VIRAL at the Bootleg Theatre
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 –…
LADCC Critics
Read MoreVIRAL at the Bootleg Theatre
THE QUEEN OF COLORS at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts
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,…
SILENT WITNESSES at the Odyssey Theatre
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…
CLOWN BAR at the Pasadena Playhouse
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…
BLONDE POISON at Theatre 40
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…
WIT at the Lounge Theatre
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…
JACK LEMMON RETURNS at the Edye at the Broad Stage
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…
THE WHIPPING MAN at South Coast Repertory
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…
THE BEST L.A. PLAYS OF 2014
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly This year was a noisy and divisive one in local theater, punctuated with threats, real and imagined — from sources allegedly ranging from the IRS to the state’s Labor & Workforce Development Agency to…
25 HIGHLIGHTS OF LA THEATER IN 2014
Don Shirley – LA Observed I don’t believe in year-end Top 10 lists, especially if the components are listed in order of best to, say, tenth best. Why is it necessary to draw such distinctions between creations with very different…