Photos by John Flynn.

DYING CITY by Christopher Shinn.

Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly

When Peter (Burt Grinstead) unexpectedly shows up at Kelly’s (Laurie Okin) Lower Manhattan apartment, the mood is prickly and awkward. It’s understandable; Peter is the identical twin of her husband Craig, a hard as nails soldier who recently died in a military accident in the Gulf. But during their uncomfortable conversation, many questions tug at this pair, threatening to tear them down into an emotional undertow. Did Craig really die in an accident? Why is Kelly’s phone number unlisted and why is she obscuring evidence she may be moving out? Read more…

Photo by Robert Millard

DULCE ROSA - co-written by composer Lee Holdridge and librettist Richard Sparks, based on the short story by Isabel Allende.

Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA

A gorgeous new opera made its world premier last Friday at The Broad Stage, in a co-production with LA Opera, conducted by LA Opera’s general director Plácido Domingo. Performed in English with projected English supertitles, Dulce Rosa, was co-written by composer Lee Holdridge and librettist Richard Sparks, and is based on the short story by Chilean novelist Isabel Allende entitled “Una Venganza” (“An Act of Vengeance”). Uruguayan soprano María Eugenia Antúnez shines in the title role of a young woman who plans her revenge against a merciless attacker following the aftermath of a violent political uprising in her (unspecified) South American country.
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THE BALD SOPRANO and THE CHAIRS by Eugene Ionesco.

Shirle Gottlieb – The Gazette Newspapers

Written in 1948 shortly after World War II, “The Bald Soprano” was Eugene Ionesco’s first play. As the transplanted Romanian struggled to write in French (the language of his adopted country), he realized how banal everyday communication had become. He had to wonder–after all the tragedy Europe had gone through, how could conversation have become so superficial?
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Photo by Craig Schwartz

JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE by August Wilson.

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly

For this critic August Wilson has always been eloquent on the page, a bit wordy on the stage. This second in his 10-play chronicle of the African-American experience takes place in 1911, a bare 46 years after the Civil War ended. Wilson’s vibrant characters are searching — for love, money, personal freedom or healing and spiritual salvation. Read more…

Photo by Michael Lamont

FALLING FOR MAKE BELIEVE by Mark Saltzman

David Nichols – LA Times

Though the late Lorenz Hart stands near-peerless among Broadway lyricists, his tortured private life remains largely untitled. That is, until “Falling for Make Believe” at the Colony Theatre, wherein a grand cast and 21 classic songs propel Mark Saltzman’s musical study of Hart and his struggles with composer Richard Rodgers, the bottle and the closet.
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Photo by Kate Compton

COPS AND FRIENDS OF COPS by Ron Klier.

Dany Margolies – ArtsInLA

Paul stands by the light of a jukebox. The audience is intrigued, wondering who he is and why he’s there.
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PARADE – Libretto by Alfred Uhry, Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown.

Les Spindle – Edge on the Net

As daily news flashes are dominated by reports of crippling political divisiveness, accusations of governmental manipulation and heinous acts of violence and bigotry, the masterful 1998 musical “Parade” has never felt more pertinent.
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Photo by Craig Schwartz.

THE ROYALE by Marco Ramirez.

Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA

A ferocious cast giving their all in a powerful play—Marco Ramirez’ The Royale is a tremendously satisfying evening of theater, now playing at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Set in the world of boxing during the early 1900s, we meet a tough young fighter Jay “The Sport” Jackson (David St. Louis). He’s battled his way to the top of his game, having earned the title of black Heavyweight champion. But he feels he deserves the honor of undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, and to win that crown, he needs to face off against the reigning white heavyweight champion—an unheard of event in this racially divided era.
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MISS JULIE by August Strindberg.

Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA

Turn-of-the-century Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s naturalistic drama Miss Julie was remarkable in its day for its scandalous subject matter and frank dialogue exchanges. With its scathing commentary on the entrenched class system, passion and power, the play was banned in Britain for nearly fifty years after its publication. Now an updated version is currently playing at the Geffen Playhouse, as re-imagined by one of the most controversial playwrights of our day, Neil LaBute.
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Photographer, Jonathan Lewis.

A FLEA IN HER EAR by George Feydeau.

Shirle Gottlieb for Gazette Newspapers

When someone says the word “farce,” the first name that comes to mind is Feydeau.  Indeed, “farce” and Feydeau are synonymous.
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