August :: 2015 :: Page 2 :: LA Drama Critics Circle

BEST OF BEST OF THIS WEEK THIS WEEK, Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre

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

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

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

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 August 2015 – Page 2

GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS at 2nd Stage

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Thursday, August 20th, 2015

Photo by Michael Lamont

Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA

Media exposure to the tumult in evangelical mega-churches brought about by the clash of money, power, and ego makes David Rambo’s 1999 cautionary tale a familiar story to modern audiences. The examination of faith, conscience, and ambition is great fodder for drama. Read more…

Les Spindle – Frontiers L.A.

Writer-director David Rambo‘s seriocomic 1999 play is about men of the cloth who experience personal soul-searching amid institutional power struggles, and this production surpasses the Geffen Playhouse’s 2002 L.A.-premiere rendition. Read more…

Margaret Gray – LA Times

The ensconced veteran reluctant to give up the spotlight. The impatient successor nipping at his heels. This scenario has launched plots from “Paradise Lost” to “The Late Shift.” Read more…

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

Power can be a heady drug – and when mixed with religion even headier still. For example, can a man who perceives himself as a conduit for God’s grace easily relinquish that identity? Maybe not. Read more…

Now running through September 5.

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Categories : Reviews

Tags : 2nd Stage, ArtsInLA, David Rambo, Deborah Klugman, FrontiersLA, God's Man in Texas, LA Times, Les Spindle, Margaret Gray, Melinda Schupmann, Stage Raw

ALWAYS…PATSY CLINE at the Sierra Madre Playhouse

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Tuesday, August 18th, 2015

Photo by Gina Long

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly

Country Music Hall of Famer Patsy Cline was celebrated not only for her melodic voice and versatile repertoire but for her warmth, humility and readiness to promote the careers of others, especially women. Read more…

Now running through September 27.

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Tags : Deborah Klugman, LA Weekly, Patsy Cline, Robert Marra, Sierra Madre Playhouse, Ted Swindley

ALL AMERICAN GIRL – InterACT Theatre Company at the Lounge Theatre

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Monday, August 17th, 2015

Photo by Rick Friesen

Jenny Lower – LA Weekly

In All American Girl, a world premiere from InterACT Theatre Company, radical Islam doesn’t take hold of its main character’s life all at once. For Katie, or Karima, as she comes to be known, Islam follows a conservative Christian upbringing, volunteer work in Boston’s slum-poor Dorchester neighborhood, and a stint at Fordham University. When she meets Igbal, a brooding Indian immigrant and wrestling champion, he educates her on the ways Muslims are brutalized by Hindus in his home country. Read more…

Now running through August 30.

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Tags : All American Girl, InterACT Theatre Company, Jenny Lower, LA Weekly, Lounge Theatre

SNEAKY OLE TIME at the Ruskin Group Theatre

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Friday, August 14th, 2015

Photo by Ed Krieger

Myron Meisel – Stage Raw

I listen to a lot of country music (Charlie Louvin on the turntable at the moment), though for the most part I cannot abide what plays under that pretense on the radio. Most of that seems irretrievably suburban, though one imagines that’s what become of most of the actual countryside over the past half century.

Les Spindle – Frontiers L.A.

There’s lots of flirtin’ and fussin’ and Country/Western twangin’—plus 10 characters in search of a credible plot—in this sitcom-level world-premiere musical, written byStephen Mazur. Developer-director Michael Myers’ production shoehorns in 24 existing songs by Grammy-winning tunesmith Paul Overstreet, primarily dealing with the battle of the sexes. em>Read more…

HAIRSPRAY at the James Armstrong Theatre

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Thursday, August 13th, 2015

Photo by Alex Madrid

Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze

Thank goodness we’re not living in the 1960s, when racism was at a peak, women were shamed for being overweight, and men with poofy lacquered hair and big mouths grabbed huge TV ratings.

OFF BOOK at the Secret Rose Theater

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Thursday, August 13th, 2015

Bob Verini - Stage Raw

A modest variation on Noises Off with a hat tip to the musical Mystery of Edwin Drood, Khai Dattoli’s Off Book seemed to inspire considerable mirth in the small but indomitable crowd at the Secret Rose Theater on a recent Friday evening. I wish I could have shared more of that mirth, but I want to encourage the plucky young Falling Apples Theater Company because there’s an energy there that should be prized and refined.

GHOST LIGHT at Atwater Village Theatre

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Thursday, August 13th, 2015

Photo by Troy Blendell

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

There’s an old superstition that an empty theater should never be left dark – hence the term ghost light, referring to the solitary light that illuminates the house after everyone’s gone home.

CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC at the Fountain Theatre

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Sunday, August 9th, 2015

Photo by Ed Krieger

Myron Meisel – Stage Raw

Citizen: An American Lyric by poet Claudia Rankine, was published to great acclaim last year, winning the National Book Critics Circle Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize for poetry. In this theatrical realization, it represents an uniquely valuable tool not merely for a keener awareness of the ubiquity of everyday racism but for the precious need of every human being for self-examination, if any of us is ever truly to become whomever we truly are. Read more…

Now running through September 14.

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Categories : Reviews

Tags : Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine, Fountain Theatre, Myron Meisel, Stage Raw

NO HOMO at the Atwater Village Theater

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Saturday, August 8th, 2015

Photo by Corwin Evans

Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw

Brandon Baruch’s dramedy No Homo, ostensibly about the gay scene in L.A., was a multi-award winner at last year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival. The play went on appear at to New York’s International Fringe fest and underwent some reworking, including an altered ending. It now returns to L.A. for a short season at Atwater Village Theatre, but No Homo hasn’t quite made the complete transition from rough-and-ready fringe to polished, legit stage. Read more…

Now running through August 23.

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Tags : Atwater Village Theater, Brandon Baruch, No Homo, Pauline Adamek, Stage Raw

LUKAS ROOM – Rogue Machine at Theatre/Theater,

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Friday, August 7th, 2015

Photo by John Perrin Flynn

Les Spindle – Frontiers L.A.

Rob Mersola‘s dicey new comedy Luka’s Room benefits from the efforts of a splendid ensemble cast under the crisp direction of Joshua Bitton. Read more…

Myron Meisel – Stage Raw

His father’s finances suddenly gone south (or perhaps merely hidden during the pendancy of his most recent divorce), 19 year old Luka Lupatelli (Nick Marini) must transfer from Arizona State to a San Fernando Valley community college and occupy the old paternal bedroom at addled Grandma Franca’s (Joanna Lipari) meager digs, across the hall from his ne’er-do-well Uncle Nick (Alex Fernandez), recently sprung from another short stint in County Jail. Read more…

Now running through Sept. 23

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Categories : Reviews

Tags : FrontiersLA, Joshua Bitton, Les Spindle, Myron Meisel, Rob Mersola, Rogue Machine, Stage Raw, Theatre/Theater

DARKSIDE at the Garage Theatre

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Thursday, August 6th, 2015

hoto by Matt Kollar

Dany Margolies - Long Beach Press-Telegram

Emiily is in an ethics class with her fellow classmates when her teacher Mr. Baggot poses a thought experiment conducted by Ethics Man, a superhero moral philosopher. Ethics Man posits a train, hurtling toward a washed-out bridge. But if he switches the tracks, he will certainly kill one boy standing on those safer tracks. Read more…

Now running through Sept. 5.

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Tags : Dany Margolies, Darkside, Garage Theatre, Long Beach Press Telegram

AUGUST OSAGE COUNTY at the Theatricum Botanicum

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Wednesday, August 5th, 2015

Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw

Perhaps it’s Quixotic, but I find Theatricum Botanicum to be a kind of beacon, a shining light on the hills of Topanga Canyon. The alfresco venue was co-founded by TV actor and Old Leftie Will Geer, whose fame was cemented – if fame is ever cemented – by his role as grandfather Zebulin Tylor Walton in the 1970s TV-series The Waltons. Read more…

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Tags : August Osage County, Stage Raw, Steven Leigh Morris, Theatricum Botanicum, Tracy Letts, Will Geer

BEST OF BEST OF THIS WEEK THIS WEEK, Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre

TWELFTH NIGHT At The Broadwater Studio Theater

CARDENIO at City Garage Theatre

THE THIN PLACE, Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre

ONCE at Laguna Playhouse

TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992 at the Mark Taper Forum

THE LONELY FEW at Geffen Playhouse

Archive for August 2015 – Page 2

GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS at 2nd Stage

ALWAYS…PATSY CLINE at the Sierra Madre Playhouse

ALL AMERICAN GIRL – InterACT Theatre Company at the Lounge Theatre

SNEAKY OLE TIME at the Ruskin Group Theatre

HAIRSPRAY at the James Armstrong Theatre

OFF BOOK at the Secret Rose Theater

GHOST LIGHT at Atwater Village Theatre

CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC at the Fountain Theatre

NO HOMO at the Atwater Village Theater

LUKAS ROOM – Rogue Machine at Theatre/Theater,

DARKSIDE at the Garage Theatre

AUGUST OSAGE COUNTY at the Theatricum Botanicum

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