Myron Meisel – Stage Raw During the notoriously doomed 1984 coal miners’ strike against Maggie Thatcher’s determination to destroy the union and its jobs, motherless 11-year old Billy Elliot (Mitchell Tobin) ditches his 50-pence afterschool boxing classes for ballet lessons,…
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly In Serrano The Musical, book and lyrics writer Madeleine Sunshine plucks elements of Edmond Rostand’s iconic romance Cyrano de Bergerac and transposes them into a story set in New York City’s mob-infested Little Italy. Read more… Margaret Gray –…
Neal Weaver – Arts In LA Playwright Mac Rogers has written an oddball comedy about suicide. But his thinking is so muddled, it’s sometimes hard to tell if he’s for it or against it. Read more… Steven Leigh Morris –…
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw On a small arched screen at center stage is played out the tale of the imperious, fickle and slightly goofy Little Queen, represented by a stylized shadow puppet. At stage left is painter Eva Noelle,…
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Playwright-actor Stephanie Satie’s solo show uses the format of a group therapy session to depict the oral histories told by survivors of the Holocaust survivors who were children when the German Nazi concentration camps were…
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Adam Szymkowicz’s noir comedy is set in a place of his invention — the clown underworld. Here the clowns are not those funny, entertaining party creatures but criminals with damaged psyches. Sure, there are red…
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw While it probably isn’t quite accurate to say that performer Salome Jens saved my life, I prefer to believe that it’s true. After an evening and morning of obliterative obsession, attending her one-woman show about…
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…
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly It’s easy to understand why solo performer Chris Lemmon wants to pay homage to his famous father Jack. Celebrity aside, the parent-child bond is a powerful one. Watching and listening to Jack Lemmon Returns at the Broad…
Margaret Gray – LA Times Remember the scene in “Gone With the Wind” when Scarlett fries latkes for a Hanukkah party at Tara? No? Right, there wasn’t such a scene. American Civil War sagas seldom reflect a Jewish perspective. Read…