LADCC Critics 
Terry Morgan – LAist If, as the old adage has it, “you can’t go home again,” then that truth deserves another, which is that wherever you’re from is always with you. Regardless of the relative importance of nature or nurture, the past is an umbilical cord that is never completely cut. This idea is dealt … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly Los Feliz’s Skylight Theatre has become the home for L.A. scribe Shem Bitterman, who’s had his plays staged in this city for decades. His latest, a real estate mystery named Open House, premiered last week. Before getting to Open House, it’s worth perusing Bitterman’s past writings, which reveal patterns … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Lalo (Miguel Santana), Paco (Henry Madrid) and Nacho (Roberto Garza) have been friends for 50 years. Former field workers, they escaped a life of hard labor by forming a trio and earning a living as singers of Mexican love songs. Now elderly and unemployed, they reflect back on the humiliations … Read more
Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly Now in its 10th year, Hurricane Season is a competition of short new plays. Block Two (reviewed here) continues over this weekend, with Block Three running Aug. 9-18. The audience favorites of the festival will receive awards in an Aug. 23 ceremony, and a jury will give monetary prizes to … Read more
Neal Weaver – LA Weekly This comic extravaganza, written by Ron House, Diz White, Alan Shearman and John Neville-Andrews and first produced in 1971, went on to become an international hit. Now the Ruskin Group brings it back, and to insure it retains its original comic glory, two of the original creators have returned: Shearman … Read more
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA A hero and the musical about him have been on a journey. From the book by William Steig to the Dreamworks animated film and then back to the book again, this musical has undergone multiple changes from Broadway and the national traveling production to its current successful regional incarnation … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly In her book Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich detailed her sojourn into the world of the working poor, illuminating (as no recounting of statistics ever could) the struggle, heartache and resilience of this often forgotten and/or disrespected class of Americans. Read more… Melinda Schupman – ArtsInLA Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2001 book, Nickel … Read more
Neal Weaver – LA Weekly In David Lindsay-Abaire’s dark comedy, Kimberly (Dorrie Braun) is a teenager who suffers from progeria, a disease that causes its victims to age more than four times faster than the normal rate. Read more… Now running through August 11.
David C. Nichols – LA Times In “Wrap Your Heart Around It,” Nashville singer-songwriter and accordionist LynnMarie Rink lays out her life lessons with abundant humor and heroic honesty. Before this stunning solo confessional has ended, we’re not only at one with Rink, we’re ready to take up the accordion ourselves. Read more… Now running through … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA If there’s a more sheerly interesting playwright in the United States these days than Bruce Norris, I don’t know who it is. In a continuing series of audacious, ambitious comedies, he has remained resolutely non-P.C. in questioning some of our culture’s most cherished assumptions on race (his Pulitzer winner Clybourne Park), … Read more