Lovell Estell III — Stage Raw Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh and Neil Simon: two icons of the brush and canvass, another of the written word and stage, are all cleverly brought together in this striking world premiere by playwright…
Margaret Gray – LA Times It’s intermission during Quiara Alegría Hudes’ “Water by the Spoonful,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning centerpiece of her Elliot trilogy of plays portraying the experiences of a Marine during and after the Iraq war. It’s interesting, a…
Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld In Act 1 of JACKIE UNVEILED, Tom Dugan‘s new solo play about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, she repeats a single phrase over and over. “I’m no good alone.” The chain smoking, alcohol indulging former first lady has just learned…
Ellen Dostal – Musicals in LA After nearly nine years, Allegiance has come home to Southern California. The co-production by East West Players and the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center opened to a sold out crowd on Wednesday night,…
Harker Jones – Edge on the Net The “Unauthorized Musical Parody Of…” series has a recipe that always works: take a beloved film, break it down to its most basic parts, find ways to lovingly exploit them and then loop…
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw There’s little that chills the blood of a theatre critic more than the three words “one-man show.” When these things are bad, they tend to be especially so, and unlike a usual play, there’s nothing…
Margaret Gray – LA Times Sometimes it’s fun to sashay into a theater cold, without the slightest notion of what you’re in for. But before seeing “The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk,” the Kneehigh Theatre production now at the Wallis in…
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw The Happiest Song Plays Last is, as the title implies, the last play in the Elliot trilogy, three works by Quiara Alegría Hudes playing concurrently in Los Angeles. The first two plays, Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue and Review: Water by…
Terry Morgan – Talkin’ Broadway Often, when classic plays are “updated” or “reimagined,” the implication is that the work needed such treatment to remain relevant to a modern audience. In my experience, this rarely is the case, and such reinventions…
Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld It can be a wonderful adventure to watch two people falling in love, particularly when they themselves don’t realize it’s happening. When the adventure takes place on stage – as in John Caird and Paul Gordon’s…