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BANDSTAND at Broadway In Thousand Oaks

Bandstand-ProductionPhotos-1920-6
December 3, 2019Jonas Schwartz – Broadway World The musical Bandstand, which is now part of the American Theater Guild tour across the country, thrives when Andy Blankenbuehler’s Tony-winning choreography is front and center. Restaged for this production by Marc Heitzman, who was Dance Captain in the Broadway production, the dances display vitality that makes audiences want to
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DEFENDERS at the Broadwater Black Box

Darrett Sanders
November 22, 2019Lovell Estell III — Stage Raw On May 10, 1940, Iceland was invaded by the Royal Navy and Royal Marines because the British government feared the possible Nazi takeover of the country. A little over a year later, defense of the country was transferred to the United States. Against this backdrop, Cailin Maureen Harrison tells
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ELIJAH at The Victory Theatre Center

Tim Sullens
November 22, 2019Terry Morgan  -  Stage Raw Placing a disparate group of characters in a location they can’t leave and forcing them to deal with each other has been a tried and true source of dramatic conflict since Sartre’s No Exit. The claustrophobia and stress of interacting with new people ratchets up the tension swiftly. So it
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KEY LARGO at Geffen Playhouse

Jeff Lorch
November 18, 2019Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen Key Largo was first a 1939 Broadway play, then a 1948 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and finally, it is now at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles in a new world premiere adaptation. Adapted by Andy Garcia and Jeffrey Hatcher, this play shifts some of the
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THE GREAT LEAP at the Pasadena Playhouse

grt leap
November 14, 2019Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen Sometimes the most compelling drama in sports does not happen on the court or field, but behind the scenes. In The Great Leap, a play by Lauren Yee that opened in its Los Angeles premiere this weekend at the Pasadena Playhouse, in association with the East West Players,
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THE THANKSGIVING PLAY at Geffen Playhouse

Jeff Lorch
November 12, 2019Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen The version of Thanksgiving most of us were taught in school is certainly problematic. From outdated, disrespectful views of Native Americans and erasure of their role to the generous portrayals of the first white settlers on this continent, the narrative around the whole holiday is due for reexamination.
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THE BEST MAN at the Lounge theatre

Ed Krieger
November 8, 2019Rob Stevens – Haines His Way When Gore Vidal’s play The Best Man premiered in March, 1960, it seemed to presage the upcoming Democratic Presidential Convention. The two main characters–Governor William Russell, an intellectual, was modeled on persistent Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson while the brash, young contender Senator Joe Cantwell was an amalgam of
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Archive for The Lounge Theatre

MAYAKOVSKY AND STALIN at the Lounge Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, July 31st, 2018
(Photo by Ed Krieger)

(Photo by Ed Krieger)

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

Murray Mednick’s play, having its world premiere, is a tale of two suicides: that of the Russian Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, who shot himself in the heart in 1930, and that of Nadezhda Alliluyeva (Nadya), the second wife of Joseph Stalin, who shot herself in her bedroom during a Communist Party gathering, supposedly in disgust at the way her husband’s brutal collectivist policies had produced mass famine.
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Ellen Dostal – Broadway World

There are plays that tell a story and there are plays that ponder ideas. Murray Mednick’s latest world premiere MAYAKOVSKY AND STALIN is the latter, an intellectual dissection of two Russian revolutionaries who were as integral to Eastern European history as beets are to borscht.   Read more…

Now running through August 19

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THANKSGIVING at the Lounge Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, June 23rd, 2017
Photo by Cali Bloomberg

Photo by Cali Bloomberg

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

Holiday gatherings frequently serve as framework for plays about dysfunctional families, and Thanksgiving, written by Tiffany Cascio and directed by Kitty Lindsay, is one of them. Although not nearly as clever as it tries to be, it features several choice roles for women, a few good laugh lines and, in the case of this Hollywood Fringe premiere production, one outstanding performance.

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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way

Everyone has probably had that family get together—a wedding, a funeral—or more likely a holiday dinner that they wish they could avoid. The saying goes we can choose our friends but we are stuck with the family we are given.

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Now running through June 23

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THE INVENTOR AND THE ESCORT at the Lounge Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, April 6th, 2017
Photo by Keenan Henson

Photo by Keenan Henson

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

Jeffrey (Jaret Sacrey) is an eccentric but moderately successful inventor of exotic and improbable sex-toys who, though he operates on the fringe of the sex industry, freely admits he’s got no game. Read more…

Now running through April 23

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INLAND EMPRESS at the Lounge Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Thursday, January 28th, 2016
Photo by Ed Krieger

Photo by Ed Krieger

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

In Tom Cavanaugh’s implausible melodrama, the unsettled lives of a family of women grow more turbulent when their former breadwinner shows up after seven years in prison. Read more…

Now running through February 28

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WIT at the Lounge Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, January 14th, 2015
WIT-135

Photo courtesy: Stage Against the Machine

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

English Professor Vivian Bearing, Ph.D. (Kelly Carlton), the central figure in Margaret Edson’s clever and provocative play, has won distinction in the academic world for her masterly critical edition of John Donne’s Religious Sonnets, but scholarship and fame can’t protect her from the ravages of terminal ovarian cancer.

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Running indefinitely

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Hah Nah, The Lounge Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

Photo by Amy Texter.

 

Hah Nah by Joy Cha.

 

Mayank Keshaviah – LA Weekly

A Korean U.S. Army field nurse trying to track down her missing father while encamped in his hometown during the Korean War seems like fertile ground. But
the tree that emerges from it, nurtured by writer and performer Joy Cha, unfortunately never bears fruit. Read more…

 

 

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