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MONIECE CLARK by Barker Room Rep at The Broadwater

Ekeme Ekanem in Moniece Clark. Photo courtesy of Barker Room Rep.
September 28, 2022Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw LaShea Delaney’s drama, Moniece Clark is about the media’s exploitation of crimes against women and the tendency of law enforcement to downplay those crimes if the victim is a woman of color. You don’t have to look far to uncover the deplorable statistics behind those concerns, to be found in
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A GREAT WILDERNESS by Rogue Machine at The Matrix Theatre

John-Perrin-Flynn and Jeffrey-Delfin in A Great Wilderness. Photo by Alex Neher.
September 26, 2022Terry Morgan – ArtsBeat LA In my experience, ninety percent of the time that there’s an issue with a theatrical production, the problem is the play itself. It’s surprisingly rare for the main trouble to be with the acting or direction or design. And so it is with Samuel D. Hunter’s A Great Wilderness. I’ve
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Pig power plays at ‘Animal Farm.’ ‘Everybody’ is talkin’. Alanis and Hammerstein, but no Natives.

Geoff Elliott, top, with L-R Stanley Andrew Jackson III, Rafael Goldstein, Trisha Miller. Photo by Craig Schwartz.
September 23, 2022Don Shirley – Angeles Stage ‘Animal Farm’. ‘Sanctuary City’. ‘Everybody.’ ‘Oedipus.’ ‘Jagged Little Pill.’ ‘Oklahoma!’ How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the ‘Farm’, after they’ve seen…Pasadena? Yes, I’m paraphrasing the lyrics of an ancient pop song to make the point that Pasadena and nearby neighborhoods constitute the hottest cluster of locally-produced theater right now.
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BABE, Echo Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre

Sal Viscuso, Wylie Anderson and Julie Dretzin in Babe. Photo by Cooper Bates.
September 21, 2022Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Babe, Jessica Goldberg’s incisive, skillfully wrought play about sexual harassment (and what should or should not be deemed politically correct), is so titled because, in the course of the narrative, it’s applied, rather casually, to Abigail (Julie Dretzin), one of the playwright’s four exceedingly well-drawn characters. Read more… Katie Buenneke
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THE WILD PARTY at Morgan-Wixson Theatre

Serenity Ariel Robb and Deonte Allen
September 19, 2022Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Before gaining real star power with her roles as Elphaba in Wicked and the voice of Elsa in Disney’s animated Frozen, Idina Menzel and her Rent co-star Taye Diggs led the cast of Andrew Lippa’s off-Broadway The Wild Party. Also, earlier in 2005 in Glendale and Long Beach, Musical
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OKLAHOMA! at the Ahmanson Theatre

Sasha Hutchings and Sean Grandillo. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.
September 19, 2022Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw Composer-lyricists Rodgers and Hammerstein were Jewish immigrants to New York and understood very well both the American pressures of assimilation and the spurning of outsiders that culminates in the sacrifice of those who don’t belong. (The stream of victims is endless and ever-changing.) Their musical Oklahoma! opened on Broadway
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EVERYBODY at Antaeus Theatre Company

Harry Groener and Nicole Erb in Everybody. Photo by Jenny Graham.
September 19, 2022Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has been one of the most promising new playwrights of the past decade. His plays are widely produced and he’s been a Pulitzer finalist twice. I’ve loved about half (Neighbors and Gloria) of the five shows of his I’ve seen, was mildly entertained by another (Appropriate) and underwhelmed
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Archive for Son of Semele Ensemble

INCOGNITO at Son of Semele Ensemble

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, March 22nd, 2019
Son of Semele

Son of Semele

Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

When Albert Einstein died of a brain aneurysm at Princeton Hospital in 1955, the pathologist who performed the autopsy ended up stealing Einstein’s brain.      Read more…

Now running through April 7

 

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THAT PRETTY PRETTY; OR, THE RAPE PLAY at Son of Semele Ensemble

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, June 3rd, 2016
Photo by Laura Carson

Photo by Laura Carson

Terry Morgan  -  Stage Raw

The thrill of creating an experimental theatre piece lies in being able to express something one couldn’t in the standard mode. The downside is that not all experiments are a success.   Read more…

Now running through June 19

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THE LIFE AND SORT OF DEATH OF ERIC ARGYLE at Son of Semele Ensemble

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014

SoSE_Argyle_3

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

“Alas for those that never sing,

But die with all their music in them.”

–Usually attributed, possibly inaccurately, to Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809-1894) in “The Voiceless”

Irish playwright Ross Dungan might have had this quote in mind -– for sure he had the sentiment –- when he wrote this sad and whimsical play about the life and death of an ordinary man. Read more…

Photo by Matthew McCray

Photo by Matthew McCray

Margaret Gray – LA Times

At first, “The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle” by Irish playwright Ross Dungan gives the impression of a short story that somehow fell into the submission pile at Son of Semele theater — whereupon director Matthew McCray gamely gathered his ensemble and staged it anyway. Read more…

Now running through September 28.

 

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