Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Dan O’Brien has written an American gothic tale on a par with Pulitzer Prize winner Sam Shepard’s best works. Like many of the characters in Shepard’s plays, the protagonist seeks the truth, but the answers will not assuage his guilt or pain. Read more… Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Early in Dan … Read more
Lovell Estell III — Stage Raw No American writer chronicled the unpleasant reality of the Depression era with more clarity and inventiveness than John Steinbeck. His gift for creating memorable characters underscores his best work, and this is no truer anywhere than in his 1937 novella about the ill-fated relationship between two itinerant migrant workers … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Middletown, a delicate, essentially plotless play about Anywhere, U.S.A., and how human connection is essential for our survival, requires actors to be able to fill the void that playwright Will Eno has left in the script. Read more… Now running through May 19
Erin Conley – OnStage Most people know about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the event historically seen as the inciting incident of World War I. But what do we really know about the assassins? In Archduke, a new play by Rajiv Joseph currently making its world premiere at Center Theatre Group’s Mark … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen Not many musicals literally start with a bang. In the case of The Bodyguard: the Musical, now playing at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, an opening gunshot was both very startling and pretty effective at getting the stragglers to settle into their seats. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw As a theatre critic, I’ve reviewed a lot of Shakespeare’s plays, but this is the first time I’ve seen anyone, in this case George Wilkins, credited as a collaborator in the writing. Read more… Now running through June 4
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA Playwright Thomas Gibbons says the title of this play refers to the feeling that people have when they’re confronted with a very realistic robot: a feeling of fascination. He adds, “But the more realistic the robot becomes, at some point that fascination turns to a kind of revulsion. They’re creeped … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way I have always been a proponent of good political theatre, not agitprop theatre such as written by Italian playwright Dario Fo. I prefer political writing that is more balanced like the great teleplays that David E. Kelley wrote for L.A. Law…Read more… Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Chilean playwright Guillermo … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen In a typical suburban home, a woman folds laundry—a young child’s clothes—as she chats with her sister. It’s all typical enough until the sister hesitantly reveals she is pregnant. As we quickly learn, this is a difficult and loaded topic because her nephew, the woman’s child, was recently … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw In James McClure’s one-act comedy, three men hang out in the parking lot at Angel’s Bar in Maynard Texas in 1981. Roy (Christopher Jordan) is a Vietnam vet. Before he went off to war, he was a kind of local hero, famous for his 1959 pink convertible Thunderbird and his … Read more