Christian Telesmar. Photo by Craig Schwartz.
Tracey Paleo – BroadwayWorld
There is a reason why August Wilson is one of the more prolifically produced playwrights in modern American theater. He just gets it. Life. Language. History. Struggle. Desire. People. This can be similarly said for Gregg T. Daniel, one of greater Los Angeles’ well-loved actors/directors. And it shows in his latest directorial effort, RADIO GOLF, currently at, A Noise Within. Read more…
Through November 13
Photo by Oliver Bokelberg
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
August Wilson’s King Hedley II takes place in the 1980s when Reaganomics, and the notion that wealth trickles down from the rich to the poor, was the hypothetical order of the day. The reality, of course, is that no such trickling took place; the poor, black and white, grew poorer than ever, a circumstance we see in the struggle of Wilson’s title character to earn a living for himself and his family, and to garner, against odds, some measure of self-respect. Read more…
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
This play by the late August Wilson is part of his 10-play series about the black experience in each of the decades of the 20th century. This one is set in the 1980s. The title character, King Hedley II (Esau Pritchett), is a proud but thwarted black man, whose face is bisected by a livid scar, the result of a razor attack. Read more…
Now running through February 12
Photo by Craig Schwartz.
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw
At the Opening Night performance of director Phylicia Rashad’s powerful staging of playwright August Wilson’s modern classic Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, I found myself seated next to a gentleman who claimed to be one of the agents for one of the performers in the show. He promptly loosened his tie and shrugged off his blazer. “Better make myself comfortable,” he noted. “It’s kind of warm in here and Wilson doesn’t write short.” Read more…
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
The late, greatly missed August Wilson wrote 10 plays for the 10 decades of the last century. Some of them come through Los Angeles often enough that we can compare productions, particularly because Mark Taper Forum and Fountain Theatre have a penchant for, and a talent for, Wilson’s works. Read more…
Jonas Schwartz - TheaterMania
Center Theatre Group’s vibrant production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom fills the Mark Taper Forum stage with powerhouse performances. Lillias White brings down the house with her rendition of the title song, but it is the four band members, played by Keith David, Glynn Turman, Damon Gupton, and Jason Dirden, who take center stage with electricity and chemistry. Read more…
Now running through October 16
Photo by Suzanne Mapes
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
August Wilson’s plays are as much about the historical experience of African-Americans as they are about any one of his characters. This is certainly true of Fences, which begins in 1957, a year marked by federal troops on the ground in Arkansas and the forced desegregation of Little Rock Central High School. Read more…
David C. Nichols – LA Times
You’ve got to take the crookeds with the straights,” says the disillusioned protagonist of “Fences” at International City Theatre. That observation indicates the multiple conflicts running through the late, great August Wilson’s 1987 study of a former Negro League player turned garbage collector battling prejudice, regrets and mortality. Read more…
Dany Margolies – Press-Telegram
Fences can keep people out and fences can keep people in. Fences separate races and generations. But for Troy Maxson, they also represent goals not reached and, for as long as he can manage, a barrier to death. Read more…
Shirle Gottlieb – Gazette Newspapers
If you’re a theater fan, you undoubtedly know that August Wilson, set out to write a 10-cycle play about the African-American experience — with one for each decade of the 20th Century.`Read more…
Now running through September 13.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE by August Wilson.
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
For this critic August Wilson has always been eloquent on the page, a bit wordy on the stage. This second in his 10-play chronicle of the African-American experience takes place in 1911, a bare 46 years after the Civil War ended. Wilson’s vibrant characters are searching — for love, money, personal freedom or healing and spiritual salvation. Read more…
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA May 24, 2013
The earthy reality of poverty and magic realism collide in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by American playwright, August Wilson, now playing at Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum through June 9, 2013. Unfortunately, director Phylicia Rashad (renowned for a recent and brilliant staging at ERT and CTG of another American classic, Raisin in the Sun) fails to permit Wilson’s magic to take flight.
Read more…