Margaret Gray

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW – Independent Shakespeare Company in Griffith Park

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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

THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT at the Odyssey Theater

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Margaret Gray – LA Times A divorced couple and their new partners meet for a dinner that shakes up their lives in Peter Lefcourt’s romantic comedy “The Way You Look Tonight,” premiering at the Odyssey Theater under the direction of Terri Hanauer.   Read more… Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Peter Lefcourt’s romantic comedy takes a wry, … Read more

DIXIE’S TUPPERWARE PARTY at the Geffen Playhouse

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Bob Verini –   Arts In LA The good graces of the Geffen Playhouse are responsible for Los Angeles’ introduction to one Dixie Longate: Alabama native, single mom, social critic, and, above all, housewares entrepreneuse in the unveiling of Dixie’s Tupperware Party. Read more… Margaret Gray – LA Times You might assume that a one-woman show called “Dixie’s … Read more

IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM at the Hudson Backstage

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Pauline Adamek  – Stage Raw David Rabe’s play is over 40 years old, and it’s now a dated but charming curiosity piece. Performed on Broadway in 1973 (and nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play), Rabe’s strange and messy drama has been revised and remounted a few times over the years, expanding to a … Read more

THE BROTHERS SIZE at the Fountain Theatre and DROP DEAD at NoHo Arts Center

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Steven Leigh Morris  – LA Weekly Tarell Alvin McCraney’s tender, poetical drama The Brothers Size (Fountain Theatre) and Billy Van Zandt & Jane Milmore’s meta-theatrical farce Drop Dead! (presented by Theatre 68, at North Hollywood’s NoHo Arts Center) share one salient commonality: Each production has moments when the actors recite stage directions about their own characters. Tarell Alvin McCraney’s … Read more

HIT at the Los Angeles Theatre Center

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Margaret Gray – LA Times Whenever I read about the artistic scandals of the past — the near-riot provoked by Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” for example — I glumly conclude that we have grown so jaded that art has lost its power to appall. Read more… Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw Playwright Alice Tuan’s … Read more

THE GUARDSMAN at the Noho Arts Center

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Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Hungarian playwright  Ferenc Molnar’s The Guardsman has been viewed in this country mostly as a theatrical confection, an entertaining comedy about a jealous actor who undertakes an elaborate charade to establish his wife’s fidelity, or lack thereof. Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne brought it to the stage in 1924, then reprised their … Read more

UNORGANIZED CRIME at the Lillian Theatre

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Bob Verini –  Variety Stars are called stars because they shine brighter than anyone else. Every time Chazz Palminteri sashays into “Unorganized Crime” as Gotham mob scion Sal Sicuso, cool and sardonic, seething with banked menace, you can’t take your eyes off him. It’s a supporting role, but he’s more than enough reason to travel to Hollywood’s … Read more

WOMAN PARTS at Son of Semele Ensemble

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Margaret Gray – LA Times Son of Semele Ensemble has selected two startlingly different short plays for “Woman Parts,” a double bill planned, according to the program, as a corrective to the underrepresentation of women in the theater. The first offering, “Sex & God,” by the Scottish playwright Linda McLean, weaves together melancholy monologues by … Read more

FIVE MILE LAKE at South Coast Repertory Theatre

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Bob Verini –   Arts In LA It can’t be easy to pen a remarkable play about unremarkable people whose main concern is how unremarkable their lives are. (Ask Chekhov.) Yet, Rachel Bonds has pulled it off handily with Five Mile Lake, whose central figures have solid reasons for doubting their own choices and equally solid reasons … Read more