LADCC Critics 
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Playwright A. David Redish’s odd drama is a weird mix of Blithe Spirit and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. This pitch is likely to have you thinking that the show might be better than it is. So it gives no me pleasure to note that Steve Jarrard’s awkwardly executed production will leave you … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze If as of late you find yourself longing to laugh but not quite able to, Little Fish Theatre might coax you into smiling, snickering, chortling and more than a few times doubling over in hilarity. Read more… Now running through December 17
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Pianist/composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn (Frank Lawson) grew up in a family dominated by his alcoholic, abusive and homophobic father. His first love was classical music, but he was gay and black, and in the 1930s and 40s gay was emphatically frowned upon, and the classical establishment was almost entirely white. Read more… Now running through … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Marie Mullen won the best actress Tony for the original Broadway production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane as a tortured daughter. Now she has returned almost 20 years later to play the tormentor — her cruel, selfish mother. Read more… Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In 1998, The Druid Theatre Company’s … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Kate Benson’s A Beautiful Day in November On the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes takes place on Thanksgiving and revolves around a family’s collective preparation of the traditional holiday meal. Read more… Now running through December 11
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw A middle-aged actress obsesses over her fading youth in The Second Woman, a cryptic one-act written by Marissa Chibas and co-directed by Zoe Aja Moore and Fernando Belo. Read more… Now running through December 11
Margaret Gray – LA Times During Alena Smith’s play “Icebergs,” in its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, thirtysomething screenwriter Calder (Nate Corddry) sets up an air mattress in his Silver Lake living room for a visiting friend. The mattress is the self-inflating kind, and after Calder plugs it in, he sits lost in thought, … Read more
Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw Ernest and Margaret Eagleton (Mark L. Taylor, Bonnie Bailey-Reed), are small town Texas folks whose nondescript lives are transformed by a visitor, in this lively comedy by Deb Hiett. Read more… Now running through December 19
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Dramatically, antiheroes are more interesting to write about and portray than standard heroes because they combine the most compelling aspects of both hero and villain. Eugene O’Neill knew this well, and populated his plays with a parade of sympathetic ne’er-do-wells, from Jamie in Long Day’s Journey into Night to the entire cast … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main Some stories bear retelling no matter how many times we’ve heard them before, and Rebecca Stahl’s melodrama about an emotionally disturbed veteran of our recent wars in the Middle East falls into that niche. While the play could lose a couple of its contrivances, and the performances, under John … Read more