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
Erin Conley – On Stage and Screen The production of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic The King & I that won four Tony Awards, including Best Revival, in 2015 has made its way to Los Angeles just in time for the holidays. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way The King and I was the fifth collaboration between … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Writers and directors are famously at odds, and there is perhaps no more celebrated example than the clash between Anton Chekhov and Konstantin Stanislavski over The Cherry Orchard…… Read more… Now running through January 15
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Kate Benson’s A Beautiful Day in November On the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes takes place on Thanksgiving and revolves around a family’s collective preparation of the traditional holiday meal. Read more… Now running through December 11
Margaret Gray – LA Times During Alena Smith’s play “Icebergs,” in its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, thirtysomething screenwriter Calder (Nate Corddry) sets up an air mattress in his Silver Lake living room for a visiting friend. The mattress is the self-inflating kind, and after Calder plugs it in, he sits lost in thought, … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw It is a terrible thing for a theater critic to admit, but I’d never seen this scabrously funny Tony Award-winning musical, about the price put on the most fundamental of bodily functions, before attending the Coeurage Theatre Company’s fresh and sprightly production. Read more… Now running through February 25
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw The Geffen Playhouse has had a fruitful relationship with playwright Donald Margulies, resulting in memorable productions such as Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, Dinner with Friends and Collected Stories. It’s only natural the theatre would want to continue this successful streak, which leads to the current revival of Margulies’ earlier work, The … Read more
Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw Irish playwright-performer Pat Kinevane returns to the Odyssey Theater with a new piece that explores “life lived on the fringes of society.” Kinevane’s previous works, Forgotten and Silent, were performed at the Odyssey in 2011 and 2012, and with Underneath, the third piece in the trilogy, he brings us a very unconventional ghost … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw It’s been a familiar gambit for some time for actors to take a famous play and turn it into a one-person show ‑ essaying all the roles to display his or her virtuosity — but I’d never heard of the reverse being done until now. Read more… Dany Margolies – The … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Siamese Sex Show is one of those offbeat musicals where it doesn’t seem to matter that one or two plot threads are a little hard to follow. The choreography by April Thomas is so exuberant, the costumes by Michael Mullen are so fanciful, and the story and spectacle so deliciously … Read more