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RUNAWAY HOME at the Fountain Theatre

(Photo by Ed Krieger)
September 22, 2017Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Two years after Hurricane Katrina, playwright Jeremy J. Kamps went to New Orleans as a volunteer, “gutting and mucking” waterlogged, mold-ridden and decaying houses. He was able to observe firsthand the endless problems that plagued local residents in their efforts to rebuild and restore their destroyed communities: government assistance that
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BIG NIGHT at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

Photo by Craig Schwartz
September 20, 2017Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Big Night is one of those sitcom-like stage comedies that tries super hard to tackle big themes but trips on the very glibness it purports to satirize. Read more… Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Big Night is a play with aspirations bigger than it can deliver on. The new work
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SEE/SAW at Civic Center Studios

(Photo by Aaron Champion)
September 20, 2017Terry Morgan  -  Stage Raw Theatre is an inherently magical experience. When done correctly, a stage, a set and some actors become a world. The audience offers up its suspension of disbelief, and art is created. The question is: Is a magic show inherently theatrical? In the talented hands of close-up card magic virtuoso Siegfried
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LA RAZON BLINDADA at 24th Street Theatre

Photo by Juan Tallo)
September 18, 2017Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw La Razon Blindada, Argentinian playwright Aristides Vargas’s soulful, songful play (performed in Spanish with English captions) now in revival at the 24th Street Theatre, concludes with a dedication “to those who find their dreams unjustly encircled by walls.” Read more… Now running through October 15  

CARMEN DISRUPTION at City Garage Theatre

(Photo by Paul M. Rubenstein)
September 17, 2017Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Playwright Simon Stephens (Heisenberg, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) deconstructs Bizet’s opera Carmen in an attempt to illuminate contemporary issues of loneliness, isolation and all-around anomie. Now running through October 15

DAYTONA at Rogue Machine Theatre at the MET

(Photo by John Perrin Flynn)
September 17, 2017Paul Birchall  – Stage Raw Playwright Oliver Cotton’s elegiac and unexpectedly thrilling drama carries the weight of the world on its shoulders — not just the pain and sadness of growing older, or of lost or squandered love, but the legacy of the Holocaust itself. Read more… Now running through October 30

ONCE at South Coast Repertory

(Photo by Jordan Kubat)
September 14, 2017Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Mounting the first regional production of a show that recently played on Broadway puts the creative team between a rock and a hard place: Is it better to do a new take on the material, or is it better to emulate the original production? Read more… Now running through September
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Archive for Neal Weaver – Page 2

DOGFIGHT at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, June 6th, 2017

DOGFIGHT - 6

Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

The composing team of Benji Pasek and Justin Paul are very hot right now having just won an Academy Award for their song in the film La La Land. Read more…

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

This new musical, with book by Peter Duchan and music and lyrics by the team that produced La La Land, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, is based on the movie Dogfight, from a script by Bob Comfort. Superficially, it resembles the 1944 musical On the Town…. Read more…

Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen

These days, it seems like nearly every musical was adapted from a movie. Some of my favorite stage musicals began their lives as films—Once, Legally Blonde, and Thoroughly Modern Millie come to mind. Sometimes, however, you can’t help but wonder—why that movie? Read more…

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly

Dogfight the musical (music and lyrics by La La Land creators Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, book by Peter Duchan) is one of those period pieces that make the good old days appear not so good after all — kind of like the musical itself. Read more…

Now running through June 25

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SEPARATE TABLES at Theatre 40

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, May 26th, 2017
Photo by Ed Krieger

Photo by Ed Krieger

Neal Weaver  – Arts In LA 

In the 1940s and 50s, British playwright Terrence Rattigan was considered an important playwright, scoring successes in both England and the U.S. with The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, Separate Tables, and other works.     Read more…

Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

“Loneliness is a terrible thing, don’t you agree.” That sentiment is expressed by one of the lonely characters in British playwright Terence Rattigan’s Separate Tables, a collection of two one-act plays set at the Beauregard Hotel in Bournemouth, England….Read more…

Now running through June 18

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HELLO AGAIN at Chromolume Theatre at the Attic

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, May 19th, 2017
(Photo by James Esposito)

(Photo by James Esposito)

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

This long one-act by Michael John LaChiusa (The Wild Party) is a musical update of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1900 play La Ronde which, shocking for its time, featured 10 interconnected sexual encounters. The structure and the characters’ names are Schnitzler’s, though the Young Thing has been transformed from female to male to embrace a broader sexual spectrum. Read more…

Now running through May 28

 

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LUCKY STIFF at Actors Co-op

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Thursday, May 18th, 2017
Michael Lamont

Michael Lamont

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

It’s hard to imagine a more far-fetched plot than the one that animates this zany musical by Lynn Ahren (book and lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (music), based on The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo by Michael Butterworth.    Read more…

Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

Lucky Stiff is a 1988 musical farce with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. It was the team’s first collaboration…..Read more…

Frances Baum Nicholson – The Daily News

In 1988, the fledgling duo of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty produced their first musical: “Lucky Stiff.” The show is a silly send-up of the mystery/suspense genre, and based loosely on the 1983 book “The Man Who Broke Monte Carlo.” Read more…

Now running through June 18

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KISS at the Odyssey Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2017

Kiss_8

Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

I have always been a proponent of good political theatre, not agitprop theatre such as written by Italian playwright Dario Fo. I prefer political writing that is more balanced like the great teleplays that David E. Kelley wrote for L.A. Law…Read more…

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón sets his play in the apartment of a young woman named Hadeel (Kristin Couture), who is hosting a soap-opera watching party for her friends. Read more…

Photo by Enci Box

Photo by Enci Box

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly

In Kiss, directed by Bart DeLorenzo at the Odyssey Theatre, Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón explores the gap (one might say chasm) in perspective between people who live in a war-free society (ourselves, at least for now), and those trapped in the horrors of war who are subject to atrocities committed by vile men, like Syria’s Assad. Read more…

Dany Margolies  -  Arts In LA

Critics have been asked to not give away the plot of this play. Out of respect to the theater, the work’s playwright, and its director, most of us won’t. But good luck to anyone who tries to describe the work and the potent sensations it induces. Read more…

Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen

Both in theater and in life, things are often not what they seem to be. The power of perspective is a strong influence in Kiss, a play by Guillermo Calderón currently in its west coast premiere at the Odyssey Theatre. Read more…

Now running through June 18

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LONE STAR at the Zephyr Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, April 28th, 2017
Photo by Elephant Stageworks)

Photo by Elephant Stageworks)

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

In James McClure’s one-act comedy, three men hang out in the parking lot at Angel’s Bar in Maynard Texas in 1981. Roy (Christopher Jordan) is a Vietnam vet. Before he went off to war, he was a kind of local hero, famous for his 1959 pink convertible Thunderbird and his way with women. Read more…

Now running through May 7

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MARTHA at the Whitefire Theatre

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Friday, April 21st, 2017
(Photo by Charles Dougherty)

(Photo by Charles Dougherty)

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

Modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham has become an almost mythical figure. She was remarkably prolific, creating 181 dances over the course of her career and dancing into her 70s (though sometimes she lurched a bit during her later years). Read more…

Now running through May 28

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LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD’S HOME FOR UNWED MOTHERS at the Skylight Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Saturday, April 15th, 2017
Photo by Ed Krieger

Photo by Ed Krieger

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

This is not the first play to deal with the Catholic Church’s former barbarous and hypocritical treatment of unwed mothers, but playwright Louisa Hill gives the subject urgent and harrowing reality. Read more…

Now running through May 14

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THE INVENTOR AND THE ESCORT at the Lounge Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, April 6th, 2017
Photo by Keenan Henson

Photo by Keenan Henson

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

Jeffrey (Jaret Sacrey) is an eccentric but moderately successful inventor of exotic and improbable sex-toys who, though he operates on the fringe of the sex industry, freely admits he’s got no game. Read more…

Now running through April 23

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CAT’S PAW at Actors’ Co-op

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, March 30th, 2017
Photo by Lindsay Schnebley

Photo by Lindsay Schnebley

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

An obscure warehouse in Washington, D.C. is the headquarters of a shadowy organization that claims to be devoted to the preservation of the planet. The leader and mastermind of the group is the flamboyant and self-dramatizing Victor (Sean McHugh). Read more…

Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

Playwright William Mastrosimone is best known for his 1982 off-Broadway play Extremities about a rape victim and her vendetta of revenge against her rapist. Read more…

 

Now running through April 30

 

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BUILDING THE WALL at the Fountain Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, March 23rd, 2017
Photo by Ed Krieger

Photo by Ed Krieger

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

Robert Schenkkan’s play, set in 2019, is a dystopian vision of what life in Trump-land might be like two years hence.

In a prison meeting room, a black woman, Gloria (Judith Moreland) is interviewing Rick (Bo Foxworth), a white prisoner. She offers him a chance to tell his side of the story. But the two are wary of each other. At first, he refuses to cooperate with her, but when she prepares to leave, he relents. Read more…

Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main

Prolific playwright Robert Schenkkan won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for his series of one-acts, The Kentucky Cycle, and a 2014 Tony Award for Best Play for All the Way, about the efforts of Lyndon Baines Johnson to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He wrote Building the Wall in response to the election of Donald Trump. Read more…

Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze

Unlike other plays that are about a real-life person but speak metaphorically or use a pseudonym, “Building the Wall” refers to Donald Trump by name and by policy. Read more…

Now running through May 21

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AT HOME AT THE ZOO at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, March 16th, 2017
Zoo Story

Photo by Kevin Parry

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

As the story goes, someone — a friend, a roommate or a lover — said to Mr. Albee, “Edward, you will be thirty years old tomorrow, and you don’t have a damn thing to show for it.” Stung by this comment, Albee sat down and, overnight, wrote a long one-act about a volatile encounter between two men — a complacent middle class guy named Peter, and an impoverished eccentric named Jerry, on a bench in Central Park. Read more…

Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen

“Do you want to know what happened at the zoo?” If you do, make your way to the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, home to the new Deaf West production of Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo—although be warned, the actual answer to that question is far from the point of the piece. Read more…

Now running through April 2

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