanity of vanity itself, the folly of prizing superficial appearances over stolid virtues like honesty and kindness.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
There have been many film and stage adaptations of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray since its publication in 1890. Theatre of NOTE is currently presenting the World Premiere of Jacqueline Wright’s Driving Wilde. The playwright explains the work in her Program Note as thus -
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Now running through September 21