Margaret Gray – LA Times East West Players wraps up its 51st season, dedicated to “the female perspective,” with a revival of “Next to Normal,” the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning musical about a suburban housewife’s struggle with mental illness and its effect on her family, played here by an Asian American cast. Read more… Now running through … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen Every family has its secrets, and in an uncertain political climate, precarious situations and relationships that have held on by a thread for years can quickly become threatened. Read more… Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main Dorothy Fortenberry’s Species Native to California takes place in Northern California in 2016, prior … Read more
Madeleine Shaner With sadness and respect, the LADCC announces the death of longtime circle member Madeleine Shaner. For decades she reviewed for Park LaBrea News/Beverly Press and for Back Stage. In some of those years she was known as “the broad in the hat,” a floppy-brimmed bit of wardrobe ornamented with a sunflower that became … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Five Guys Named Moe celebrates the music of pioneering jazz musician Louis Jordan, a crossover artist whose swinging soulful music was popular with both black and white audiences from the late 1930s to the early ‘50s. Read more… Now running through June 11
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw The second in a set of two one-person plays, John O’Keefe’s Don’t Ever Call Me Anything But Mother may be that unique monologue that is literally unlike anything you’ve witnessed before — though whether it will beguile or appall you really depends on your mood and ability to deal with creepy darkness. Read … Read more
Neal Weaver – Arts In LA In the 1940s and 50s, British playwright Terrence Rattigan was considered an important playwright, scoring successes in both England and the U.S. with The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, Separate Tables, and other works. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way “Loneliness is a terrible thing, don’t you agree.” That sentiment is … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Playwright Nicky Silver has written over a dozen plays which have mostly been produced off-Broadway and at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. South Coast Repertory produced his Pterodactyls and Raised in Captivity in the early 1990s. Read more… Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw Nicky Silver’s mordant comedy revisits the familiar … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw This long one-act by Michael John LaChiusa (The Wild Party) is a musical update of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1900 play La Ronde which, shocking for its time, featured 10 interconnected sexual encounters. The structure and the characters’ names are Schnitzler’s, though the Young Thing has been transformed from female to male … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw It’s hard to imagine a more far-fetched plot than the one that animates this zany musical by Lynn Ahren (book and lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (music), based on The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo by Michael Butterworth. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Lucky Stiff is a … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times He said, she said. Then he said more, and then she said more. They both kept saying things. But no matter how much they said, it was impossible to determine what had actually happened between the two freshmen in the Princeton University dorm room when they were very drunk. Was it consensual … Read more