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
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
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
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
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
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
Jonas Schwartz-Owen – Broadway World Three men stand on a stage for over three hours, trekking through 150 years of history in The Lehman Trilogy and it’s the most invigorating evening imaginable. Read more… Now running through April 6
Jonas Schwartz-Owen – Theatermania The East West Players production of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s brilliant, jagged pill of a musical Assassins is thought-provoking and harrowing. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way The Stephen Sondheim one-act musical Assassins has gotten mixed reviews and heated pro and con reactions since it debuted in 1990. What else would you expect … Read more
Terry Morgan – Artsbeat LA One of the core American principles is the right to free speech. However, this glorious principle runs into trouble when truly evil groups such as the Ku Klux Klan or Nazis wish to spread their poisonous propaganda. Read more… Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In a society that celebrates diversity and … Read more
Tracey Paleo – Broadway World It was just what we needed!” The audience response was joyous. Indeed, that was the very vocal sentiment of so many in the crowd after a triumphant opening night at the Ahmanson Theatre downtown Los Angeles….Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Of course, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, since its star, Layton … Read more