Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Jennifer Maisel’s new play, premiering with this production, examines the way we deal with grief, loss, and death. Clark (Ryan Yu) and Emily (Elizabeth Pan) were a happily married couple, devoted to their 10-year-old son Jake (whom we never see). But when Jake is suddenly killed in a hideous bicycle … Read more
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw Like most of the gangsters it features in its slick, style-obsessed production at the Atwater Village Theatre, Get. That. Snitch., the debut effort of Great Minds Creative Productions, talks a big game. But like the “very bad men” who one by one fall to their knees in a pool of their … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times In “ICU,” playwright Fielding Edlow diagnoses dark humor in the most dysfunctional family this side of Eugene O’Neill’s Tyrone clan. Here, they’re upper-middle-class New York Jews, snarling and kvetching through the striking environmental staging by Circle X Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre. Read more… Now running through October … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Playwright David McMillan’s Watching O.J. cogently encapsulates the passions and perspectives surrounding the murder trial of ex-professional football star and actor O.J. Simpson – an event which captivated America and much of the Western world this month, 20 years ago. Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times Tomorrow you can be white … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Playwright Miki Johnson’s discerning but uneven one act takes place in small-town America and calls to mind Thoreau’s phrase “lives of quiet desperation.” Read more… Now running through Oct. 11.
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw There’s an old superstition that an empty theater should never be left dark – hence the term ghost light, referring to the solitary light that illuminates the house after everyone’s gone home. Read more… Now running through August 27.
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Playwright Jessica Dickey sets her comedy in the odd and largely unfamiliar world of Civil War Re-enactors, who have spent their day staging a recreation of Pickett’s Charge, which shifted the tides of war during the Battle of Gettysburg. Read more…
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw “This is a horror story,” murmurs a voice from the darkness in A Small Fire, directed by Alana Dietze — the latest outing from the Echo Theater Company. The voice belongs to Emily (Lily Knight), a middle-aged woman who succumbs to an undefined medical condition that gradually chips away at her … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times “Sandra, I’m home. No go on the Dunkin’ Donuts job.” Thus the title character of “Trevor,” presented by Circle X Theatre Co., grabs our attention in a 200-pound death grip. Read more… Now running through April 19.
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly A fugue, in music, is a melody repeated in complex patterns. In psychiatry, it’s a dissociative state of mind. Playwright Tommy Smith infuses both meanings into his ambitious new play, Fugue. Read more… Dany Margolies – Arts In LA This show has quite the pedigree. Its playwright, Tommy Smith, wrote last year’s … Read more