Layout Image

Archive for Los Angeles Theatre Center

MAN’S FAVOR DEVIL’S PLAN by The Robey Theatre Company at LATC

Nic Few and Christina Childress. Photo by Jermaine Alexander.

Nic Few and Christina Childress. Photo by Jermaine Alexander.

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

Man’s Favor Devil’s Plan, by Kwik Jones, takes place on the loading dock at the rear of a hotel in Los Angeles in 1938. The story concerns the relationship between the hotel’s White owner, an unmitigated racist and an otherwise cruel and unscrupulous individual, and the hotel staff, who are African American and are forced to put up with their employer’s abuse because they cannot afford to lose their jobs, or because they are being blackmailed in some way. The play, which aims to reflect the vicious racism that permeates American culture, is set at a period in our history when people of color were even more vulnerable and less legally protected than they are now.
Read more…

Tracey Paleo – Gia On The Move

In pointing its definitive focus…to the people it 100% represents, MAN’S FAVOR, DEVIL’S PLAN becomes an especially moving vehicle to an audience, famished for representations about themselves that express their reality, past and present. More…

Through November 20

Remembering humbug hunter Dan Sullivan. ‘Search’ slackens. ‘Simone’ simmers.

Dan Sullivan at his desk. Photo provided by Ben Sullivan.

Dan Sullivan at his desk. Photo provided by Ben Sullivan.

Don Shirley – Angeles Stage

Plus ‘Desert Stories for Lost Girls” at LATC, ‘Babe’ and ‘To the Bone’ in Atwater.

Dan Sullivan, the former LA Times theater critic who ushered LA readers into the modern theatrical world, died last week at the age of 86. It’s time to remember him, before moving on to current fare such as “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” at the Mark Taper Forum and “Nina Simone: Four Women’ at South Coast Repertory.

During the ‘70s and ‘80s — two decades when theater in Greater LA was rapidly proliferating — Sullivan was its most important chronicler. And he helped expand public awareness of the region’s theater not only by bearing witness but by bringing a winning wit to that task. The often playful quality of his prose probably drew readers who weren’t all that interested in theater, as well as the fervent fans. Read more…

Put a ‘Tiger’ in your tank, LA Times

Photo by Jenny Graham

Photo by Jenny Graham

Don Shirley – Angeles Stage

Why didn’t the LA Times review the hilarious “Tiger Style!” or “Our Town” at South Coast Repertory? Plus thoughts on “Man of God,” “Metamorphoses,” and more. 

“Tiger Style!” deserves the exclamation point in its title. Mike Lew’s satire is the funniest new play I’ve seen since theaters started re-opening last year, after vaccinations began.

At first, “Tiger” is a no-holds-barred satire of two Chinese-American young-adult siblings with acute anxiety, stirred up by other Americans who seem to bar no holds in their treatment of these exemplars of the so-called “model minority.” Then it also finds a lot of laughs as these third-generational siblings belatedly blame their problems on their parents, who used “tiger style” child-rearing techniques.

 Read more…

SLEEP WITH THE ANGELS, Latino Theater Co. at The Los Angeles Theatre Center

Photo by Grettel Cortes

Photo by Grettel Cortes

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

In Sleep With the Angels, directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela, playwright Evelina Fernandez portrays a fragmented family of Latinx extraction — but the truths she seeks to convey might resonate anywhere. Read more…

Now through June 26

REVOLUCIONES at the Los Angeles Theatre Center

Andrew Vasquez

Andrew Vasquez

Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

Too often idealists who lead revolts against fascist regimes end up assuming the same dictatorial and bloodthirsty predilections as their enemies.
Read more…

Now running through May 12

 

 

THE MOTHER OF HENRY at the Los Angeles Theatre Center

Andrew Vasquez

Andrew Vasquez

Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main

Evelina Fernández’s world premiere play, The Mother of Henry, is set within Los Angeles’ Eastside barrio, Boyle Heights, in 1968. It was a watershed year. Although change was in the wind — the anti-war protests, civil rights marches, the farmworkers’ strikes — the murders of MLK and Bobby Kennedy, just two months apart, were deeply and painfully disheartening for many Americans. Dark forces, it seemed, were ascendant.

Read more…

Margaret Gray – LA Times

La Virgen de Guadalupe — an apparition of the Virgin Mary — is an icon of the Catholic faith, the patron saint of Mexico and a symbol of Mexican independence venerated throughout the Americas, although not principally for her comic timing.
Read more…

Now running through April 20

 

CANYON at the Los Angeles Theatre Center

Dean Cechvala

Dean Cechvala

Margaret Gray – LA Times

Ask any real estate agent: People love a view. We’ll go out of our way — and far above asking price — for an elevated perch with a sweeping panorama. A view makes us feel at peace and in control. Maybe it’s the same rush our forebears got when they surveyed their hard-won territory from the treetops.
Read more…

Now running through March 24

THE HAPPIEST SONG PLAYS LAST at LATC

Gil Solis

Gil Solis

Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw

The Happiest Song Plays Last is, as the title implies, the last play in the Elliot trilogy, three works by Quiara Alegría Hudes playing concurrently in Los Angeles.

The first two plays, Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue and Review: Water by the Spoonful, stand more or less independent of each other, especially since Elliot is more of a supporting character in the latter. By contrast, The Happiest Song Plays Last requires you to be familiar with Water by the Spoonful. Nearly everything that happens to Elliot here is set up in the previous play.
Read more…

Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen

Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Elliot Trilogy, which begins in Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue and the Pulitzer Prize-winner Water by the Spoonful, concludes in The Happiest Song Plays Last, which made its California premiere this weekend at the Latino Theater Company.

Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main

The Happiest Song Plays Last ends happily for its pivotal characters —and also, perhaps, for discerning theatergoers, who can’t wait to flee this lemon of a production.

Read more…

Now running through March 19

LATINA CHRISTMAS SPECIAL at L.A.T.C.

(Photo by Xavi Moreno)

(Photo by Xavi Moreno)

Jenny Lower – Stage Raw

First performed in 2013, the Latino Theater Company’s Latina Christmas Special reunites three comedians — Diana Yanez, Sandra Valls and Maria Russell — who recount their personal tales of Navidades past.
Read more…

Now running through January 7

 

TIME ALONE at L.A.T.C.

 (Photo by David Morrison)

(Photo by David Morrison)

Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main

This powerful drama by Alessandro Camon delves into the minds of two extraordinarily isolated people: a convict serving a life sentence for a murder he committed as a juvenile, and the mother of a police officer whose only son was shot and killed in the line of duty.
Read more…

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

Playwright Alessandro Camon, an Oscar nominee for his screenplay for The Messenger, is deeply interested in the soul-destroying practice of solitary confinement, and in the experiences of crime survivors — people who lost loved ones to murder. He deals powerfully with both issues in this two-person play.
Read more…

Now running through October 22

THE DIG at L.A.T.C.

The-Dig15

Neal Weaver – Stage Raw

In her intriguing solo-drama, writer-performer Stacie Chaiken plays archeologist Sally Jenkins, who specializes in the study of ancient DNA. As she says, “It’s easy to extract the whole gene from soft tissue, but there is never soft tissue in ancient burials. I’ve managed to replicate the material I need from infinitesimal bits of really old bone.”Read more…

Now running through May 1

LA OLLA at Los Angeles Theatre Center

Photo by Grettel Cortes

Photo by Grettel Cortes

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

This play with music by Evelina Fernández is a modern-day adaptation of The Pot of Gold by the ancient Roman playwright, Plautus. Read more…

Now running through April 24