Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw Ask anyone whether they’ve heard of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and you’ll probably get a quick “yes,” along with an annoyed “what a stupid question” stare. But it’s a safe bet that the names Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith wouldn’t be recognized. They were the men who started the organization in the unenlightened … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In one way, The City of Conversation can be seen as playwright’s paean to the bygone politics of 20th century America —in retrospect a fairer and far less brutal game than the one played today. Read more… Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze Plays usually center on a boiling-over point. “The City of Conversation” … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw John (Sam Anderson), the title character in Julie Marie Myatt’s long one-act, is a bitter and guilt-ridden man. A hard-drinking womanizer and jail-bird, he became a father, but a very reluctant one.Read more… Now running through July 3
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw For a considerable time now, it has become exceptionally difficult to shock an audience, a gambit that used to be an important arrow in the artist’s quiver. Nevertheless, in a society where in recent years the most dreaded circumstance has become to feel in any colorable way “awkward”, discomfiting the … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw What happens to a working-class alpha male when he loses his work? The consequences of such are on brilliant display in playwright/performer Raymond J. Barry’s Foreclosure or Yelling at Women Walking Their Dogs, a taut penetrating one-act that rivets around a fractured American family and the never-ending battle between philistinism and … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times The first time Derek DelGaudio performed at the Geffen Playhouse — in the 2012 show “Nothing to Hide,” which he created with co-star Helder Guimarães and director Neil Patrick Harris — DelGaudio ended up staying longer than expected: The magic act, originally slotted for a one-month run, packed the house for 18 weeks. Read more… … Read more
Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA Love, marriage, birth, and death are fodder for Dan LeFranc’s fast-paced narrative spotlighting a couple who meet, marry, and produce several generations in the space of 90 minutes. Read more… Now running through May 22
Margaret Gray – LA Times Craig Wright’s often-produced play “The Pavilion,” now in a lovely revival at Malibu Playhouse, takes place in the early 2000s, in the fictional town of Pine City, Minn. (That’s where Wright, who also has a long list of TV writing credits including “Six Feet Under,” “Lost” and “Dirty Sexy Money,” … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly The American Dream is an unforgiving myth. Birthed in rural America in the early 19th century, it galloped to prominence in the Gilded Age, championed by Horatio Alger’s novels and the ever more ubiquitous notion that wealth and opportunity are equally available to everyone and that any deserving individual who … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Moments before heading out to witness Alan Mandell’s staging of Endgame at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, just before sundown, I lit my first yahrtzeit candle to commemorate the first anniversary on the ancient lunar calendar of the death of my father. Leaving it to burn in my absence permitted me to approach Samuel Beckett’s … Read more