Don Shirley – LA Observed Center Theatre Group, which continues to call itself “L.A.’s Theatre Company,” also continues to demonstrate virtually no interest in LA stories. When CTG recently announced the next Mark Taper Forum season, after previously revealing new seasons for the coming year at CTG’s Ahmanson and Kirk Douglas theaters, I began counting. … Read more
From an Aborted NYC Mikado to Bloomberg Foundation Largesse to the 20 Most Produced Playwrights of 2015-16. Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Also making news is the news that Brian Kite, producing artistic director of La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, is stepping down to take over the Department Chair at the UCLA School … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw I Like Mondays. What is nicer than a Monday night show? If I were a theater producer I would always slip a Monday night performance into the schedule, just on principle. For one thing, all the critics will come, as they really won’t have anything else to do that night, except … Read more
From Paul Verdier to Dakin Matthews to A. Jeffrey Schoenberg to Stephen Sachs Paul Verdier (contributed by Steven Leigh Morris) Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw Yet another passing of another era was marked September 6, when actor-director-playwright-producer Paul Verdier died of complications from Parkinson’s Disease while under hospice care in West Hollywood. Read more… … Read more
Don Shirley – LA Observed Watts Village Theater Company is observing the 50th anniversary of its community’s most famous historical moment with “Riot/Rebellion,” an ensemble-driven documentary-style production.
Don Shirley – LA Observed Alfresco theater is one of the best features of an LA summer, yet the big LA media usually ignore it. Charles McNulty, the LA Times theater critic for nearly a decade, wrote an essay last week about ensemble acting in three of LA’s tiny indoor stages, but he has never … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly We haven’t been treated fairly, and everybody knows it, says actress Maria Gobetti. She’s objecting to the union’s elimination of L.A.’s 99-Seat Theater Plan, which, for the uninitiated, was in effect for a quarter century and permitted union actors to work in theaters of up to 99-seats in L.A. … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – @ This Stage magazine Steven Leigh Morris: Things have gone very quiet in the past couple of months. You’d almost think that nothing is happening. Rebecca Metz: There’s a lot of anger, in the older generation particularly. Personally, I can’t function holding that much anger. My goal is to get the … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly A solo show’s a little show where people talk about their life, “Like battling the bottle. Or slicing themselves with a knife, “They tell their tale with wigs or props, with easels to communicate, “Like being gay or being bi or being trans or being straight! Read more…
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly So you’re a theater having a hard time getting audiences. A new plan under way by the ever-tempestuous L.A.-based theater website Bitter Lemons allows you to pay the website directly for a published review, with the reviewer receiving the lion’s share of that payment — no guarantee of a good review, … Read more