Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Kate Morgan Chadwick makes an arresting entrance as she slithers alluringly across the floor at Atwater Village Theatre, climbing onto the large white bed (Se Oh’s scenic design) that serves as the focus for Sheila Callaghan’s fiercely feminist one-act. Read more… Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA The central focus of Bed — Sheila Callaghan’s … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Playwright Gabriel Rivas Gomez’s eccentric, uneven drama is loosely based on themes from Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Filtered through a prism of modern corporate capitalism, it’s a tale of American kindness — or more accurately, about the lack of it as far as poor immigrants and our underclass are concerned. Read more… … Read more
Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military pilots in the Armed Forces of the United States. Their courage, skill and dedication played a significant role in the allied victory in Europe during World War II — this in a time of hardcore segregation and racial hostility, both inside and … Read more
Bob Verini – Stage Raw Diana Amsterdam’s The Dodgers, now playing at the Hudson Mainstage, deals with a December “Day of Infamy,” but it’s not the one that interrupted Americans’ Sunday morning breakfast with news about something called Pearl Harbor. Just short of 28 years later, on December 1, 1969, the government held a televised lottery to … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times “I am not your rabbi, I am not your father, I am not your shrink, I am not your friend, I am not your teacher,” the Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko warns his new assistant in the first scene of John Logan’s Tony Award-winning bio-drama “Red,” now at South Coast … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Teenage romance meets Southern Gothic in Eric Rosen’s intriguing and quirky play, based on the novel by Jim Grimsley and directed by Michael Matthews. Read more… Les Spindle – Frontiers L.A. Based on a 1995 novel by Jim Grimsley, which was subsequently adapted into a 2008 film, Eric Rosen’s evocative 1996 play makes … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze For a fun evening with more than a few laughs, “The Nerd” hits the spot, playing through January at the Norris Theatre on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Though written in the early 1980s, Larry Shue’s comedy hasn’t aged badly, except for an era-specific reference or two. That’s because Shue’s … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly In concept, Stephen Sachs’ Dream Catcher at the Fountain Theatre is a timely play. Directed by Cameron Watson, it details a clash between a young engineer involved in designing a solar-energy plant that would help combat global warming, and a poorly educated Native American woman who objects to the project because it … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Many writers — including playwrights — seem to feel they can broaden the scope or deepen the penetration of their works by linking their efforts to major — often traumatic — events in the real world. When it works, the results can be gratifying. But unless the writer in question … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze Three of the four names in the title of Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” sound familiar, right? The three are characters in classic Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s plays. Spike? Not so much. Read more… Now running through February 14.