LADCC Critics 
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw There have always been political takes of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Some have described it as a condemnation of the idle aristocracy, a precursor to the Russian Revolution. Others saw it as a kind farewell to a vanishing class that is being supplanted by rapacious businessmen who only find beauty … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Written by Bob Randall (nee Stanley B. Goldstein), 6 Rms Riv Vu opened on Broadway in 1972, with Jerry Orbach and Jane Alexander as strangers who meet in an empty apartment and cannot decide whether or not to have an affair. The production ran for 247 performances and earned Randall a Drama Desk … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw In Hope Juber and Jeff Doucette’s tepid comedy, a motley crew of wanna-be actors, writers and comedians gather weekly at Sam’s Improv Workshop to develop their performance skills. The class is populated by the usual stereotypes and we soon get to know a bit of each of their backstories. Read more… … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts In LA For committed theatergoers, there’s no happier occasion than stumbling upon a mature, polished work of dramatic art where you never expected to find one. In the little hole-in-the-wall Lounge on Santa Monica Boulevard, 6140 Productions is putting up the world premiere of Marja-Lewis Ryan’s One in the Chamber, and you will … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Each of these brief one acts takes place around a bed. Otherwise, they vary in quality and style. In Brian Tanen ‘s The Optimist, directed by Amanda Saunders, a young British bobby (Parker Phillips) and a veteran female Chief Inspector (Tara Karsian) meet at a crime scene. Read more… Now running through … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times The space where historical perspective and current-day attitudes crosshatch benefits “Frederick Douglass Now” at Bootleg Theater. Writer-performer Roger Guenveur Smith has done incisive, socially trenchant work before, but this is something else again. Read more… Now playing through August 24.
Neal Weaver – Arts In LA Playwright Neil LaBute is so prolific, and has created in so many different and varied media, that it’s virtually impossible to generalize about his work. (His program bio is downright intimidating.) But in many of the scripts for which he is best known—Fat Pig, In the Company of Men, … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw When the TV sitcom took over much of the space formerly occupied by traditional farce, there were fewer and fewer practitioners of this notoriously difficult genre. Michael Frayn’s Noises Off and Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy scored notable successes. Read more…
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter The last of Neil Simon’s trilogy of quasi-autobiographical accounts of his coming-of-age years in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn, Broadway Bound stands among his plays as perhaps the most free from easy nostalgia, and therefore the most honest. In this sturdy 1986 drama, the requisite comedy arrives more or less … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Hollywood has a long history of hypocrisy when it comes to gay celebrities, so a musical that sheds light on their closeting is a production one wants to praise – if only one could. The story in The Max Factor Factor, now at Noho Arts Center, unfolds in the 1930s. … Read more