Neal Weaver

ALTMAN’S LAST STAND at the Zephyr Theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Franz Altman (Michael Laskin), the protagonist of playwright Charles Dennis’s deft solo drama, is an elderly Viennese Jew born just before the turn of the 20th century. Now nearly 100 years old, he owns a second-hand store called King Solomon’s Treasures, located in mid-town Manhattan, circa 1990. Read more… Margaret Gray – … Read more

ALTMAN’S LAST STAND at the Zephyr theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Franz Altman (Michael Laskin), the protagonist of playwright Charles Dennis’s deft solo drama, is an elderly Viennese Jew born just before the turn of the 20th century. Now nearly 100 years old, he owns a second-hand store called King Solomon’s Treasures, located in mid-town Manhattan, circa 1990. Read more… Now running through … Read more

DREAM BOY at the Celebration Theatre at the Lex

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Teenage romance meets Southern Gothic in Eric Rosen’s intriguing and quirky play, based on the novel by Jim Grimsley and directed by Michael Matthews. Read more… Les Spindle –  Frontiers L.A. Based on a 1995 novel by Jim Grimsley, which was subsequently adapted into a 2008 film, Eric Rosen’s evocative 1996 play makes … Read more

PILLARS OF NEW YORK – Write Act Repertory at The Brickhouse Theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Many writers — including playwrights — seem to feel they can broaden the scope or deepen the penetration of their works by linking their efforts to major — often traumatic — events in the real world. When it works, the results can be gratifying. But unless the writer in question … Read more

DEATHTRAP at the Sierra Madre Playhouse

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Playwright Ira Levin’s Deathtrap became the longest-running thriller in Broadway history, playing for nearly four years — topped only by the London production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, which seems destined to run forever. And Levin’s other works are not to be sneezed at: they include such trifles as Rosemary’s Baby, A Kiss Before Dying, The … Read more

A CHRISTMAS MEMORY at the Sierra Madre Playhouse

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Truman Capote’s autobiographical novella, A Christmas Memory, deals with his loving friendship with his elderly eccentric cousin Sook, and takes place during a period in the writer’s childhood when, due to his mother’s marital vicissitudes, he was farmed out to various relatives in the South. Read more… Now running through December 27.

@THESPEEDOFJAKE at the Atwater Village Theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Jennifer Maisel’s new play, premiering with this production, examines the way we deal with grief, loss, and death. Clark (Ryan Yu) and Emily (Elizabeth Pan) were a happily married couple, devoted to their 10-year-old son Jake (whom we never see).  But when Jake is suddenly killed in a hideous bicycle … Read more

WOOD BOY DOG FISH at Bootleg Theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Arts In LA  Carlo Collodi’s 19th Century children’s book, The Adventures of Pinocchio, has been largely over-shadowed for modern audiences by Disney’s movie adaptation, which turned it into a sentimental moral tale. But Collodi’s original was made of sterner stuff: darker, crueler and more disturbing. The hapIess Puppet gets his feet burnt off, and … Read more

BOOTYCANDY – Celebration Theatre at the Lex

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Robert O’Hara’s Lambda Award-winning comedy is the first production by Celebration Theatre in its new home. It’s largely a fictionalized, semi-autobiographical tale satirizing the trials and tribulations of growing up Black. Read more… Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly In some ways Robert O’Hara’s Bootycandy is like a confounding road trip: you get … Read more