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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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LA EGOISTA at Skylight Theatre

Lys Perez and Chanel Castañeda. Photo by Jenny Graham.
March 17, 2023Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites West Coast Premiere: La Egoista @ Skylight Theatre – 8.2 out of 10 – Good Show! LA Theatre Bites Recommended! More…  

HAROLD AND MAUDE at Group Repertory Theatre

Clara Rodriguez and Landon Beatty. Photo by Doug Engalla.
March 17, 2023Rob Stevens – Haines His Way. GRT’s production uses projections on the back wall and on smaller screens that come and go from the wings in an attempt to open up the action. Unfortunately, they don’t add much to the show and Larry Eisenberg’s lackadaisical direction lets the production drag on. Most scenes just meander
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SNOWHITE at Santa Monica Playhouse

Photo courtesy of Santa Monica Playhouse
March 15, 2023Lara J. Altunian – Stage Raw When it comes to classic fairy tales, there’s always room for updated adaptations — particularly when it comes to introducing one with antiquated values to a new generation of audiences. Santa Monica Playhouse’s rendition of the Brothers Grimm’s Snow White spins the narrative of a helpless young girl into
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Archive for Stage Struck Review

THE GLASS MENAGERIE at A Noise Within

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Saturday, March 16th, 2019
Craig Schwartz

Craig Schwartz

Dany Margolies – The Daily News

If you had a perfectly happy childhood with ideal parents, good for you. Tennessee Williams did not, and this led to some of literature’s most-affecting, most-enduring plays.

Many in his audiences didn’t, either, and that’s why we keep coming back to his classics, particularly “The Glass Menagerie.” Indeed, its title refers to a collection of tiny toy animals on display but perhaps also to the glassiest of menageries: our families.
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Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

One of the seminal works of American theatrical literature is Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” the play which vaulted him to fame. It was in my high school English textbook, in the equivalent for that preliminary English course everyone has to take in college, and one of the great plays studied in my theater lit course.

Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

When a group of theatre critics discuss the greatest American playwrights, three names are usually mentioned the most—Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.
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Now running through April 26

 

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NUDE/NAKED at the McCadden Place Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, January 24th, 2019
Darrett Sanders

Darrett Sanders

Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

With its provocative title, “Nude/Naked,” Lightning Rod Theater’s premiere production at the in Hollywood, may at first seem to be something prurient. What fascinates more than anything else is how much it is not, at least not if you’re really listening.

Now running through February 17

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TITANIC at the Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

titanic

Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

Going to see “Titanic” at Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater in Claremont was something I approached with trepidation. Thought the music was written by Maury Yeston, whose work I have always liked, and the book by Peter Stone, and its storyline was based completely on actual people, which I approve of, I was haunted a bit by the first version I saw. I need not of worried.

Now running through February

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VALLEY OF THE HEART at the Mark Taper Forum

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, November 8th, 2018
Craig Schwartz

Craig Schwartz

Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen

Two immigrant families, one Mexican and one Japanese-American, have lived peacefully as neighbors on a ranch in the Santa Clara Valley for years, working together in the fields. The oldest children from each family have even fallen in love with each other—and then Pearl Harbor happens, and soon World War II, and their lives will never be the same.
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Dany Margolies – The Daily News

Sweet, timely and picturesque, “Valley of the Heart” tells of an earlier chapter in in American history when our nation behaved badly. From writer-director Luis Valdez comes this tale of two immigrant families — one Japanese and one Mexican — living in the then-agricultural town of Cupertino during World War II.
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Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

As someone who has taught history for a few decades, there is no doubt that the ugliness of the Japanese Internment is one of the several inexcusable black marks on our American story.

Jonas Schwartz -  TheaterMania

The image of innocents trapped behind the barbed-wire fences of American internment camps still burns in the minds of anyone absorbed in current affairs. Luis Valdez’s Valley of the Heart reminds audiences that the latest drama taking place at our Mexican borders reflects a shameful period during World War II…….
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Now running through December 16

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ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD at A Noise Within

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, October 24th, 2018
Craig Schwartz

Craig Schwartz

Frances Baum Nicholson – Stage Struck Review

There is a certain fascination in the fact that two theaters in Pasadena are featuring plays based on looking sideways at a Shakespearean works. At Boston Court, a new play looks at “The Merchant of Venice” from the Jewish perspective. At A Noise Within it’s the now-classic “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” in which two seemingly superfluous characters in “Hamlet” become the center of a debate about existence.

Now running through November 18

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DEAR EVAN HANSEN at the Ahmanson Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, October 24th, 2018
Matthew Murphy

Matthew Murphy

Frances Baum Nicholson – Stage Struck Review

When news the Tony-winning “Dear Evan Hansen” was headed for L.A. on its first national tour, a dash for tickets seeming mildly reminiscent of the “Hamilton” frenzy began.

Erin Conley -  On Stage and Screen

There have been plenty of musicals about complicated, grieving families over the years, but until now, there has not been one tailor-made for the social media era. Enter Dear Evan Hansen, the 2017 Tony winner for Best Musical that opened last night at Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

If you have seen the musical Dear Evan Hansen and are a fan, you might not want to read any further because I will be challenging most things that you hold dear about the show.
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Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw

First things first: if you didn’t get the chance to see Dear Evan Hansen in New York, don’t worry. The first national tour of the show, currently playing at the Ahmanson, is nearly identical to the New York incarnation.
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Jonas Schwartz -  TheaterMania

Young Evan Hansen has broken his arm. Before the Tony winning musical Dear Evan Hansen ends, the titular character will also have broken many hearts in this poignant, topical drama about isolation in high school and how social media takes an already stressful situation and heightens it by exposing and recording all of life’s foibles small and large.
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Dany Margolies – The Daily News

Evan Hansen struggles with social interaction, prefers to isolate himself and fears being judged by others. To varying degrees, so do we all, whether for a moment, a day or constantly.
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Now running through November 25

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EVERYTHING THAT NEVER HAPPENED at Boston Court Pasadena

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Monday, October 8th, 2018
Jenny Graham

Jenny Graham

Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

Boston Court Pasadena’s Co-Artistic Director Jessica Kubzansky loves Shakespeare. That I know. She has directed insightful productions of the Bard’s work at several venues, and in her “RII” at BC she  pared one play down to great effect, allowing more focus on essential and timeless themes in a comparatively obscure history play.

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

Sarah B. Mantell’s poignant play begins with a young couple capering playfully across the spare, unembellished set. Their first words are tentative; they’re the sort uttered, pretty much ubiquitously, between would-be lovers who do not know each other well. For a couple of minutes, you wonder if you’re in for a fancified rom-com about the rocky shoals coursed over by true love.
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Now running through November 4

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A PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY at A Noise Within

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, October 5th, 2018
Caig Schwartz

Craig Schwartz

Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

Of all of Oscar Wilde’s creations, the overall theme of “A Picture of Dorian Gray” has most become a part of the English language.

Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

In his program notes for the current A Noise Within’s production of his adaptation of A Picture of Dorian Gray, director Michael Michetti states “Oscar Wilde was perhaps the nineteenth century’s most infamous homosexual”. Read more…

Ellen Dostal – Broadway World

They say a picture paints a thousand words. In director Michael Michetti’s compelling stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s A PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, it does more than that. It captures a lifetime.
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Now running through November 15

 

 

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AMERICAN HERO – IAMA Theater Company at the Pasadena Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, September 26th, 2018
Dean Cechvala

Dean Cechvala

Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen

Three “sandwich artists” with very different lives walk into a franchise. What happens? Unfortunately the answer is…not much. American Hero, a play by Bess Wohl currently being presented by the IAMA Theatre Company in a guest production at the Pasadena Playhouse, is a comedy about working class America, but focuses on a microcosm that ultimately fails to prove a point. Read more…

Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

If one had to peg a single theme for the plays I have seen open in the past month, it would be two-fold: the heartlessness of corporate America combined with the innate sense of straight white privilege, and the plight of those the privileged see as underclasses, be they minority cultures, blue collar victims of the evisceration of union power, or simply those trying to get by in the morass of the service economy.

Jonas Schwartz -  TheaterMania

Part of the American spirit entails taking a no-win situation and finding a road to success. The three employees of a mini-mall sandwich shop in American Hero find their situation direr by the day, but instead of giving up, they roll up their sleeves and keep making hero sandwiches, even after they run out of meat, cheese, and bread.
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Now running through October 21

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THE GIN GAME at the Sierra Madre Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, September 18th, 2018
Gina Long

Gina Long

Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

When a play being produced locally has a long history of excellence, that can be both a blessing and a curse for a theater company, especially a comparatively small one.

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

We don’t usually think of friendly card games as battles to the death, or near it, except perhaps in the Wild West. But as playwright D.L. Coburn suggests in his Pulitzer Prize play, when it comes to super competitive men like Weller Martin (Alan Blumenfeld), anything can happen.
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Now running through October 7

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THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME at Whittier Community Theatre at The Center Theater

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Saturday, September 15th, 2018

hunch

Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

It is quite remarkable how many times the Victor Hugo novel, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” has been dramatized, in film, on television, and on the stage.

Now running through September 22

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NATIVE GARDENS at the Pasadena Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Saturday, September 15th, 2018
Jenny Graham

Jenny Graham

Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review

There is a fine line between humor which skewers privilege and prejudice by making its claims sound as ridiculous as they are, and writing which pronounces the same beliefs and then does a kind of wink to indicate that, really, it was said to be funny.

Jonas Schwartz -  TheaterMania

The pursuit of happiness and property is embedded in the American dream. Thomas Jefferson even added it to the Declaration of Independence as an inalienable right. Unfortunately, with property come neighbors and the frustration of sharing a fence with a stranger. Playwright Karen Zacarías’s comedy Native Gardens demonstrates what happens when you must battle your neighbor for your own land.    Read more…

Now running through September 30

 

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