Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Moments before heading out to witness Alan Mandell’s staging of Endgame at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, just before sundown, I lit my first yahrtzeit candle to commemorate the first anniversary on the ancient lunar calendar of the death of…
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw Lunatics & Actors, the latest world premiere by Jeremy Aluma’s clowning troupe Four Clowns, is less a fixed narrative than a series of funny, unpredictable, and menacing vignettes that excavate the distinction between creative performance…
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Sometimes a play registers as up front and personal; one’s immediately drawn into the experience of its characters, heartrending or comic or both as the case may be. Read more… Now running through June 5
Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw Michael Weller has a knack for writing about specific cultural time periods. In Moonchildrenhe peered into the turbulent, “hell no, we won’t go,” drug-fueled, free love 1960’s via a year in the life of a…
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw There are many reasons that Brian Friel’s elegiac character study Dancing at Lughnasa has become a theatrical staple. One is that the Tony award-winning play is an excellent and affecting work, while another is that it offers…
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw This curious play, written by Meghan Brown, developed with Fugitive Kind Theatre, and incorporating input from director Amanda McRaven, is a freewheeling fantasia drawn from themes, characters, and situations in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. It’s also an…
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Religious ideology and its impact on young minds serves as the theme for playwright Jesse Mu-En Shao’s The End Times, a lean narrative enriched with well-grounded performances and a modest but handsome production design. The play,…
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw The Story of Alice, a musical show with book and lyrics by Michael Hiltzik, is suitable for young children. If you’re looking for grownup entertainment, this is not for you. Read more… Now running through May…
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze Lee Blessing’s 1987 play “A Walk in the Woods” makes two points. In war, there is no winning, says Blessing. And in life, each of us chooses whether to live in hope or to…
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze Ultra-prolific English playwright Alan Ayckbourn has a silly side. But his characters very much seem like real-life people, even while their circumstances are comically heightened or even outrageous. Read more… Now running through May 21.