Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly David Mamet’s play Race, about a rich, white guy seeking a law firm to defend him from accusations of raping a black woman, ought to feel ripped from the headlines — even though it premiered on Broadway nearly five years ago. Read more… Melinda Schupmann – Showmag A David Mamet play … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly The Vacancy is one of those dark comedies that challenges you to figure out just what it’s trying to say. Written and directed by Jeptha Storm, it features colorful dialogue and potentially vivid characters, neither of which quite make up for the many question marks that mine the story. On the … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly Actor-playwright Keith Stevenson is one lucky fellow, having a top-flight ensemble to write comedies for; and having a director, Guillermo Cienfuegos, with such a sympathetic comprehension of the strands threaded through his humor; and, to top it all, being able to act in a pivotal role in his own plays. … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Meet and Greet — co-written by longtime TV veterans Stan Zimmerman (Roseanne) and Christian McLaughlin (Married with Children) and directed by Zimmerman — is set in a casting office in the San Fernando Valley. The play revolves around the competition among four middle-aged actresses for a plum role on a new … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Each of these brief one acts takes place around a bed. Otherwise, they vary in quality and style. In Brian Tanen ‘s The Optimist, directed by Amanda Saunders, a young British bobby (Parker Phillips) and a veteran female Chief Inspector (Tara Karsian) meet at a crime scene. Read more… Now running through … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Hollywood has a long history of hypocrisy when it comes to gay celebrities, so a musical that sheds light on their closeting is a production one wants to praise – if only one could. The story in The Max Factor Factor, now at Noho Arts Center, unfolds in the 1930s. … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw That David Melville should bring La Dolce Vita into his family-friendly outdoor staging of Shakespeare’s knotty Italian comedy makes sense. Italian comedies of the 1960s are no less dodgy, regarding their sexual politics, than the amused brutality towards a defiant spouse found in Taming of the Shrew’s central story. Independent-minded, embittered Katherine (Melissa … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Louise Munson’s meandering and nostalgic family drama is set in Italy during a summer holiday. Two American siblings touch base with their Italian mother’s parents and brother, discussing poetry and philosophy while drinking and dining, reading, playing board games, singing songs and telling stories. Much of the conversation is in … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times In its basic contours and execution, Ian MacAllister-McDonald’s “The Sexual Life of Savages” at the Beverly Hills Playhouse is an edgy dramedy of postmillennial eroticism that certainly keeps us watching. Read more… Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter A couple planning on romance is instead waylaid by argument, a fundamental … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly In Elizabethan England, the twelve days of Christmas were festivity days – none more so that the twelfth when the partying could get really crazy and masters and servants, in a frenzy of masquerade, would sometimes exchange roles. It’s from this tradition that Shakespeare is assumed to have derived the … Read more