WOMEN LAUGHING ALONE WITH SALAD at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

Margaret Gray – LA Times Is “Women Laughing Alone With Salad” the first play inspired by an Internet meme? In 2011 the feminist website the Hairpin published stock photographs of slender models appearing to exult over forkfuls of mixed greens. We’d all seen these images in advertisements, but we’d never really looked at them, or … Read more

CLOUD 9 at the Antaeus Theatre Company

Terry Morgan  –  Stage Raw The Antaeus Theatre Company once again demonstrates its immense value to the Los Angeles theatre community, this time with a superb revival of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9. It’s an ambitious and tricky work, but under Casey Stangl’s thoughtful direction, an inspired ensemble does the play proud. As usual, Antaeus “partner-casts” … Read more

NO WAKE at VS. Theatre

Bob Verini  –   Stage Raw The premise of William Donnelly’s No Wake is straightforward enough — the throwing together of a divorced couple after the suicide of their long-estranged daughter. With the addition of a third character, the wife’s new husband who has come along for moral support, the action could proceed in any number of ways, … Read more

AN ACT OF GOD at the Ahmanson Theatre

Jonas Schwartz –  TheaterMania God has returned to earth and borrowed Sean Hayes’ body to impart wisdom to the audience at the Ahmanson Theatre and deliver an updated 10 Commandments for the new millennium. Playwright David Javerbaum hilariously skewers humanity’s assumptions about God’s purpose using the popular TV comedian Hayes as a perfect vessel. Read more… Deborah Klugman … Read more

SALOME – Lunar River at the Basement at Mack Sennett Studios

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly The title character in Christopher Adams-Cohen’s unsatisfying and over-indulgent drama Salome is a petulant rich kid who’s shrugged off the perks he was born to for seedy digs and wayward pleasures of the flesh. Read more… Now running through March 6.

DREAM CATCHER at the Fountain Theatre

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly In concept, Stephen Sachs’ Dream Catcher at the Fountain Theatre is a timely play. Directed by Cameron Watson, it details a clash between a young engineer involved in designing a solar-energy plant that would help combat global warming, and a poorly educated Native American woman who objects to the project because it … Read more

FOREVER HOUSE at the Skylight Theatre

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Tony Abatemarco’s play Forever House, about a gay couple who purchase a home and then struggle to make a go of their partnership, is something of a hybrid. In some places it’s an airy situation comedy that drifts into horror-lite…… Read more… Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw For Jack and Ben (Michael Rubenstone, … Read more

IF/THEN at the Pantages Theatre

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Since it premiered on Broadway in March 2014, a number of theater writers have commented on how the range and power of lead diva Idina Menzel transforms Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s so-so musical into a show well worth seeing. Read more… Bob Verini  –   Stage Raw The Pantages is playing … Read more

GUYS AND DOLLS at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

Margaret Gray – LA Times The stripper whose wildest dream is of marriage. The high-stakes gambler who falls for a missionary. Both live on the sweet, homely Broadway of Damon Runyon, whose short stories about Depression-era gamblers and others on the seedy side of the street of dreams inspired the great American musical “Guys and Dolls: A … Read more

RIO HONDO at Theatre of NOTE

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly If you’re in need of a diversion in these terrible, wearisome times — and surely we all are — might I suggest Theatre of Note’s uproarious staging of Bill Robens’ western parody Rio Hondo, under the imaginative direction of Jaime Robledo. Read more… Terry Morgan  –  Stage Raw Even a fan of … Read more