Photo courtesy Caughtinthemoment.com
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
There’s not much difference between creating a monster and creating a monster hit.
Take for example “Young Frankenstein,” the musical currently in the hands of 3-D Theatricals.
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Hoyt Hilsman - Huffington Post
3D Theatricals offers another solid Broadway revival with Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein…
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Now running through October 29
(Photo by David Morrison)
Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main
This powerful drama by Alessandro Camon delves into the minds of two extraordinarily isolated people: a convict serving a life sentence for a murder he committed as a juvenile, and the mother of a police officer whose only son was shot and killed in the line of duty.
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Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
Playwright Alessandro Camon, an Oscar nominee for his screenplay for The Messenger, is deeply interested in the soul-destroying practice of solitary confinement, and in the experiences of crime survivors — people who lost loved ones to murder. He deals powerfully with both issues in this two-person play.
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Now running through October 22
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
Nostalgia for the future and a droll chiding of the past drive the storytelling in Eric Overmyer’s “On the Verge or The Geography of Yearning,” at Little Fish Theatre through Oct. 19.
It’s a smart play. Sorry if that damns it for you, but if you’re thinking of seeing it, you need to know: It’s two and a half hours of smart.
Now running through October 19
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen
Some people go through life with their heart on their sleeve, while others are much more guarded, desperate to protect their hearts from being broken. In With Love and a Major Organ, a whimsical, poignant play by Julia Lederer currently in its west coast premiere at Boston Court Performing Arts Center, this concept is taken a step further. Read more…
Paul Birchall – Stage and Cinema
Midway through playwright Julia Lederer’s feather-light, yet rather droning romantic comedy, a character literally reaches into her own chest and pulls out her heart, which thumps and pumps and leaks blood into the padded envelope she shoves it into. The lovesick woman then leaves it in a New York City subway station for the man she hopes to catch. Read more…
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
In playwright Julia Lederer’s With Love and A Major Organ, a West Coast premiere directed by Jessica Kubzansky at Boston Court, a warm spontaneous woman falls ardently in love with a stranger she meets on the subway. The main idea — a quest for love requited —may be as old as the hills, but Lederer’s wit and poetical language, along with Kubzansky’s directorial finesse and state-of the-art staging, makes for a beguiling evening of theater. Read more…
Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review
Recently, as part of an assignment at a nearby public high school, students experimented at a local mall to see what people their age would do if a stranger (also their age) came up to try to engage them in conversation. Over and over, the subjects of their experiment would look down at their phones – use their electronic social network to avoid talking to a real person. Interestingly, that was the expected result, according to the teens.
Now running through November 5
Margaret Gray – LA Times
After Rachel Bonds’ “Five Mile Lake” had its world premiere in 2014 at South Coast Repertory, news that SCR would be producing Bonds’ new “Curve of Departure” this fall was thrilling.Read more…
Now running through October 15
(Photo by Ed Krieger)
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
The shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown in 2014 sparked a groundswell of angry protest in Ferguson, Missouri where the tragedy occurred. Captured on camera for the world to see, his killing spotlighted the endemic racism in that community and others like it across the United States.
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Now running through October 29
(Photo by Ed Krieger)
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
This play by Deborah Lawlor, co-founder of the Fountain Theatre, is perhaps a fictionalized personal memoir. It’s about Freddy Herko, a gifted young dancer and pianist, whose talent blazed in New York City’s avant-garde scene in the 1960s, only to be snuffed out by drug addiction. Herko died when he leapt naked from a fifth-floor window when he was only 28. Read more…
Now running through October 14
Photo by Jenny Graham
Jonas Schwartz - TheaterMania
In Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, the Stage Manager guides audiences through the fictional New Hampshire town of Grover’s Corners. She confides in the audience, shares secrets, and points out revelations. Which is why the casting of Jane Kaczmarek in Pasadena Playhouse‘s production makes sense.
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Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review
When Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” first appeared in 1938, its production was a radical departure from what theater had been up until that time. This intimate portrait of small town New Hampshire at the start of the 20th Century would prove to modern audiences what theater could do that film (and later television) could not…..
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Hoyt Hilsman - Huffington Post
The Pasadena Playhouse opened its season – the first under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Danny Feldman – with a truly memorable staging of Thornton Wilder’s iconic play. Considered by many to be the greatest American play, Our Town presents a daunting challenge for theaters and theater artists.
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Now running through October 22
(Photo by Tim Sullens)
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw
Sometimes the best way to watch a movie or TV show is to kick back with a glass of wine and some friends and yell at the TV whenever the characters do something you don’t agree with. Resolving Hedda, the new play now at the Victory Theatre in Burbank, offers a similar experience — except the titular character in Hedda Gabler is your drunk friend, railing against all her own bad decisions.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler is recognized as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre and world drama. The title character is considered one of the great dramatic roles in theatre.
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Now running through November 12
Photo by Craig Schwartz.
Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review
Every once in a while one comes across a performance which may outweigh the play it takes place in. In this case, a good play becomes greater because of one person who takes a playwright’s words and their own and their director’s understandings and makes of them something much more than the sum of those parts. This is Phylicia Rashad in “Head of Passes,” now open at the Mark Taper Forum.
Jonas Schwartz - TheaterMania
Throughout Act 1 of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Head of Passes, now at the Mark Taper Forum, Phylicia Rashad plays a religious woman on her last legs who chooses her birthday to unravel family secrets. Nothing in that act prepares audiences for the awe-striking flow of passion that emits from the famous actor in Act 2 as she spews fury at God……..
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Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
In Head of Passes, playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney strives to create a narrative of epic proportion, but with only moderate success. Directed by Tina Landau at the Mark Taper Forum, the play nonetheless is worth seeing for the questions it poses, the production’s finely-tuned ensemble, and the lead performance by Phylicia Rashad as a devout woman sorely tested by her God.
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Now running through October 22