A SHORT STAY AT CARRANOR at Theatre West

Dany Margolies  –  Arts In LA At last, a play with two lead roles for actors able to pass for 70-year-olds. More particularly, those actors here look romantically attractive enough to sweep the audience into the love story of Irene and Chet, whose relationship has been thwarted since Irene was 16.Read more… Now running through … Read more

I AM NOT MARK TWAIN at Theater/Theatre

Neal Weaver – LA Weekly I doubt that anyone has ever thought that Steven Cragg was Mark Twain, but it provides him with a useful gimmick to galvanize his one-man show. He appears costumed and bewigged in a deliberately seedy simulacrum of the outfit worn by Hal Holbrook in his Mark Twain solo show.Read more… … Read more

SMOKE AND MIRRORS at Lankershim Arts Center

Dany Margolies – Arts In LA “When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?” asks Albie at the top of this show. “And what were you afraid of?” These questions cleverly plunge the audience into a childlike mindset, priming each viewer to enjoy the wonders of magic—prestidigitational and … Read more

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at Ivy Substation

Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Why is this Night different from all other Nights? To start with, it’s smart, it’s imaginative, it’s beautiful, it makes sense of the peculiar world Shakespeare created. It takes the titular dream to heart, as characters shape-shift and locales subtly morph. Still, the text is clear. Under the direction … Read more

LEND ME A TENOR at the Westchester Playhouse

How might you know a play is a farce? Normally, the set offers a clue, and in particular the set will include several doors that allow characters to barrel into situations and then quickly escape the consequences. This production of Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me a Tenor boasts six doors. Hilarity, you can be sure, ensues.Read … Read more

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE at Pacific Residents Theatre Ensemble

Terry Morgan – LAist When one thinks of Arthur Miller’s body of work, one doesn’t immediately think “chronicler of Italian-American experience,” but with A View From The Bridge, he revealed a further breadth of his talent. The lead characters of most of Miller’s plays are imperfect men, from Willy Loman and John Proctor, and Eddie … Read more

THE JUDY SHOW at the AUDREY SKIRBALL KENIS THEATER at the GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE

Dany Margolies  –  Arts In LA One will glean from her solo show that Judy Gold desperately wants her own sitcom, in part to promote her personal history of ultimately earning acceptance from her family, and thus she created this 95-minute saga (co-written with Kate Moira Ryan), packaged with its own theme song. In that … Read more

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) at the Santa Monica Repertory Theater at The Promenade Playhouse

Dany Margolies – Arts In LA In this three-person show—originally the work of writer-actors Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield—three actors enact highlights of, summarize, or at least mention the title of all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays. First up are highlights, or lowlights, of Romeo and Juliet. Next, Titus Andronicus is boiled down to … Read more