Photo courtesy of Chance Theatre
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
Love, marriage, birth, and death are fodder for Dan LeFranc’s fast-paced narrative spotlighting a couple who meet, marry, and produce several generations in the space of 90 minutes.Read more…
Now running through May 22
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
George Bernard Shaw’s’s turn of the 20th century rom-com, had a rocky start. Set to debut in 1897, it failed to make it to the stage that year, as actors struggled with the material and one leading lady quit, complaining the comedy had neither enough laughs nor enough exits. Not until 8 years later, in 1905, after Shaw had had it published in an anthology, did the piece have its first full run. Read more…
David C. Nichols – LA Times
This family is no place for a father.” It’s an emphatic statement of the sober argument that lies at the larky heart of “You Never Can Tell” at A Noise Within theater in Pasadena. Read more…
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
In his early career, George Bernard Shaw wrote two sets of plays that he labeled Plays Unpleasant (Widower’s Houses, The Philanderer, Mrs. Warren’s Profession ) and Plays Pleasant (Arms and the Man, Candida, You Never Can Tell). Read more…
Now running through May 15
Photo by Ed Krieger
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
The U.S. premiering Act 3 is the story of a couple of a certain age who have been together for nearly 13 years without benefit of marriage. They have been married before, but not to each other. Things are getting monotonous and stale, so something needs to happen to liven up the action. Read more…
Now running through January 30
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
Playwright John Bishop, a longtime member of New York’s Circle Repertory Theatre, wrote a number of plays and screenplays, among them this comic spoof of manor house murder mysteries. It follows in the tradition of screwball comedies popular in the 1930s and ’40s. Read more…
Now running through October 18.
Photo by Ron Sossi
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
When Awake and Sing! was produced in 1935, it was a transformative experience for theatergoers. Playwright Clifford Odets was an early member of the Group Theatre in New York, a lab for Stanislavski’s system of acting with a shared commitment among the collective for social change through theater. Read more…
Now running through November 29.
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
Influenced by the popular commedia dell’arte of the 16th century, Carlo Goldoni’s 18th century archetypal The Servant of Two Masters makes a perfect model for Richard Bean’s British update of a wily servant’s service to two bosses in 1963 Brighton. Populated by some of the stock characters of the form, it is two and a half hours of pratfalls, comic timing, and improbable situations designed for maximum laughs. Read more
Terry Morgan - Stage Raw
Richard Bean’s version of Carlo Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters updates the action to the Swinging Sixties in England, complete with big hair and a skiffle band. As with most commedia, the humor is broad and the characters are archetypes, but it’s undeniably funny. Read more…
Photo by Ed Krieger
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
When Stars Align is a novel by Carole Eglash-Kosoff, chronicling conflicts between advantaged whites and black slaves in the Civil War–era South. Now adapted into a play (by the author, with co-writer and director John Henry Davis) spanning many years, it blends history with the story of young black Thaddeus (Jason Woods) and the daughter of a plantation owner, Amy (Haley McHugh), who form a friendship in a time when to do so would be death to Thaddeus.
Now running through Oct. 4.
Photo by Michael Lamont
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
Media exposure to the tumult in evangelical mega-churches brought about by the clash of money, power, and ego makes David Rambo’s 1999 cautionary tale a familiar story to modern audiences. The examination of faith, conscience, and ambition is great fodder for drama. Read more…
Les Spindle – Frontiers L.A.
Writer-director David Rambo‘s seriocomic 1999 play is about men of the cloth who experience personal soul-searching amid institutional power struggles, and this production surpasses the Geffen Playhouse’s 2002 L.A.-premiere rendition. Read more…
Margaret Gray – LA Times
The ensconced veteran reluctant to give up the spotlight. The impatient successor nipping at his heels. This scenario has launched plots from “Paradise Lost” to “The Late Shift.” Read more…
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Power can be a heady drug – and when mixed with religion even headier still. For example, can a man who perceives himself as a conduit for God’s grace easily relinquish that identity? Maybe not. Read more…
Photo by Michael Lamont
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
In an era when most musical groups are helmed by young singers with a broad appeal, barbershop quartets speak to an older demographic and are usually populated by, as the cast reminds us, old white men. In this story, three men who have sung together for nearly 30 years are looking for a replacement for their quartet member who has recently died. Read more…
Now running through August 23.
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.
Photo by Lindsay Schnebly
Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days has been made into films, most notably twice: in 1956 in Mike Todd’s celebrity-studded epic with David Niven and Cantinflas, and in Disney’s 2004 version with Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan. The novel has been adapted for the theater several times, along with this version by Mark Brown in 2001. Even Verne, however could not have imagined the wildly enterprising comedic touches that could be applied to his action-adventure novel. Read more...
David C. Nichols – LA Times
Rampant theatricality and audience regard traverses “Around the World in 80 Days” at the Actors Co-op. Read more…
Now running through June 14.
Photo by Issac James
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA
Though the original production of Side Show on Broadway closed after only 91 performances in 1997, in subsequent years it has been revived and modified from its original form. The original book and lyrics were created by Bill Russell with music by Henry Krieger. As a dramatic project, it falls far from traditional musicals in topic and execution. Read more…
Now running through May 10,