Don Shirley – Angeles Stage Two concepts of ‘dreams’ are among theater’s most fertile narrative components. Right now, you can see sterling examples of both of these ‘dream’ genres in LA-area theaters. Eight productions are featured in this edition of Angeles Stage. Read more…
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage Fourth walls are tumbling down. Yes, those invisible barriers between actors and audience are increasingly breached in contemporary theater. Read more…
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage Graf masterfully weaves together this terrible-family-secrets narrative with, of course, a sideways glance at American gun culture. The result becomes absorbing and ultimately moving in caryn desai’s staging. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way The entertainment value is high in ICT’s production. The direction by caryn desai is … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage A Noise Within got a jump on other midsize companies by opening its fall season last Saturday — before Labor Day — with Lydia Diamond’s 2006 adaptation of Toni Morrison’s 1970 novel “The Bluest Eye”. I missed its first LA County production, in Santa Monica in 2011, so I was … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage Greater LA is currently the home of two new and complex scripts that examine hot-button life-or-death arenas, from refreshingly unexpected perspectives. Not surprisingly, the LA Times has yet to review either of them. Read more…
Martίn Hernández – Stage Raw Playwright Ashley Rose Wellman’s world premiere dramedy depicts a complex mother-daughter relationship with nuanced characters and snappy dialogue. Set in a cramped and cluttered animal shelter, Wellman’s play explores themes of euthanasia, abortion, and single motherhood. These are embodied by human as well as Bunraku-influenced puppet characters, resulting in a … Read more
Martίn Hernández – Stage Raw In the early 1950s, playwright Arthur Miller and his friend Elia Kazan pitched Miller’s dockworker-based screenplay The Hook, with Kazan as the proposed director, to Columbia Pictures’ boss Harry Cohn. When Cohn – and the FBI – wanted to change the corrupt union villains from Mafia thugs to Communist ones, … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the Mark Taper Forum. Read more…
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage The free-admission but donation-reliant ISC returns to its Old Zoo space within Griffith Park with “Julius Caesar,” after two seasons in a much smaller dell just to the west, deeper within the park (following the COVID-caused cancellation of ISC’s outdoor activity in 2020). The temporary location was used primarily because … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage “Last Summer at Bluefish Cove” isn’t usually considered a classic, but it played an important role in LA theater history as the first lesbian-themed play to have a long run — more than two years at the Fountain Theatre after a 1981 opening. This summer the Fountain has revived “Last … Read more