Photo by Henry DiRocco/SCR.
How to Write a New Book for the Bible by Bill Cain.
Melinda Schupmann – ArtsInLA.com
Narrator Bill (Tyler Pierce) enters with a notebook in hand and announces: “First rule of writing? Write what you know. If writers stuck to it, there would be no books.” On that note, over time, we learn that Bill is a writer, a priest, and, ultimately, a caregiver for his dying mother. Family, we find out, is where we learn what we know. Read more…
Photo by Alyssa Brennan.
42nd Street by Mark Bramble, Michael Stewart, Harry Warren and Al Dubin.
David C. Nicols – L.A. Times
Audiences craving unbridled pizazz should race to 42nd Street at the Carpenter Center in Long Beach. Musical Theatre West opens its 60th season with the indestructible backstager, and scores a toe-tapping triumph. Read more…
Shirle Gottlieb – Gazette Newspapers
If you’re a musical theater buff, you’re undoubtedly acquainted with 42nd Street. Based on one of Busby Berkeley’s inimitable movies, it tells the story of Peggy Sawyer –a starry-eyed, gifted, wanna’ be performer who goes to New York during the Depression to audition for a new musical. Read more…
Melinda Schupmann – ArtsInLA.com
Ever since 1934 when Ruby Keeler sweetly but awkwardly tapped her way into America’s collective heart, this show has been a feel-good offering, and Musical Theatre West has mounted it with flash and dazzle. With more than a little nod to Busby Berkeley, director-choreographer Jon Engstrom channels those extravagant floor patterns and over-the-top production numbers to give an audience a lot to smile at. Read more…
Photo by Lindsay Schnebly.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.
Melinda Schupmann – ArtsInLA.com
Many consider Dame Agatha Christie the finest mystery writer of all time. Whether you agree, it can certainly be said that her work And Then There Were None has been one of the most successful play adaptations from a mystery novel to date. A clever if not grim story, Christie modified it for the stage in 1943 with a lighter tone and more palatable ending than the one in her original book. Read more…
Photo by Craig Schwartz.
Fraternity by Jeff Stetson.
Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly
Jeff Stetson’s all-male political drama Fraternity, written 25 years ago, has a prescient power to it. Set in Birmingham, Ala., the storyline presents a prosperous group of black men, members of a private gentleman’s club, and the tragic history that shaped each of their lives. A shocking bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in their hometown resulted in the death of four little black girls, accelerating the civil rights movement. Read more…
Bob Verini – Variety
The title of Ebony Repertory’s latest offering, Fraternity, doesn’t just refer to the exclusive men’s club at which Birmingham’s fat cats of color wheel and deal while the Reagan boom years wind down. It also conjures up the brotherhood ideal to which those same men once swore allegiance, back when they were desegregating lunch counters and battling for the common good. Jeff Stetson’s sprawling, sometimes awkward, always provocative work tackles the great subject of generational neglect. Read more…
Melinda Schupmann – ArtsInLA.com
Real-life events often beget theatrical productions that bring to light the larger picture surrounding those happenings. In playwright Jeff Stetson’s script, the terrorist bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., Baptist church in which four young girls died figures in a complex story about politics and race. Read more…
Photo by Michael Lamont.
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage.
Terry Morgan – LAist.com
Lynn Nottage’s play, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, is more intriguing as a concept than a reality. It looks at the marginalization of African-American actors in the twentieth century, an undeniably interesting subject, but then stumbles in multiple ways. The fault, unfortunately, is in the writing, and the strong cast in the new production at the Geffen Playhouse isn’t able to overcome this problem. Read more…
David C. Nichols – Backstage
In By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, playwright Lynn Nottage, a 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for Ruined, again turns her incisive eye on the objectification of African-American women. The West Coast premiere of her 2011 satire of racial identity in the Hollywood studio system is an often enjoyable fusion of wry comedy and gritty comment, at least until polemic overtakes the proceedings. Read more…
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA
Lynn Nottage’s play By The Way, Meet Vera Stark is light years apart from her recently staged play (also at the Geffen) entitled Ruined, which was a potent portrayal of unspeakable tragedy in war-torn Congo. Yet the main focus of this play is once again the plight of black women, to which Nottage gives thoughtful examination coupled with wry commentary. Ostensibly a comedy, this time her primary setting is the Hollywood studio system during the 1930s. We gain an unusual insight into the close friendship between two actors. One – Gloria (Amanda Detmer) – is white, privileged and desperate for the lead role in an upcoming Southern saga. The other – Vera (Sanaa Lathan) – is black and also desperate for a good movie role – any role. Unfortunately for a ‘colored girl,’ the only screen roles available are menial ones such as maids and mammies. Read more…
Melinda Schupmann – ArtsInLA.com
Early in Hollywood’s heyday, directors discovered that caricatured black actors played well in films, especially comedies, and the actors, desperate for work, acquiesced. Male stereotypes were born: wide-eyed, lazy, superstitious, subservient characters who kowtowed to their superiors (read that white). Among the actors were Willie Best, Mantan Moreland, and Stepin Fetchit, the most highly paid stock actors in the genre. Read more…
Co-hosts Lesli Margherita and Jason Graae. Photo by Ed Krieger.
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle has announced the winners and special awards for excellence in Los Angeles and Orange County theater for the year 2011.
You can now follow the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle on twitter via @LADramaCC.
The 43rd Annual Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards ceremony took place Monday, March 19, 2012 at A Noise Within in Pasadena, and was co-hosted by Lesli Margherita and Jason Graae.
The award recipients for the 2011 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards are as follows: