Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In a Rorschach test, an individual is presented with a series of abstract images and asked what they see. Their answers are used by the administering psychiatrist or psychologist to gain insight into that person’s state of mind. Open Fist Theater Company’s current production is titled Rorschach Fest. Presented as three separate … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Part memory play, part social drama, Janine Salinas Schoenberg’s Las Mujeres Del Mar(Women of the Sea) tells the story of three generations of Mexican-American women who strive to love and support each other despite their past wounds and resentments. A world premiere mounted at Playwrights’ Arena, it’s skillfully directed by Diane … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen When the lights rise on Handjob, a play by Erik Patterson currently in its world premiere at the Echo Theater Company in Los Angeles, we meet Keith (Steven Culp). Keith is a gay, white writer, and he has hired Eddie (Michael Rishawn), a younger black man, to provide a … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Perhaps most notable among the many prizes received by playwright E.M. Lewis is the Steinberg Award from the American Theatre Critics Association, garnered for Song of Extinction, produced in 2008 by the L.A. troupe Moving Arts. (That production also won both an LA Weekly award for Best Production and the LADCC award for … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In its world premiere, Cory Hinkle’s The End of Beauty runs about two hours, but it’s not until the last 10 minutes that it grips one’s attention. That’s when Silas Weir Mitchell, playing one of the story’s three characters, looks back on the past with acceptance, perplexity and regret.Read more… Now running … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen “We are the Wolves. We are the Wolves,” a group of teenage girls chants, each repetition of the phrase growing in both volume and urgency. The Wolves are a high school indoor soccer team, and the subject of Sarah DeLappe’s play of the same name currently in its … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen In How We’re Different From Animals, a world premiere play based on short stories by Miranda July, there is one common theme—romance. Romance is, after all, how July argues we are different from animals.Read more… Now running through March 24
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Although Bliss (Or Emily Post is Dead!), is set in North Orange, New Jersey in the 1960s, a rudimentary knowledge of Greek mythology is helpful in fathoming the themes of Jami Brandli’s ambitious but muddled satire, directed by Darin Anthony.Read more… Now running through December 2
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Although the publishing world serves as the framework for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ scathing dramedy, his story is less about the decimation of a once flourishing profession as it is about the impoverishment of our lives and our relationships with others, or lack thereof.Read more… Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Not every work of art is designed with the mass audience in mind. Some are experiments or explorations, or maybe just a diverting goof. All these terms might apply to John O’Keefe’s All Night Long, a kaleidoscopic fever dream of a play that revels in erudition and silly humor but doesn’t … Read more