David C. Nichols – LA Times Christmas Carol” is upon us, and its winning A Noise Within production is a keeper. Amid worthy area stagings of Charles Dickens’ immortal classic about miserly Ebenezer Scrooge’s Christmas Eve journey to redemption, this deftly performed, meta-theatrical edition stands out for fidelity to text, witty stagecraft and heartfelt embrace … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times It happens so often in Iowa that the housewives have come to expect it: Moments after their husbands and children head off to the state fair, hunky photographers arrive, asking directions to picturesque bridges. The photographers have drifters’ souls and hide from true intimacy behind their cameras. Read more… Myron Meisel … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In his 1954 Lord of the Flies, William Golding wrote about cruel behavior, herd mentality and the will to power among a community of adolescent boys. The same disturbing themes are present in British playwright Dennis Kelly’s DNA, which premiered in 2007 at the youth-oriented Theatre Connections Festival in London. Read more… … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw If you’re looking for a fun holiday show that’s free of both sentimentality and Christmas propaganda, the folks at Crown City Theatre have obligingly provided one. Read more… Now running through January 17.
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Since it premiered on Broadway in March 2014, a number of theater writers have commented on how the range and power of lead diva Idina Menzel transforms Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s so-so musical into a show well worth seeing. Read more… Bob Verini – Stage Raw The Pantages is playing … Read more
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw Josh Carson’s lovingly crafted theatrical tribute to the action franchise starring Bruce Willis opens in darkness, until an offstage cappella chorus sounds the familiar crescendo and theme music that herald a 20th Century Fox movie. Read more… Now running through December 19.
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Michael Cooney’s Cash on Delivery typifies the sort of humor you find in a quintessential English farce. It’s very funny when it’s well done and a big boring yawn when it’s not. I’m pleased to report that the production at the El Portal, directed by Cooney’s father Ray (who was knighted for … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw In a month where various iterations of A Christmas Carol proliferate like mistletoe, an antidote is required for those of us who prefer our holiday spirits bottled. Bob’s Holiday Office Party, written by Joe Keyes and Rob Elk, has been fulfilling this duty for two decades. Unfortunately, this twentieth anniversary production is … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times The stripper whose wildest dream is of marriage. The high-stakes gambler who falls for a missionary. Both live on the sweet, homely Broadway of Damon Runyon, whose short stories about Depression-era gamblers and others on the seedy side of the street of dreams inspired the great American musical “Guys and Dolls: A … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Truman Capote’s autobiographical novella, A Christmas Memory, deals with his loving friendship with his elderly eccentric cousin Sook, and takes place during a period in the writer’s childhood when, due to his mother’s marital vicissitudes, he was farmed out to various relatives in the South. Read more… Now running through December 27.