David C. Nichols – LA Times Life changes in an instant. The ordinary instant.” And so it did for Joan Didion in 2003, when her husband John Gregory Dunne succumbed to cardiac arrest in their New York apartment. Read more… Now running through Oct. 30.
David C. Nichols – LA Times The dilemmas facing the life-battered protagonist of “Good People” are perhaps strategically manipulated, but that doesn’t make them any less relevant, humorous or dramatically engrossing. Read more… Now running through Oct. 12.
David C. Nichols – LA Times The unparalleled sardonic wit of Oscar Wilde sustains “The Importance of Being Earnest” at A Noise Within, where it will doubtless be a crowd-pleasing hit, despite (or because of) its distinct idiosyncrasies, and therein hangs a conundrum. Read more… Now running through Nov.22.
David C. Nichols – LA Times Controversial psychology and show-biz moxie commingle in “The Behavior of Broadus,” with triumphant results. As delightfully self-assured as it is comically self-referential, made up of equal parts whimsy, wacky, profane and profound, this cracked experiment in satirical musical development is a wickedly entertaining watershed for Sacred Fools Theater Company, … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times The delicate art of origami provides both metaphor and motor for “Animals Out of Paper” at the David Henry Hwang Theater, and it enfolds the viewer with deceptive simplicity and considerable craft. Read more… Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA The paths of three loner characters intersect in Rajiv Joseph’s Animals Out of … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times The tragically brief life and career of Charlie “Bird” Parker consumes “Bird Lives!” at the Attic. Willard Manus’ examination of the saxophone virtuoso receives an ambitious, idiosyncratic Chromolume Theatre reading. Read more… Now running through September 21.
David C. Nichols – LA Times Coincidences are the universe’s way of being lazy” is one recurring motif in “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” at Theatre of NOTE, though it’s hardly the only metaphor. Erik Patterson’s promising dramedy pulls multiple similes toward coping with the aftereffects of a ruptured brain aneurysm. Read more… Now running through … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times The space where historical perspective and current-day attitudes crosshatch benefits “Frederick Douglass Now” at Bootleg Theater. Writer-performer Roger Guenveur Smith has done incisive, socially trenchant work before, but this is something else again. Read more… Now playing through August 24.
David C. Nichols – LA Times “Your – whaddyacallit – your world view? It ain’t mine. And the day it is, that’s the day I shoot myself in the head. I didn’t get clean to live like that.” That statement suggests the gravitas that drives the scabrous hilarity of “The Mother… With the Hat” at … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Give Kentwood Players credit for mounting this production. Del Shores’ “Sordid Lives,” at Westchester Playhouse through Aug. 16, focuses on social outcasts who ignite ire, if not disgust and even hatred. Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times Pity the survivors of the late Peggy Ingram, whose bizarre demise … Read more