Margaret Gray – LA Times At first, Erin Courtney’s play “A Map of Virtue” presents itself as a quirky love story: Sarah (Megan Branch) and Mark (Sam T. West) stand side by side onstage and deliver alternating accounts of the first time they saw each other, as if answering an unseen interviewer’s questions.Read more… Now … Read more
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw Antaeus announced Christopher Hampton’s 1987 adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses as the debut of its current season all the way back in June. The director’s note in the program discusses how this pre-revolutionary tale of French aristocratic depravity speaks to our era of the one percent.Read more… Erin Conley – On Stage … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Few people sitting down at REDCAT this week for the U.S. premiere of Mateluna” will have heard of Jorge Mateluna. But after seeing this theatrical exploration of truth and deception in life and art, none likely will hear the Erasure song “A Little Respect” without thinking of him.Read more…
Terry Morgan – Talkin’ Broadway High-end haunted houses seem to be more popular than ever these days. One can see the appeal—a bit more personal of a scare than simply watching a horror movie, a safe Halloween adventure. East West Players and Rogue Artists Ensemble have taken this trope and put their own unique spin … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times After Rachel Bonds’ “Five Mile Lake” had its world premiere in 2014 at South Coast Repertory, news that SCR would be producing Bonds’ new “Curve of Departure” this fall was thrilling. Read more… Now running through October 15
Margaret Gray – LA Times Jeremy J. Kamps’ play “Runaway Home,” now premiering at the Fountain Theatre, is set in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward three years after Hurricane Katrina. The waters may have long receded, but the residents still wander like ghosts through the wreckage of their lives.Read more… Neal Weaver – Stage Raw … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Joe Morton, best known these days as Rowan “Papa” Pope, Olivia Pope’s fiercely protective father on the ABC series “Scandal,” is in the posh Founders Room of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. It’s where next month he will open “Turn Me Loose,” a play … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Jon Robin Baitz has never been afraid of putting politics onstage. He has a gift for channeling current events into complex and nuanced plays, practically in real time. Read more… Now running through September 30
Margaret Gray – LA Times Every summer I’m surprised by how much I enjoy the Independent Shakespeare Co.’s Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival. Performances start at 7 p.m., when the sun is still a bit too bright and the actors are oddly dressed figures in the distance, shouting British things I can’t quite hear over … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Constellations, the character piece by Nick Payne that is now playing in a new production at the Geffen Playhouse, requires a talented cast to succeed. The expansive themes of love in an ever-expanding cosmos, the jarring sequencing of the moments, and their repetition could turn audiences off quickly. Read more… Erin … Read more