Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld How much rage would a person need to feel to kill two people with 29 whacks of an axe? The short answer is, a lot. That’s the number Andrew Borden and his second wife Abby actually sustained in 1892 – not the 81 immortalized in this haunting nursery rhyme. To this … Read more
Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld When writer/director Stan Lai has an idea for a new play, people take notice. He is the most celebrated Chinese language playwright and director in the world and his body of work – which to date includes 35 original plays – has redefined how we think about the art form itself. … Read more
Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld Somewhere between its opening of SWEET CHARITY in late June and the end of July, Reprise 2.0 postponed its second scheduled production of its inaugural season, VICTOR/VICTORIA. In its place, the company has mounted a revival of Kander & Ebb’s musical revue, THE WORLD GOES ‘ROUND… Richard Israel’s production is impressively … Read more
Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld TITUS ANDRONICUS is one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedies. Characters are stabbed, beheaded, mutilated, raped, baked in a pie, and one is even buried up to his neck and left to die. At first glance it may not sound like an obvious choice for families who attend the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage and Screen You cannot walk five feet in the Pantages Theatre without encountering a bunch of mini pies for sale, perfectly setting the scene for Waitress, the hit Broadway musical that opened in Los Angeles for the first time last night. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way In 2007 writer/director/actress … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Murray Mednick’s play, having its world premiere, is a tale of two suicides: that of the Russian Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, who shot himself in the heart in 1930, and that of Nadezhda Alliluyeva (Nadya), the second wife of Joseph Stalin, who shot herself in her bedroom during a Communist … Read more
Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld One thing’s for sure – country musicals are an awful lot of fun. There aren’t very many of them and, if you can name one at all, it’s most likely THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS or THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM. But there is another rarely produced gem that is just as … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen Sometimes it’s the most seemingly random interactions that go on to have the greatest impact on our lives. This is the topic explored in Arrival & Departure, a play written and directed by Stephen Sachs and inspired by the 1945 film Brief Encounter. Read more… Ellen Dostal – Broadway … Read more
Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld It contains possibly the last words William Shakespeare ever wrote and chances are you’ve never seen a production of it. THE TWO NOBLE KINSMAN was written around 1613 but not published until 1634, and is attributed to both Shakespeare and John Fletcher, the man who would succeed him as resident playwright for the King’s Men (named … Read more
Ellen Dostal – BroadwayWorld As its inaugural production, new classical theatre company The 6th Act, led by co-artistic directors Matthew Leavitt and Liza Seneca, presents two playwrights united by a common theme in AN EVENING OF BETRAYAL. Act One is Harold Pinter’s BETRAYAL, which tells its story of marital infidelity from end to beginning. A … Read more