PICNIC at Antaeus Theatre Company

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Les Spindle –  Edge on the Net In its shimmering revival of William Inge’s steamy 1953 classic, “Picnic,” the classics-focused Antaeus Theatre Company serves up a theatrical feast. Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times The intimacy of small-town life and its stifling limitations permeate “Picnic,” which the thoughtfully representative staging at Antaeus Theater Company underscores without … Read more

MISERABLE WITH AN OCEAN VIEW at the Whitefire Theatre

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Les Spindle –  Frontiers L.A. Howard Skora’s zany dark comedy, directed by Jim Fall, stars veteran actress Patty McCormack (who is well-remembered as an 11-year-old Oscar nominee, playing a murderous moppet in the classic 1956 thriller The Bad Seed). Read more… Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Howard Skora’s black farce is constructed like a TV sitcom, but … Read more

THE HEIR APPARENT at International City Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center

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Margaret Gray – LA Times Struggles over inheritance are always painful — unless, of course, they take place in a French farce, in which case they are endlessly prankish and ribald. Read more… Myron Meisel – Stage Raw David Ives’s“translaptation” of Jean-Francois Regnard’s 1708 farce The Heir Apparent (Le Legataire Universel), at International City Theatre, also involves a … Read more

THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center

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Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Sophocles was thought to be near 90 when he wrote Oedipus at Colonus, which tells of the iconic figure’s quest for redemption and a final resting place as his tortured life drew to a close. Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times It’s fairly unusual for a 30-plus-year-old experimental theater … Read more

SMUDGE at the Hudson Theatres

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Jenny Lower – Stage Raw If Smudge is a horror story, it’s more the sort that lurks in the recesses of future parents’ brains than a Rosemary’s Baby — although Colby (Whitney Wellner), mother of the titular offspring, probably could have used some coping strategies from Mia Farrow. Read more…

HOW TO BE A ROCK CRITIC at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

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David C. Nichols – LA Times Talk amongst yourselves,” says a wild-eyed Lester Bangs as he hammers away at his typewriter, gesturing us into his unkempt apartment, Black Sabbath blaring from the turntable. “And nobody touch my records.”Read more… Dany Margolies  –  Arts In LA The lesson to be learned here is not how to … Read more

BAD JEWS at the Geffen Playhouse

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Jenny Lower – LA Weekly Among the many contentious ideas explored during Bad Jews, Joshua Harmon’s delicious pressure cooker of a show now playing at the Geffen, is how a religious or cultural identity can become the sole bedrock upon which some people base their identity. Read more… Myron Meisel – Stage Raw I can remember the … Read more

COME FROM AWAY at the La Jolla Playhouse

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Bob Verini  –   Variety Any qualms about the propriety or taste of a “9/11 musical” prove unfounded in the case of “Come From Away,” the superb new show premiering at La Jolla Playhouse. Out of the true story of a small Newfoundland community playing host to 38 commercial aircraft after the World Trade Center attacks, Canadians Irene Sankoff … Read more