Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw. Show me a play about a working woman who pits her strength and smarts against predatory banks, and you’ll have me rooting for it, and her, from the start. Directed by Gregg T. Daniel, francisca da silveira’s can i touch it?, a rolling premiere at Rogue Machine, features all the ingredients … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw. Murder-by-cop. In Blue, playwright June Carryl lays out a blueprint for this grim, all-too-frequent horror show, building her story around a character who has taken the life of another human being and is struggling to justify this action both to himself and the person recording his take on events. The … Read more
Socks Whitmore – Stage Raw. John Perrin Flynn, the producing artistic director of Rogue Machine Theatre, states clearly in the program for their latest production: “We don’t do musicals.” And yet, the show itself — the world-premiere run of Come Get Maggie, a feature-length retro science-fiction/forbidden romance created by Diane Frolov and Susan Justin — is exactly … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage Plus ‘Annie,’ ‘Clyde’s,’ ‘Invincible,’ Sheldon Epps’ memoir. Tis the season for Troubadour Theater’s annual holiday hoot. As usual, it’s a refreshing antidote to too many competing “Christmas Carol”s. This year Troubies director Matt Walker takes aim at the 1988 shoot-’em-up film “Die Hard.” Its setting — a corporate holiday party in … Read more
Terry Morgan – ArtsBeat LA In my experience, ninety percent of the time that there’s an issue with a theatrical production, the problem is the play itself. It’s surprisingly rare for the main trouble to be with the acting or direction or design. And so it is with Samuel D. Hunter’s A Great Wilderness. I’ve enjoyed other … Read more
Tracey Paleo – Gia On The Move It’s the late 90’s…and you’re hanging out in a boy’s basement bedroom, somewhere in suburban America with two teenagers as they stay up on a school night; chugging soda, watching MTV, and preparing for the future. As the morning approaches, their seemingly innocent sleepover reveals another purpose. Read more… … Read more
Terry Morgan – Artsbeat LA It’s a Wonderful Life is now an undisputed holiday classic, but its road to perennial status was as long and difficult as its hero’s journey to happiness. Read more… Tracey Paleo – Gia on the Move “It is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw So entrenched was systemic racism in the U.S. in the early 1940s that patriotic African-Americans were turned away when they sought to fight for their country at the onset of World War II. Directed by Michael Arabian at the Matrix Theater, Carole Eglash-Kosoff’s play dramatizes the historical effort to allow … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen Holidays tend to bring out the drama in families, sometimes even to the point where one person ends up beating another with a thawed chicken. In Jews, Christians, and Screwing Stalin, a world premiere comedy by Mark Lonow and Jo Anne Astrow currently playing at the Matrix Theatre in Hollywood, … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Pianist/composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn (Frank Lawson) grew up in a family dominated by his alcoholic, abusive and homophobic father. His first love was classical music, but he was gay and black, and in the 1930s and 40s gay was emphatically frowned upon, and the classical establishment was almost entirely white. Read more… Now running through … Read more