Paul Birchall – Stage Raw If your concept of a fairy tale is based on Disney’s saccharine stories in which the Little Mermaid easily finds love or Belle blissfully enjoys the company of the oddly photogenic beast, playwright Mary Zimmerman’s gorgeously rendered adaptation of a number of fantastic stories will frankly blow your mind.Read more… … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze “Bright Star” is a fairly new musical by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. It had a life on Broadway last year and has arrived at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre.Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Bright Star has so many winning attributes that one can easily forget its shortcomings and simply enjoy … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way If you have a fear/distaste for certain rodents, say mice or their bigger cousin–rats, Mice at Ensemble Studio Theatre might not be your piece of theatrical cheese.Read more… Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Schaeffer Nelson’s Mice is a strange little play in which a man in a mouse costume kidnaps two … Read more
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Sometimes the best way to watch a movie or TV show is to kick back with a glass of wine and some friends and yell at the TV whenever the characters do something you don’t agree with. Resolving Hedda, the new play now at the Victory Theatre in Burbank, offers a … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw To paraphrase a theater maxim of Edmund Kean’s, “Tragedy is easy; comedy is hard.” It’s an assertion that’s proved true time and again. Harder still, perhaps, is successfully combining these two genres into one play, as the disappointing Big Night at the Douglas proved a couple of weeks back.Read more… Rob Stevens … Read more
Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review Any time someone translates a novel to the stage, there is risk involved. The depth of interior monologue, the detail of setting and character, the convolutions of plot and emotion, even the poetry of language used to provide all of this, are all limited by the confines of … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw The Upstairs Lounge was a lively and popular New Orleans gay bar till 1973, when an arsonist doused the stairs leading to the club with lighter fluid, set it aflame, and then rang the doorbell. In the ensuing blaze, 32 people were killed — mocked and ridiculed even in death, … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Roger Bean, who wrote and directed the hit musical The Marvelous Wonderettes and its various sequels, has done it again. He’s written another juke-box musical — but here the emphasis is on country and western songs. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Bets Malone and Misty Cotton are two of … Read more
Hoyt Hilsman – Huffington Post Simon Stephens’ Tony-award winning adaptation of Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel arrives in Los Angeles after productions in New York and London, still full of vibrancy and innovation. It tells the story of Christopher John Francis Boone (Adam Langdon), a 15-year old on the autism spectrum, who sets out to solve … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Premiering at the Skylight Theatre under Eric Hoff’s direction, Tom Jacobson’s latest play is a delectable little fable about free will, human folly and the encounter of a non-believer with God, Hell and the Devil. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way With his latest work, The Devil’s Wife, playwright … Read more