September 28, 2022Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw LaShea Delaney’s drama, Moniece Clark is about the media’s exploitation of crimes against women and the tendency of law enforcement to downplay those crimes if the victim is a woman of color. You don’t have to look far to uncover the deplorable statistics behind those concerns, to be found in
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September 26, 2022Terry Morgan – ArtsBeat LA In my experience, ninety percent of the time that there’s an issue with a theatrical production, the problem is the play itself. It’s surprisingly rare for the main trouble to be with the acting or direction or design. And so it is with Samuel D. Hunter’s A Great Wilderness. I’ve
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September 23, 2022Don Shirley – Angeles Stage ‘Animal Farm’. ‘Sanctuary City’. ‘Everybody.’ ‘Oedipus.’ ‘Jagged Little Pill.’ ‘Oklahoma!’ How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the ‘Farm’, after they’ve seen…Pasadena? Yes, I’m paraphrasing the lyrics of an ancient pop song to make the point that Pasadena and nearby neighborhoods constitute the hottest cluster of locally-produced theater right now.
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September 21, 2022Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Babe, Jessica Goldberg’s incisive, skillfully wrought play about sexual harassment (and what should or should not be deemed politically correct), is so titled because, in the course of the narrative, it’s applied, rather casually, to Abigail (Julie Dretzin), one of the playwright’s four exceedingly well-drawn characters. Read more… Katie Buenneke
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September 19, 2022Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Before gaining real star power with her roles as Elphaba in Wicked and the voice of Elsa in Disney’s animated Frozen, Idina Menzel and her Rent co-star Taye Diggs led the cast of Andrew Lippa’s off-Broadway The Wild Party. Also, earlier in 2005 in Glendale and Long Beach, Musical
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September 19, 2022Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw Composer-lyricists Rodgers and Hammerstein were Jewish immigrants to New York and understood very well both the American pressures of assimilation and the spurning of outsiders that culminates in the sacrifice of those who don’t belong. (The stream of victims is endless and ever-changing.) Their musical Oklahoma! opened on Broadway
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September 19, 2022Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has been one of the most promising new playwrights of the past decade. His plays are widely produced and he’s been a Pulitzer finalist twice. I’ve loved about half (Neighbors and Gloria) of the five shows of his I’ve seen, was mildly entertained by another (Appropriate) and underwhelmed
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