F. Kathleen Foley – Stage Raw There’s an inherent problem with Love, Loss and What I Wore, currently playing at Sawyer’s Playhouse in North Hollywood. The show assumes women have a near-fetishistic preoccupation with their clothing — the perfect blouse, the slinky skirt, the knee-high boots that tie the whole look together. Read more…
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Talk about a phoenix rising from the ashes. After losing its cherished, longtime venue to the devastating Palisades Fire, this is a deeply heartwarming milestone for the scrappy little company and they could not have chosen a more perfect project (or space) to signal their triumphant return to storytelling. Read … Read more
Elaine Mura – Splash Magazines Skillfully helmed by Tony Pasqualini, SLAVA UKRAINI! is a tight-lipped, grisly moment in a ghastly time of war as the audience shares space in the ravaged bunker with the three battle-scarred soldiers. The cast does an excellent job of conveying the hopeless, heartless, and never-ending stress that is wartime. … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Sunday in the Park with Will! Bright, inventive, and wonderfully physical, this production plays like a seamless blend of classic slapstick and lively cabaret. It takes a truly inspired team to make a 400-year-old farce feel like a brand-new party. Read more… Edward Hong – The Nerds of Color Did … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA What a joy it is to see Charles Mee’s work back on LA stages twice this season after an entirely too long absence. The ambitious fledgling Blue Pen Theatre Company is now presenting this LA premiere dubbed a “kaleidoscope of love stories” which, in classic Mee fashion, eschew conventional linear … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Some people prefer their musical theatre bright and sunny and filled with corn as high as an elephant’s eye and nuns worrying about the problem of Maria, but give me the strange, the seductive, and sinister and dangerous every time. Seeing Frank Wildhorn, Don Black, and Christopher Hampton’s seldom performed … Read more
Ed Rampell – Hollywood Progressive Multi-talented playwright Bernardo Cubria’s topical The People of Pompeii is among the best original plays I’ve soon in quite a while. The action takes place in 2025 after the Palisades Fire almost wiped-out Topanga Canyon, just like Mount Vesuvius did to the eponymous, ancient Roman city of Pompeii, when that … Read more
Ed Rampell – Hollywood Progressive Like in many Greek dramas, this play’s deus ex machina literally drops from above – but no, it is not a chariot as in Euripides’ “Medea,” but rather it comes in the form of a completed screenplay. The two friends take time out from their palling around and woeful attempt … Read more
Anita W. Harris – LA Theatrix You don’t have to have grown up with “Sesame Street” or “The Muppet Show” to enjoy Brian Henson’s “Puppet Up!” — an improv show with puppets who do whatever the audience tells them with the help of their talented handlers. Read more…
Ed Rampell – Hollywood Progressive I enjoyed most of the music, as well as the dancing (choreo by Becca Sweitzer) and acting. Best of all was the show biz setting of the story because, don’tchaknow, there’s no business like show business like no business that I know. It was good fun going back to … Read more