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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 The Actors Gang

UBU THE KING – at The Actors’ Gang

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, October 25th, 2022
Chas Harvey in Ubu the King. Photo by Ashley Randall.

Chas Harvey in Ubu the King. Photo by Ashley Randall.

Terry Morgan – Stage Raw

When the young artists of the newly formed company The Actors’ Gang did a midnight show of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu the King in 1982, informed by punk rock and an anger against the Reagan administration, I doubt that any of their number imagined that the troupe would be doing a fortieth anniversary production of it. And yet here we are — the Gang still exists and, if anything, the political situation has gotten even worse. The story of a power-mad, delusional tyrant running a country into the ground is unfortunately still relevant. The current production is energetic and full of rude fun, if a bit uneven in a few of its actors’ performances. Read more…

Through December 3

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CAN’T PAY? DON’T PAY! at the Actors’ Gang

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Monday, March 28th, 2022
Photo by Ashley Randall

Photo by Ashley Randall

Dana Martin– Stage Raw

The Actor’s Gang has balls. Originally co- authored by Italian playwrights Dario Fo and Franca Rame in 1974 with current translation by Cam Deaver, Can’t Pay? Don’t Pay! addresses the effect inflation has on a fed-up, abused and browbeaten working class at the mercy of greedy, powerful, anonymous corporations while being slowly crushed under the weight of capitalism. The Actor’s Gang delivers a robust, in-your-face and technically marvelous production, but the story is dated and often feels more like a lecture than a call to action.  Read more…

Now running through April 24

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WE LIVE ON at The Actors’ Gang

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, August 10th, 2021
Stephanie Gal/ndo in We Live On at The Actors' Gang

Stephanie Gal/ndo in We Live On at The Actors’ Gang

Terry Morgan – Arts Beat L.A.

In 1970, journalist Studs Terkel released his book, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, in which he interviewed people about living through that desperate time and how they made it through. Read more…

Now running through September 4

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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at Ivy Substation

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Monday, August 12th, 2013
Photo by Dianna Olivia-Day

Photo by Dianna Olivia-Day

Dany Margolies – Arts In LA

Why is this Night different from all other Nights? To start with, it’s smart, it’s imaginative, it’s beautiful, it makes sense of the peculiar world Shakespeare created. It takes the titular dream to heart, as characters shape-shift and locales subtly morph. Still, the text is clear. Under the direction of Tim Robbins and starring a mere 12 actors, it’s one of the best versions to have graced LA stages in recent decades. Read more…

Now running through August 31.

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