Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Though it was written in 1893, George Bernard Shaw’s play Mrs. Warren’s Profession, now playing at A Noise Within in Pasadena, feels surprisingly contemporary. While Shaw scripted these conversations 124 years ago, the basic arguments the characters engage in have changed little in the intervening years. Read more… Frances Baum Nicholson … 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
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Big Night is one of those sitcom-like stage comedies that tries super hard to tackle big themes but trips on the very glibness it purports to satirize. Read more… Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Big Night is a play with aspirations bigger than it can deliver on. The new work by playwright Paul … Read more
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Mounting the first regional production of a show that recently played on Broadway puts the creative team between a rock and a hard place: Is it better to do a new take on the material, or is it better to emulate the original production? With Once, playing at the South … Read more
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw In troubled times like these, there should be something rewarding in unwinding with absurdism. After all, when the world doesn’t make sense, a dose of topsy-turvy comedy should be just what the doctor ordered. French playwright Eugene Ionesco was one of the masters of absurdist comedy….Read more… Now running through … Read more
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw At times, it seems unbelievable that playwright Alice Childress wrote Trouble in Mind in 1955. The show, which features the tried and true dramatic structure of a play-within-a-play, examines racial politics with a razor-sharp wit. Read more… Now running through September 30
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Fans of the fourth wall — that imaginary wall separating performers from their audience — should steer clear of Lauren Yee’s new play King of the Yees, now playing at the Kirk Douglas in Culver City. But for more adventurous folks, those willing to throw caution (and conventional theatrical tradition) to … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way I have never been much of a video game player. Truthfully I haven’t played one since the very early versions of Pong and PacMan started replacing pin ball machines in bars to give customers something to do while drinking. So I was a bit leery about seeing the new … Read more
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw Nice Iranian Girl, Layla Rumi (a.k.a. Layla Kaleigh)’s one-woman show at the Whitefire Theatre, feels half-baked. The 50-minute monologue, which plays weekly in Sherman Oaks as part of Whitefire’s Solofest, follows Rumi from her early years growing up in Tehran to 2009, when her daughter was born in Los Angeles. Read … Read more
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw The Last Vig is billed as a show starring Burt Young, the Academy Award-nominated actor who played Paulie in the Rocky series. Unfortunately, Young’s performance is one of many big problems in the show, which plays through February 19 at the Zephyr Theatre. Read more… Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Mobsters, especially Italian ones, … Read more