Johnna Adams :: LA Drama Critics Circle

BEST OF BEST OF THIS WEEK THIS WEEK, Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre

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

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

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

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 Johnna Adams

SANS MERCI at the Garage Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)

Thursday, April 10th, 2014

Photo by FreshFrameFoto.com

Bob Verini - Arts In LA

Johnna Adams’s Gidion’s Knot, as presented by the Furious Theater Company in Pasadena, was one of the more scintillating local attractions of 2013. It brought together two women under great strain—a mother whose little boy had committed suicide, and the teacher charged with looking out for him—and in the course of 90 gripping minutes led them into solving a mystery and reaching an epiphany.

Adams’s new play is another confrontation between women in extremis: Read more…

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Categories : Reviews

Tags : ArtsInLA, Bob Verini, Garage Theatre, Johnna Adams, Sans Merci

GIDION’S KNOT at the Pasadena Playhouse/Carrie Hamilton Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)

Thursday, November 7th, 2013

Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly

Aaron Francis’ bold scenic design has the audience seated in school desks for Gidion’s Knot, getting you into the right frame of mind for Johnna Adams’ intense one-act showdown between a fifth-grade teacher and a parent. Corryn (Vonessa Martin) shows up for a teacher-parent conference, having been summoned a few days earlier by Miss Clark (Paula Cale Lisbe) after she inexplicably suspended Corryn’s son, Gidion.

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Sharon Perlmutter - Talkin’ Broadway

Furious is back and as furious as ever. Let the people rejoice! Well, the people who love dark, confrontational theatre that takes them for a hell of a ride and leaves them drained afterward—let them rejoice. Furious is back in residence at Pasadena Playhouse’s Carrie Hamilton Theatre, and I’m happy to report that the company’s temporary absence hasn’t dulled its edge.