Margaret Gray – LA Times You may have seen your share of makeovers, but nothing like the one Sheila Callaghan inflicts on her heroine in “Everything You Touch,” her lushly written dark comedy world-premiering at Boston Court Performing Arts Center. Read more… Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Sheila Callaghan’s compelling play examines the dysfunctional dynamic between … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw That director Ron Sossi decided to remount White Marriage might be an attempt to recapture the hit production for the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble that Sossi almost 40 years ago. In the here and now, however, the urgency of the play’s point is muted largely by Sossi’s own re-staging. Read more… Neal Weaver – … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts in LA One of the most ambitious art musicals of recent years, Floyd Collins by Adam Guettel (music and lyrics) and Tina Landau (book and additional lyrics) is receiving an outstanding mounting from helmer Richard Israel and the management of the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. The producers, who regularly bring … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Even the sparest account of the life of Paul Robeson, the lawyer, actor, singer and civil rights activist who died in 1976, has a mythic power: He accomplished more, against greater odds, than seems quite humanly possible. Phillip Hayes Dean’s one-man play “Paul Robeson” (1977), in a revival directed by … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times In Greg Pierce’s “Slowgirl” at the Geffen Playhouse, 17-year-old Becky (Rae Gray) comes to visit her Uncle Sterling (William Petersen), who left the U.S. years earlier for Costa Rica. She’s freaked out by his primitive jungle lifestyle, which is charmingly evoked by Richard Woodbury’s sound design and the tropical leaves … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times The Pacific Resident Theatre’s new production of Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos, is about as spare and unvarnished as the theater gets. The set consists of a few folding chairs in the blackest, boxiest of conceivable black-box stages. There’s one prop: a tinny-looking crown. Read more… Myron Meisel – … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times For much of Samuel Brett Williams’ “Derby Day,” in its L.A. premiere at the Elephant Theatre (which gave Williams’ “Revelation” its world premiere last year), the sole sympathetic character onstage is Becky (Kimberly Alexander), a waitress at Oaklawn Park Race Track in Arkansas. Read more… Neal Weaver – Arts in LA You … Read more
Les Spindle – Edge on the Net The best news about the Colony Theatre’s production of Lissa Levin’s comedy “Sex and Education” is the star performance of Stephanie Zimbalist, the accomplished veteran of stage, film and television, who is perhaps most widely known for her role as a sexy detective in the hit 1980s television … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts in LA The Echo Theater Company has gone to some lengths to sidestep, in its pre-opening publicity, the subject matter of Tommy Smith’s remarkable new play titled Firemen. The world premiere drama is described as “a different kind of love story” that “explores an unthinkable love relationship,” though what proves unthinkable is … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times “A Cat Named Mercy,” a new play by Josefina López (“Real Women Have Curves”) premiering at Casa 0101 Theater, is full of reformist passion but feels underbaked. Perhaps it was rushed into production to capitalize on the Obamacare controversy. A cautionary tale about U.S. health insurance, “Cat” has the fervor and subtlety … Read more