Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen Reuven and Danny spend their childhoods living five blocks apart, but only meet for the first time as teenagers when a contentious baseball game ends with one of them in the hospital. This sets the scene for The Chosen, adapted for the stage by Aaron Posner and Chaim … Read more
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) has announced its nominations and special awards for excellence in Los Angeles, Orange County and Ventura County theatre for the year 2017 (Dec. 1, 2016 – Nov. 30, 2017). The 49th annual LADCC awards ceremony will take place on Monday, March 19, 2018, at A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd, Pasadena, … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Anna Ziegler’s play is a subtle examination of tangled human emotions — perceptive but only moderately satisfying. The play is threaded with many references to the mythological Icarus who fell to his death when he flew too close to the sun. Sarah quotes W. H. Auden’s poem “Musee Des Beaux … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Cabaret has undergone much alteration from Harold Prince’s original 1966 Broadway production. In 1972, wunderkind Bob Fosse revamped the story line for the film version, commissioning the composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb to write new songs, such as “Mein Herr,” “Money,” and the pair’s trunk song “Maybe This Time.” … Read more
Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld It takes an awfully long time to get to the point in Philip Whitchurch’s original one act play directed by Julia St. John. Set during a fictional night in the lives of William Shakespeare (played by Whitchurch) and his wife Anne (Sally Edwards) at their home in Stratford-upon-Avon, the story reveals … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze Little Fish Theater’s annual short-play festival “Pick of the Vine” this year features nine plays touching on the theme “Secrets We Keep.” Bringing meaning and polish to the plays are a uniformly firm feel even though various directors are involved, crisp designs and solid acting.Read more… Now running through … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw George Bernard Shaw once observed that it is useless to argue with a clergyman because his livelihood depends on his not changing his mind. But the remark could equally well be applied to anyone whose career depends on defending and maintaining a particular point of view —and that could be … Read more
Lovell Estell III — Stage RawSam Steiner’s wildly eccentric two-hander follows the relationship of Bernadette (Brynn Alexander) and Oliver (Philip Asta) as they struggle to exist in an Orwellian world on steroids, where the government limits the number of words citizens can use daily. It’s an engaging premise with abundant potential, yet the playwright fails … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Bugaboo (Bug) is the nickname of a feisty blue-collar woman (Heidi Sulzman) who’s incarcerated in the Henderson County, West Virginia jail on a drug charge. She’s been alone in her cell for 42 days, which is hard on her because she’s a compulsive non-stop talker and has been deprived of … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw If film is primarily a visual medium, then theatre is mainly about the spoken word. The emphasis should fall upon “spoken.” Plays are meant to be performed, not read. So, when playwright Bess Wohl decided to make her play Small Mouth Sounds largely silent, she was adding a level of difficulty to … Read more