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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 Playwrights’ Arena

Barding in the park, after dark

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Monday, August 29th, 2022
Kalean Ung and Sam Breen in Macbeth. Photo by Grettel Cortes.

Kalean Ung and Sam Breen in Macbeth. Photo by Grettel Cortes.

Don Shirley – Angeles Stage

‘Macbeth’ in Griffith Park, ‘Comedy’ in Irvine. CTG’s month of emulating Netflix. ‘Beach People,’ ‘Lavender Men,’ ‘Valley Song.’ Jason Alexander charts his Abby road.

Have you savored Shakespeare in the park this summer? This coming week might be the best possible moment for this annual ritual, as well as one of the last such opportunities. A daytime heat wave is expected this week, so you might not even need that extra wrap that you take, for example, to Topanga in June.

I’m recommending two productions far from Topanga — suiting different moods and, perhaps, with different ticket availability. If you want something wicked and wild, go to a dell in Griffith Park for Independent Shakespeare Company’s “Macbeth.” If you want something whimsical and witty, try the errrantly spelled “Comedy of Errrorrs” at New Swan Shakespeare Festival in Irvine. Read more…

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LAVENDER MEN at Skylight Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, August 18th, 2022
Pete Ploszek, Alex Esola, and Roger Q. Mason, Photo by Jenny Graham

Pete Ploszek, Alex Esola, and Roger Q. Mason, Photo by Jenny Graham

Jonas Schwartz-Owen – Theatermania

Roger Q. Mason burns the history books with Lavender Men, a world premiere fantasia that re-envisions the passions of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. The play, produced by Playwrights’ Arena & Skylight Theatre Company at the Skylight, is a revolutionary response to a country focused on keeping its constituents disenfranchised and invisible. As actor and writer, Mason is a force of nature, ready to bring all pillars of repressive society crashing down. Read more…

Tracey Paleo – BroadwayWorld

After years of development at SKYLAB*, readings in Los Angeles and at New York’s Circle in the Square, and a two-year setback by the coronavirus, LAVENDER MEN written by Roger Q. Mason (they/them), directed by Lovell Holder, has finally made its world premiere. As a high bar for gender non-conforming people, it is a shining star of storytelling. As a commentary on the life of an American icon, it is slightly hyperbolic although not entirely unsubstantiated according to whichever modern essays you might be reading about the subject matter. The term “lavender men”, in fact, is not an original concept. Read more...

Now through September 4

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MARCH at The Garage at the LGBT Center

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, October 28th, 2020
Kelly Stuart

Kelly Stuart

Dana Martin– Stage Raw

LA’s LGBT Center and Playwrights’ Area have gone (COVID compliantly) rogue by staging high stakes drama in the LGBT Center parking garage. (The audience watches the action from within their cars, sound broadcast through a pre-set FM radio station.) March, conceived and directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera and written by MJ Brown, Amir Levi, Coretta Monk, Alex Budin, Chad Christopher, Matthew Clark, Brandon English, MARDOZA, Jon Lawrence Rivera, Roland Ruiz and Nick Salome, is high stakes melodrama with a lot of heart.
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Now running through November 15

 

 

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LAS MUJERES DEL MAR – Playwrights Arena at Atwater Village Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, September 27th, 2019
Kelly Stuart

Kelly Stuart

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

Part memory play, part social drama, Janine Salinas Schoenberg’s Las Mujeres Del Mar (Women of the Sea) tells the story of three generations of Mexican-American women who strive to love and support each other despite their past wounds and resentments.
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Now running through October 14

 

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THE END OF BEAUTY – Playwright’s Arena at Atwater Village Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, May 30th, 2019

PressPhotoBeauty3

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

In its world premiere, Cory Hinkle’s The End of Beauty runs about two hours, but it’s not until the last 10 minutes that it grips one’s attention. That’s when Silas Weir Mitchell, playing one of the story’s three characters, looks back on the past with acceptance, perplexity and regret.
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Now running through June 18

 

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TAR at Atwater Village Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Saturday, June 23rd, 2018
Photo courtesy of Playwrights’ Arena)

Photo courtesy of Playwrights’ Arena)

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

It’s Los Angeles in 1939. Count Basie and his band are scheduled to play at the Palomar Ballroom — one of the first African-American groups to perform there. Next door, at Bimini Baths, two employees, African-American Amen (Noel Arthur) and Mexican-American Zenobio (Adrian Gonzalez) have been given the onerous job of cleaning up the tar-covered body of a drunken white man…….Read more…

Now running through

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THE END TIMES at the Skylight Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, May 6th, 2016
Photo by Ed Krieger

Photo by Ed Krieger

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly

Religious ideology and its impact on young minds serves as the theme for playwright Jesse Mu-En Shao’s The End Times, a lean narrative enriched with well-grounded performances and a modest but handsome production design. The play, developed jointly by Playwrights’ Arena and the Skylight Theatre, is cogently directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera. Read more…

Now running through May 15

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@THESPEEDOFJAKE at the Atwater Village Theatre

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Wednesday, November 25th, 2015
Photo by Blake Boyd

Photo by Blake Boyd

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

Jennifer Maisel’s new play, premiering with this production, examines the way we deal with grief, loss, and death.

Clark (Ryan Yu) and Emily (Elizabeth Pan) were a happily married couple, devoted to their 10-year-old son Jake (whom we never see).  But when Jake is suddenly killed in a hideous bicycle accident, their marriage is severely stressed. Read more...

Now running through December 7.

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DALLAS NON-STOP at Atwater Village Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, November 21st, 2013

Pauline Adamek  – LA Weekly

Young and naive, Girlie (Sandy Yu) has moved from her Philippines village to the city to train at a regional call center for a major American airline. Obsessed with the TV soap Dallas, Girlie fantasizes about moving there to live a dream life. But her single-minded pursuit and ultimate triumph have a price.
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Now running through December 9.

DALLASpress6

 

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