BroadwayWorld

PRETTY WOMAN: THE MUSICAL at the Dolby Theatre

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Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld Rebooting a classic is always dicey. If it’s an exact blueprint, what’s the point? But deviating from that blueprint can alienate its fans. And how to make it fresh yet still retain the magic that made it work in the first place? The producers of PRETTY WOMAN the musical learned the … Read more

COME FROM AWAY at the Ahmanson Theatre

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Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld Based on a true story of compassion in the face of horror, COME FROM AWAY dazzles with sheer exuberance, leading to a surprisingly moving conclusion. When terrorists took control of airplanes, using them as weapons and crashing them near the Pentagon and in New York City on September 11, 2001, the … Read more

MAN OF GOD at Geffen Playhouse

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Peter Debruge – Variety The lights come up on four Korean American teens crowded around a hotel bed. They’re members of a So Cal church group on a mission to Bangkok, Thailand — though the location only matters is the abstract. Audiences never leave the hotel room in “Man of God,” although director Maggie Burrows’ … Read more

AFTERGLOW at the Hudson Theatre

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Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld Relationships are complicated. And whether it’s marriage, friendship, or with your cat, they become exponentially more complicated when there are more than two people involved, which is what gay married thirtysomethings Josh (Noah Bridgestock) and Alex (James Hayden Rodriguez) discover through their open relationship when Josh breaks the cardinal sin of … Read more

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF at Geffen Playhouse

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Terry Morgan  –  Artsbeat LA Bitchiness, thy name is Albee. Has there ever been a play that reveled in so much in mean-spirited badinage as Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Sour wit courses through the blackened veins of this show like acidic blood, or more specifically like the booze the characters actively embalm themselves with.  Read … Read more

BRIGHT HALF LIFE at the Road Theatre on Magnolia

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Terry Morgan  –  ArtsBeat LA Plays that chart the course of a romantic relationship have long been a staple of theater. Stories told in a nonlinear way are less common but not unheard of. When you take the previous two structures and apply them to the topic of a lesbian interracial marriage, the result is … Read more

RAPUNZEL ALONE at the 24th Street Theatre

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Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In 2013, the 24th Street Theater produced a play by British playwright Mike Kenny, Walking the Tightrope. It was directed by Debbie Devine and starred adult performer Paige Lindsey White as a little girl who visits her grandparents at the seaside every year…Now comes Rapunzel Alone, another play by Kenny that was commissioned by … Read more

A PUBLIC READING OF AN UNPRODUCED SCREENPLAY ABOUT THE DEATH OF WALT DISNEY at the Odyssey Theatre

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Terry Morgan  –  Artsbeat LA I have a rule about avant-garde theater: if an artist chooses to deliberately obscure his/her/their meaning via unusual methods or flirts dangerously with pretentiousness, the play had better validate those choices by demonstrating how they were necessary. Most experimental pieces, in my experience, fail that test, but when they succeed … Read more