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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 Bob Verini – Page 2

BREATHING ROOM at Greenway Court Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, October 9th, 2015
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Photo by Ed Krieger

Bob Verini -   Arts In LA

Greenway Court Theatre’s Breathing Room is a 70-minute metaphysical self-help session, scored to electric violin and synthesizer and incorporating quantum theory. It insists that people are debilitated by overwhelming technological change, and it recommends an extended time-out to develop a fresh perspective on the natural world.   Read more…

Myron Meisel – Stage Raw

Most properly a performance piece rather than either a play or a musical composition, Breathing Room could be seen as both an extension and a contraction of the talents of Mary Lou Newmark, who if naught else pursues assiduously her own muse.

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Now running through October 25.

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THE SOUND OF MUSIC at the Ahmanson Theatre

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Saturday, October 3rd, 2015
Photo by Matthew Murphy

Photo by Matthew Murphy

Dany Margolies  -  Arts In LA

First of all, this is indeed your father’s The Sound of Music, in its national tour now launching here. The stage version birthed the film, which retained much of the theatrical book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.  Read more…

Margaret Gray – LA Times

It’s a romantic story: A young woman, plucked from her arcane studies, reinvigorates a stagnant community with the power of her song.

I’m referring, of course, to 20-year-old Kerstin Anderson, who plays Maria von Trapp in the revival of “The Sound of Music” beginning a national tour at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Read more…

Pauline Adamek  – ArtsBeatLA

Heavenly harmonies, a singing nun and a passel of adorable children — family entertainment doesn’t get more wholesome than The Sound of Music, which opened this week at the Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center in Downtown LA. Read more…

Bob Verini  -   Variety

Too bad Pope Francis couldn’t have capped his U.S. visit with the revival of “The Sound of Music” at the Ahmanson Theater. The Holy Father would surely have been impressed…….Read more…

Now running through October 31.

 

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HIT THE WALL at the Los Angeles LGBT Center

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Monday, September 28th, 2015
Photo by Ken Sawyer

Photo by Ken Sawyer

Bob Verini  -   Stage Raw

After well-received productions in Chicago and Off-Broadway, Hit the Wall delivers nothing less than a gut punch in its West Coast debut at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Playwright Ike Holter calls his absorbing treatment of the 1969 Stonewall Inn riots a “remix” of scholarship, oral history and legend…..Read more…

David C. Nichols – LA Times

“No more watching.”

It’s Greenwich Village, circa 1969, and in the sweltering early hours of June 28 on Christopher Street, a Stonewall Inn police raid doesn’t go as usual, changing the course of history.   Read more…

Les Spindle –  Frontiers L.A.

The gay liberation movement started with a bang during the legendary clash between Greenwich Village police and rioting citizens in June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn on New York’s Christopher Street. Ike Holter’s panoramic play Hit the Wall, an electrifying telling of the event as a feverish dream, becomes a brilliantly evocative and immersive experience under the assured hands of director Ken Sawyer.

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Now running through October 25.

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THESE PAPER BULLETS! at the Geffen Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Sunday, September 20th, 2015
Photo by Michael Lamont

Photo by Michael Lamont

Bob Verini -   Arts In LA

About the best way to communicate my absolute, unalloyed pleasure in These Paper Bullets!, Rolin Jones’s Much Ado About Nothing adaptation at the Geffen, is to report that the smile that came over my face in the first five minutes stayed with me through the intermission, which I couldn’t wait to have end so that I could return for Act Two, and hung on back to my car and beyond.

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Jonas Schwartz -  TheaterMania

Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing revolves around lies, exaggerated love, and the ramifications of gossip. What other modern group faces these issues on such an international public stage as much as celebrities do?

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Dany Margolies – ShowMag

Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of enjoying this play?

At least subtitling this work “a modish ripoff” gives fair warning about playwright Rolin Jones’s script. It’s a rip-off, indeed, of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, in which the thirtysomething former flames Beatrice and Benedick forswear love, while the younger Hero and Claudio’s emotions catch fire before our eyes.

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Now running through October 18.

 

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BASKERVILLE at the Old Globe, San Diego

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, August 27th, 2015
Photo by Jim Cox

Photo by Jim Cox

Bob Verini  -   Variety

Playwright Ken Ludwig’s work thrives at regional theaters coast to coast, despite only intermittent New York appearances since 1989’s “Lend Me a Tenor” and his 1992 book for “Crazy For You.” His latest entertaining outing get its West Coast premiere at the Old Globe with a title announced in the program as “Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery By Ken Ludwig” — awkward billing that at least leaves no doubt as to who the marquee names are. Read more…

Now running through Sept. 6.

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OFF BOOK at the Secret Rose Theater

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, August 13th, 2015

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Bob Verini  -   Stage Raw

A modest variation on Noises Off with a hat tip to the musical Mystery of Edwin Drood, Khai Dattoli’s Off Book seemed to inspire considerable mirth in the small but indomitable crowd at the Secret Rose Theater on a recent Friday evening. I wish I could have shared more of that mirth, but I want to encourage the plucky young Falling Apples Theater Company because there’s an energy there that should be prized and refined.

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Now running through Aug. 22.

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BENT at the Mark Taper Forum

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, July 28th, 2015
Photo by Ed Krieger

Photo by Ed Krieger

Jonas Schwartz -  Arts In LA

Bent, playwright Martin Sherman’s revelatory 1979 play about the gay experience in Nazi concentration camps, receives an arresting production at the Mark Taper Forum. Moisés Kaufman’s direction and his stellar cast will leave audiences breathless. Read more…

Jenny Lower – LA Weekly

It’s difficult and rare to come across stories that can illuminate the Holocaust in unfamiliar ways. Bentis such a play, and at the Mark Taper Forum it’s getting its first major revival since its 1979 Broadway debut. Read more…

Bob Verini  -   Stage Raw

Martin Sherman’s Bent is one of those plays whose revival isn’t just welcome but necessary. As much as popular culture, literature and scholarship keep revisiting the causes, crimes and legacy of the Nazi era, somehow or other it seems as if interest keeps drying up in the dismal story of Germany’s appalling treatment of homosexuals. Read more…

Les Spindle –  Frontiers L.A.

In this electrifying revival, Martin Sherman‘s brilliant, Tony-nominated 1979 drama, which originally starred Richard Gere, has lost none of its pertinence.

em>Read more…

Now running through August 23.

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A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN at the Pasadena Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Monday, July 27th, 2015
Photo by Joan Marcus

Photo by Joan Marcus

Bob Verini -   Arts In LA

Members of the opening night audience at Pasadena Playhouse’s A Night With Janis Joplin were clearly primed for an intimate tête-à-tête with the titular musical legend, and judging by the two hours’ worth of spontaneous outbursts, they got what they came for. I counted five full or partial standing ovations, interspersed between cheers for every screeched song title, every familiar vamp, and every smokin’-hot guitar riff (there were a lot of them). Read more…

Myron Meisel – Stage Raw

When our daughters were still young, yet old enough, we determined to take them on their first trip abroad to Europe. There was some protest: Why travel to Venice, when they could go to the Venetian in Las Vegas, where their grandparents lived? Read more…

Now running through August 16.

 

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COME FROM AWAY at the La Jolla Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Sunday, June 21st, 2015
Photo by Kevin Berne

Photo by Kevin Berne

Bob Verini  -   Variety

Any qualms about the propriety or taste of a “9/11 musical” prove unfounded in the case of “Come From Away,” the superb new show premiering at La Jolla Playhouse. Out of the true story of a small Newfoundland community playing host to 38 commercial aircraft after the World Trade Center attacks, Canadians Irene Sankoff and David Hein have forged a moving, thoroughly entertaining tribute to international amity and the indomitable human spirit. Read more…

Now running through July 12.

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WATERFALL at the Pasadena Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Sunday, June 14th, 2015
Photo by Jim Cox

Photo by Jim Cox

Bob Verini -   Arts In LA

“Waterfall,” the new cross-cultural, lushly romantic tuner at the Pasadena Playhouse, has admirable ambition, visual splendor and patchy dramaturgy. Working from a Thai source novel, stage veterans Richard Maltby Jr. (words) and David Shire (music) seek to explore cultural identity in personal and political contexts, set against a complex historical backdrop. Read more…

Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA

It is pre–World War II Siam, and young student Noppon (Bie Sukrit) is fascinated with America and its culture. With the enthusiasm of youth at 22, he extolls its virtues to his friends, who are a bit more skeptical. Read more…

Jonas Schwartz -  TheaterMania

The Broadway-bound musical Waterfall could be the first collaboration on the Great White Way from the composing team of David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr. since Big in 1996. Collaborating with Thai director Tak Viravan and Tony-nominated choreographer and director Dan Knechtges, Maltby and Shire have written a score combining Thai influences and 1930s American jazz. Read more…

Now running through June 28.

 

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MURDER FOR TWO at the Geffen Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Monday, June 8th, 2015
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Photo by Joan Marcus

Bob Verini -   Arts In LA

Smack dab in the middle of our current, if not our ongoing, theatrical austerity crisis comes Murder for Two, a musical whodunit whose bold, albeit thrifty, conceit is to have all the roles played by two actors. Read more…

Jon Magaril – CurtainUp

This madcap musical mystery shoots a cap at any puffed-up pretension beyond a giddy desire to please. Its pleasures may be too daffy to knock you dead. But the barrage of blithe inventions should still liven up your day, qualifying it as entertainment in the second degree. Read more…

Now running through August 2.

 

 

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THIS IS A MAN’S WORLD at the Los Angeles Theatre Center

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Sunday, June 7th, 2015
Photo by Stephen Mihalek

Photo by Stephen Miihalek

Steven Leigh Morris  – LA Weekly

At 60 years old, the spry, lean, silver-haired Sal Lopez could well be Puck’s dad. And it could be argued that Lopez’s picaresque autobiographical one-man show, This Is a Man’s World at Los Angeles Theatre Center, is a memory play. That’s because it opens with Lopez screaming on a hospital bed wondering what he’s doing there. Read more…

Bob Verini –  Stage Raw

This Is a Man’s World, at the L.A. Theatre Center, begins with actor/writer Sal Lopez rearing up on a hospital bed to cry out in confused panic, “How did I get here? How did I get here?” Which, when you come to think of it, can hardly be bettered as a line kicking off an evening of personal reminiscence. Read more…

Now running through June 21.

 

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