Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw
There was a time when gas was eleven cents a gallon, a new car might run you a thousand dollars, average wages were under two thousand dollars a year, and thousands of unsuspecting American citizens deemed unfit and undesirable were forcibly sterilized by the government, with the full aid and blessing of some of the most wealthy, influential citizens and institutions of the era. Such is the backdrop for Laurel Wetzork’s flawed, sporadically entertaining drama that’s set in Los Angeles weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 .Read more…
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
Blueprint for Paradise is reminiscent of those 1940s anti-Nazi films in which a superficially charming man with a German accent plots to infiltrate America — but at the last minute is thwarted by brave noble citizens and/or the FBI. (I can’t put my finger on the exact name of the film or films, only that recollections of such linger from my childhood.)
The thing is, Blueprint, written by Laurel M. Wetzork and staged by director Laura Steinroeder at the Hudson Mainstage, has a basis in fact. Although the characters and plot details are fictional, prime elements of the narrative — plans to build a compound and training facility for Nazi sympathizers in Pacific Palisades, from designs by African-American architect Paul Revere Williams — actually did transpire. Read more…
Dany Margolies – The Daily News
Laurel M. Wetzork’s intriguing and unusual idea for a play falters, largely but not exclusively because of flawed direction, in its world premiere at Hudson Mainstage in Hollywood. Read more…
Now running through September 4