Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Striking a perfect balance between scares and laughs, Play Dead delivers plenty of delicious thrills, macabre chills and giggles. The one-act show features Todd Robbins as our ghoulish host and runs through December 22 at the Geffen Playhouse.Read more… Bob Verini – ArtsInLA Back in the heyday of the great movie … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Suspense and suspension hallmark this sleek production. At the play’s climax, on opening night, no breathing could be heard among the audience members. No one shifted in his seat, no one crinkled her program, no critic dared jot down a note. Suspense reigned. At the top of the play … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn is a report from the feminist front. Folded within a thin narrative is a lot of intriguing conversation, which in the course of two acts brings out numerous perspectives on what women do (and should) need and what they do (and should) want. The talk is … Read more
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
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Before you hear this production described as “sitcomish,” know it was written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, the writers of the 1980s British television series Yes Minister and then Yes, Prime Minister. And if the humor of those series was good enough to keep the Brits giggling, it’s … Read more
MISS JULIE by August Strindberg. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Turn-of-the-century Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s naturalistic drama Miss Julie was remarkable in its day for its scandalous subject matter and frank dialogue exchanges. With its scathing commentary on the entrenched class system, passion and power, the play was banned in Britain for nearly fifty years after its publication. … Read more
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage. Terry Morgan – LAist.com Lynn Nottage’s play, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, is more intriguing as a concept than a reality. It looks at the marginalization of African-American actors in the twentieth century, an undeniably interesting subject, but then stumbles in multiple ways. The fault, unfortunately, is … Read more
The Pianist Of Willesden Lane by Mona Golabek. Mayank Keshaviah – LA Weekly History is most powerful when we see the “all” through the small — the panorama of the textbook through the peephole of the personal. Acclaimed pianist Mona Golabek give us just that in sharing the story of her mother, Lisa Jura, a budding piano … Read more
The Exorcist by John Pielmeier. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA The Geffen Playhouse have commissioned John Pielmeierto adapt author William Peter Blatty’s legendary horror story to the stage for a world-premiere presentation, and it’s difficult to comprehend why. Why take a sensational novel that was cleverly parlayed into a hit movie to great effect and then – almost forty years later … Read more