Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Backyard wrestling – the emulation of the aggressive antics of professional wrestlers by ordinary folk – serves as the point of departure for Mickey Birnbaum’s funny, frenzied, probing play, Backyard. It begins with two teenagers, Chuck…
Hoyt Hilsman – Huffington Post Over the past couple of decades, Australia has produced a bumper crop of movie icons, from Mel Gibson and Nicole Kidman to Hugh Jackman and Cate Blanchett. But what most fans don’t realize is that…
Hoyt Hilsman – Huffington Post A Coffin in Egypt, a rarely produced 1980 play by Horton Foote would seem an unlikely subject for an opera, but in the hands of the marvelous Frederica von Stade and the talented composer and…
Hoyt Hilsman – Huffington Post Even in this subdued and somber rendering of a pair of Chekhov stories, Mikhail Baryshnikov and his creative partners from the Big Dance Theater display a magical grace and style that transcends the bleakness of…
Bob Verini – Arts in LA The Echo Theater Company has gone to some lengths to sidestep, in its pre-opening publicity, the subject matter of Tommy Smith’s remarkable new play titled Firemen. The world premiere drama is described as “a different…