Jonas Schwartz

Every Brilliant Thing @ GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE

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Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld EVERY BRILLIANT THING is a deeply affecting meditation on grief and mental illness told with humor and a clear-eyed optimism that makes the message that much more powerful. Read more… Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites Podcast 7.5 out of 10! Above Average! Read more… Jonas Schwartz – Theatermania It may … Read more

Our Dear Dead Drug Lord @ KIRK DOUGLAS THEATRE

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Terry Morgan – Stage Raw “I very much wanted to like Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, but even Pablo Escobar could tell that this package is suspiciously light.” Read more…   Jonas Schwartz – Theatermania Children shouldn’t play with dead things. But it’s a warning that four high school teens of a banished school club … Read more

Beetlejuice @ Pantages Theatre

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Jonas Schwartz – Theatermania Broadway hit Beetlejuice, now running at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre before making more stops on its North American tour, features a delightful score and book along with hysterical performances. It’s the must-see show of the season. Director Alex Timbers and his crew have morphed the beloved film into a fun house … Read more

The Mountaintop @ Geffen Playhouse

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Jonas Schwartz – Theatermania The Geffen production of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, a fantasia about the final hours of Martin Luther King Jr., benefits from a stellar cast. Jon Michael Hill personifies the icon most audiences have only seen on the television and sets the stage for a great man’s evaluation of his ordinariness. But … Read more

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF at Geffen Playhouse

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Terry Morgan  –  Artsbeat LA Bitchiness, thy name is Albee. Has there ever been a play that reveled in so much in mean-spirited badinage as Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Sour wit courses through the blackened veins of this show like acidic blood, or more specifically like the booze the characters actively embalm themselves with.  Read … Read more

BLUES FOR AN ALABAMA SKY at the Mark Taper Forum

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Jonas Schwartz-Owen – Theatermania Dynamic performances by Nija Okoro and Greg Alverez Reid fuel Center Theatre Group’s new revival of Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky. Phylicia Rashad, who originated Okoro’s role in the play’s 1995 world premiere, returns to direct this humorous production that always simmers with devastation under the surface. Read more… Deborah Klugman … Read more

A PUBLIC READING OF AN UNPRODUCED SCREENPLAY ABOUT THE DEATH OF WALT DISNEY at the Odyssey Theatre

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Terry Morgan  –  Artsbeat LA I have a rule about avant-garde theater: if an artist chooses to deliberately obscure his/her/their meaning via unusual methods or flirts dangerously with pretentiousness, the play had better validate those choices by demonstrating how they were necessary. Most experimental pieces, in my experience, fail that test, but when they succeed … Read more

TRAYF at Geffen Playhouse

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Jonas Schwartz-Owen – Theatermania Lindsay Joelle’s dramedy Trayf transports audiences to the structured world of the Hasidim, whose strict laws and customs may be outside the understanding of even some Jewish audience members. Director Maggie Burrows, with deft stage direction and sets, visually conveys the danger, heartbreak, and wonderment found in exploring the secular world outside. Read more… … Read more