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READY, STEADY, YETI, GO at Rogue Machine at the Electric Lodge

John Perrin Flynn
June 7, 2019Margaret Gray – LA Times No folkloric Himalayan ape-men appear in David Jacobi’s play “Ready, Steady, Yeti, Go.” That may sound like a spoiler, but it’s a PSA: The friend who went with me to see Rogue Machine’s production was too disappointed by the lack of yetis to focus on what was happening onstage…… Read
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LADIES at Boston Court Pasadena

Jenny Graham
June 7, 2019Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Four young women in their underwear take the stage at Boston Court. While bopping along to a lively mixtape/Itunes playlist, they don the corsets and panniers of the 18th century women they will be portraying in the World Premiere of Kit Steinkellner’s Ladies. Read more… Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
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DANA H at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

CCraig Schwartz
June 4, 2019Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen When playwright Lucas Hnath (A Doll’s House, Part Two, The Christians) was in college, his mother, Dana Higginbotham, went through a traumatizing ordeal. Dana struggled to speak about this painful experience with her son, so he eventually had fellow theater creator and collaborator Steve Cosson interview her about
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GATHER: SURPRISING STORIES AND OTHER MISCHIEF at the Pasadeena Playhouse

Nick Agro
May 30, 2019Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Gather: Surprising Stories and Other Mischief is an unwieldy title for a theatrical piece. Then again, Gather is an unwieldy theatrical piece. It’s not immediately clear what the piece is, and the answer doesn’t come readily upon further reflection. Read more… Now running through June 22

MAMMA MIA at East West Players

Steven Lam
May 30, 2019Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw There is something soothing about the music of ABBA, the 70s Swedish pop group that brought the world such songs as “Dancing Queen,” “Take a Chance on Me,” and, of course, “Mamma Mia!” No matter how out of control the world gets, there’s always ABBA music to ease the soul,
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THE END OF BEAUTY – Playwright’s Arena at Atwater Village Theatre

PressPhotoBeauty3
May 30, 2019Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In its world premiere, Cory Hinkle’s The End of Beauty runs about two hours, but it’s not until the last 10 minutes that it grips one’s attention. That’s when Silas Weir Mitchell, playing one of the story’s three characters, looks back on the past with acceptance, perplexity and regret. Read more…
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LADY DAY AT THE EMERSON BAR AND GRILL at The Garry Marshall Theatre

lady day
May 24, 2019Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Deidrie Henry delivers a soulful performance as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at the Emerson Bar and Grill, Lanie Robertson’s 1986 one-act about the late great jazz singer who died prematurely at the age of 44. Read more… Now running through June 2

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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