Jonas Schwartz – Arts In LA Kevin Saunders Hayes’s ambitious multimedia experimentations with silent films returns to Los Angeles with a funhouse version of the Lon Chaney classic Phantom of the Opera. Projecting the film on the big screen, the production comments on the movie by intensify the experience with original songs, dance, and wild costumes. … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Joyful & exuberant — Isango Ensemble’s afrobeat version of Mozart’s fairytale opera The Magic Flute is a unique and beautiful experience. You will probably have never experienced anything like it before, and perhaps never will again — it’s that special. Read more… Now running through Oct. 12.
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw This sixth annual presentation by Unbound Productions is a cool, autumnal treat. Participants gather at the Mountain View Mausoleum & Cemetery in Altadena to witness three adaptations of famous scary stories from literature or folklore, staged on the grounds. Read more… Bob Verini – Arts In LA Immersive, site-specific theater could … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw This farce, written and directed by Sean Abley, belongs to that subset of gay theater which specializes in sending up (or cannibalizing) the plots and themes of more conventional works for its own deliberately trashy purposes. It’s set in the Susan B. Anthony School for Girls, and though all the … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw Jessica Goldberg told The Jewish Journal that her new play Better is quasi-autobiographical, written in the wake of her father’s death from brain cancer in conjunction with her own crumbling marriage to actor Hamish Linklater. Read more… Now running through Nov. 16.
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Antony J. Bowman’s afterlife drama begins with his amiable central character, architect Michael (Josh T. Ryan), vividly describing his sudden death in a violent car wreck in upstate New York. Michael then proceeds to narrate the story from a state of limbo, observing his grief-stricken wife and best-friend colleagues during … Read more
Bob Verini – Stage Raw Victor Kaufold’s The Why is a young man’s play, and feels like it. Essentially a series of revue sketches on the topic of school gun violence, it was featured in the Blank Theater’s venerable Young Playwrights Festival in 2000 when Kaufold was 19. Now with a Yale MFA in tow, he doesn’t … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Ann Noble gives a magnificent performance in Edward Albee’s absurd drama The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?, now playing at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre. Ostensibly a study of the irreparable destruction of a perfect marriage, Albee softens us up with his dry humor and jokey lines swirling around a premise, … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times The dilemmas facing the life-battered protagonist of “Good People” are perhaps strategically manipulated, but that doesn’t make them any less relevant, humorous or dramatically engrossing. Read more… Now running through Oct. 12.
David C. Nichols – LA Times The unparalleled sardonic wit of Oscar Wilde sustains “The Importance of Being Earnest” at A Noise Within, where it will doubtless be a crowd-pleasing hit, despite (or because of) its distinct idiosyncrasies, and therein hangs a conundrum. Read more… Now running through Nov.22.