Photo by Doug Catille
Margaret Gray – LA Times
Some of us try to jury-rig meaningful lives using the disheartening fragments at our disposal; others dream of wiping the slate clean and starting anew. Both approaches prove painfully unsatisfying to the lonely characters in Samuel D. Hunter’s play “A Bright New Boise,” the 2011 Obie Award winner being revived at Chance Theater. Read more…
Now running through October 25.
Photo by John Flynn
Margaret Gray – LA Times
Here’s a deal, L.A. theaters: We’ll happily watch all the liquored-up-dysfunctional-family-reunion dramas you care to stage, as long as you cast Anne Gee Byrd as the mother. Read more…
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Like his other plays, Samuel D. Hunter’s A Permanent Image is set in the arid cultural wasteland of northern Idaho. Read more…
Les Spindle – Edge on the Net
Obie-winning playwright Samuel D. Hunter (“The Whale,” “A Bright New Boise”) is among the most vibrant and relevant voices in contemporary theater, known for his daring works of uncompromising emotional resonance and psychological depth. Read more…
Dany Margolies - Arts In LA
Ah, to be in northern Idaho, where an ordinary couple could peacefully parent a son and daughter, and then spend their golden years wallowing in substance abuse and unenlightening religious worship. em>Read more…
Now running through July 20.
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter
At an expiring retirement home on the outskirts of a small town in northern Idaho, the staff prepares to relocate its few remaining residents, when a dementia-impaired nonagenarian music professor, Ken (Richard Doyle), goes missing off the premises as a fierce blizzard completely isolates them from any outside assistance. Ken’s healthy, sardonic spouse Etta (Lynn Milgrim), beside herself with worry, has to speak up tartly to shield herself from the onslaught of patronizing reassurances and bumbling responses. Read more…
Bob Verini - Arts In LA
A skeleton staff and a few hanger-on residents are the last occupants of the dilapidated Northern Idaho rest home in Samuel D. Hunter’s Rest. This hardy little band must cope with two impending catastrophes—the facility’s closing and a monstrous blizzard—and a dozen or more personal bumps. The South Coast Rep design department does well by the former in the play’s world premiere, but helmer Martin Benson and his fine cast have problems with the intimate travails. The playwright hasn’t done much to help out. Read more…
Now running through April 27.
Photo by Scott Brinegar/SCR.
The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter.
Deborah Klugman – ArtsBeatLA
In Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale, Charlie (Matthew Arkin) an obese gay man confronting his own mortality reaches out to the daughter he walked out on years ago. Like Hunter’s play A Bright New Boise (produced to justifiable acclaim last year by Rogue Artists in Los Angeles), this drama is set in Idaho, and centers on one troubled man’s quest to connect with lost kin, and secondarily on a younger man’s overwhelming desire to connect with God.
Read more…
Photo by Matthew Elkins.
A Bright New Boise by Samuel D. Hunter.
Dany Margolies – ArtsInLA.com
This Samuel D. Hunter script is saying something, and other people say they hear its message. But some of us do not hear it. Why not? The play pleased a New York publication enough to win an Obie. The play then merited the interest of Rogue Machine theater company and director John Perrin Flynn, who are giving it its West Coast premiere. Read more…