Matthew Gilmore
Terry Morgan - Stage Raw
Watching this excellent current revival of Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias at Actors Co-op, I was reminded yet again of the power of a strong ensemble. Solo shows and two-handers certainly have their place, but there is something about the interaction among a group of talented actors, where many things combine to become one greater thing, that seems to me to be the very heart of whatever magic theater creates.
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Now running through May 5
Zadran Wali
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Playwright Michael Weller’s messy marital drama transpires over the course of one night, during which time a married couple unleash all the frustration, disappointment and unrequited passion they’ve kept bottled inside for 18 long years.
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Now running through April 7
Son of Semele
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
When Albert Einstein died of a brain aneurysm at Princeton Hospital in 1955, the pathologist who performed the autopsy ended up stealing Einstein’s brain. Read more…
Now running through April 7
Chris Whitaker
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
It’s hard to imagine a more painful life event than the death of a child — especially when that child is shot by police and the perpetrator goes free. That almost unbearable grief that a mother must feel is creatively addressed in Black Super Hero Magic Mama, Inda Craig-Galván’s latest play….
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Now running through April 14
Karianne Flaathen
Lovell Estell III — Stage Raw
Shakespeare’s best plays are a rich source of complex, conflicted characters and readily lend themselves to creative, critical exploration or inspired adaptations. Of course, there are always risks when treading the path of the unconventional, but there are also creative successes. Director Matthew Leavitt’s updated take on the Bard’s famous tragedy, though far from perfect, offers some enjoyable quirks and surprises.
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Now running through March 31
Darrett Sanders
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen
“We are the Wolves. We are the Wolves,” a group of teenage girls chants, each repetition of the phrase growing in both volume and urgency. The Wolves are a high school indoor soccer team, and the subject of Sarah DeLappe’s play of the same name currently in its west coast premiere at the Echo Theater Company. Read more…
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw
It’s both remarkable and unnerving when a writer, director, and cast work in tandem so effectively that you leave the theater feeling like you know the characters personally. It’s a rare magic, currently happening in Atwater Village, where Echo Theater Company is staging Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves. Read more…
Now running through April 22
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen
Lackawanna Blues, Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s autobiographical solo show, has been on quite a journey since it first premiered at the Public Theater in New York in 2001. After that first production, which won a special citation Obie Award, it played at multiple regional theaters across the United States before being adapted into an HBO movie in 2005.
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Now running through April 21
Jordan Kubat/SCR
Margaret Gray – LA Times
Every once in a while we experience a flare-up of puzzlement about why so few women pursue careers in math and science — even now, despite progress in gender equality.
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Now running through March 24
Craig Schwartz
Dany Margolies – The Daily News
If you had a perfectly happy childhood with ideal parents, good for you. Tennessee Williams did not, and this led to some of literature’s most-affecting, most-enduring plays.
Many in his audiences didn’t, either, and that’s why we keep coming back to his classics, particularly “The Glass Menagerie.” Indeed, its title refers to a collection of tiny toy animals on display but perhaps also to the glassiest of menageries: our families.
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Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review
One of the seminal works of American theatrical literature is Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” the play which vaulted him to fame. It was in my high school English textbook, in the equivalent for that preliminary English course everyone has to take in college, and one of the great plays studied in my theater lit course.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
When a group of theatre critics discuss the greatest American playwrights, three names are usually mentioned the most—Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.
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Now running through April 26
Craig Schwartz
Terry Morgan - Stage Raw
Theatrically, Los Angeles is blessed in many ways, and one of them is the presence of Native Voices at the Autry, the only Equity theatre company devoted exclusively to developing and producing new works from Native American, Alaska Native and First Nations playwrights. Their shows are often specific and insightful in a way no other theatre company can be — yet at the same time the themes in their work have a universal resonance.
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Now running through March 24
Gina Long
Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review
In Mitch Albom’s memoir “Tuesdays with Morrie: an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson,” Albom details his mid-life reconnection with a favorite Brandeis sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz.
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Now running through March 31
Dean Cechvala
Margaret Gray – LA Times
Ask any real estate agent: People love a view. We’ll go out of our way — and far above asking price — for an elevated perch with a sweeping panorama. A view makes us feel at peace and in control. Maybe it’s the same rush our forebears got when they surveyed their hard-won territory from the treetops.
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Now running through March 24