LADCC Critics 
Margaret Gray – LA Times The Pacific Resident Theatre’s new production of Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos, is about as spare and unvarnished as the theater gets. The set consists of a few folding chairs in the blackest, boxiest of conceivable black-box stages. There’s one prop: a tinny-looking crown. Read more… Myron Meisel – … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times For much of Samuel Brett Williams’ “Derby Day,” in its L.A. premiere at the Elephant Theatre (which gave Williams’ “Revelation” its world premiere last year), the sole sympathetic character onstage is Becky (Kimberly Alexander), a waitress at Oaklawn Park Race Track in Arkansas. Read more… Neal Weaver – Arts in LA You … Read more
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter Chaim Potok’s 1972 bestseller My Name is Asher Lev has been deftly adapted by Aaron Posner and receives a peerless realization by a splendid cast. Posner reduces the novel to its essential conflicts, yet rather than diluting the impact he effectively intensifies the immediacy of the emotional payoffs. Read more… Don Shirley … Read more
Don Shirley – LA Observed Con artistry requires the ability to get the victims to suspend disbelief – the same quality that theatrical artistry usually requires of audiences. David C. Nichols – LA Times “Tartuffe” returns to A Noise Within’s repertoire after 22 years, and it proves worth the wait. Molière’s deathless assault on religious … Read more
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter Word is out: the three 50 Shades of Grey books have reached 100 million in sales, taking only a few years to equal the entire James Bond ouevre over decades, making it every bit as ripe for spoofery. While this musical parody may never reach the hilarious heights of the gold … Read more
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter Although The Wooster Group has been a frequent visitor to Los Angeles (most recently a year ago with Eugene O’Neill’s early seafaring plays), this new mounting of its glum fantasia on a text by William Shakespeare represents the company’s first world premiere production to debut outside New York (not … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA A steady rain falls on the lives of two Chicago cops, but it can’t wash away the pain and hatred and guilt that live in them. Though one seems to be the “good cop” and the other “bad,” nothing is clear-cut in this Keith Huff play. Read more… Pauline Adamek – … Read more
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter Possibly his most recognized work, Noel Coward’s screenplay for David Lean’s 1945 British film Brief Encounter, with its proper and decent married lovers resolutely resisting adultery, was indubitably the adult romance of its time, with the swells of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto counterpointing the personal sacrifice of ardor for order … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly While the overarching message in playwright Steve Yockey’s fractured farce Disassemblyisn’t quite clear, its clever irony is nonetheless unmistakable. Each of the comedy’s daft desperate-for-love characters spins in his or her own idiosyncratic orbit. One exception to this needy bunch would be Evan (Alexis DeLaRosa), an accident-prone jock worshipped by both his … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Continuing their commitment to presenting high quality theater for children, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is staging another imported show. The award-winning Catherine Wheels Theatre Company from Scotland presents White, a magical and delightful production for the very young, in the Wallis’ smaller space, the intimate Lovelace Studio Theater. Read more… Dany Margolies – Arts In LA … Read more