Neal Weaver

THE RIDICULOUS DARKNESS at Son of Semele Theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw German playwright Wolfram Lotz’s play (translated by Daniel Brunet) is a zany satire on racism, racial stereotyping, and colonial attitudes in a supposedly post-colonial world. A farcical version of Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, via Apocalypse Now, it follows German Sergeant Oliver Pellner on a secret mission into the heart of … Read more

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART…/COMB YOUR HAIR (OR YOU’LL LOOK LIKE A SLAVE) at the Arena Stage

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Absence Makes the Heart… — written by Abley, and directed by Chrisanne Blankenship-Billings — is a modern take on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Red Shoes, which deals with a dancer driven to her death by the uncontrollable urge to dance. Read more… Now running through October 29

TIME ALONE at L.A.T.C.

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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… … Read more

FREDDY – The Fountain Theatre at the Caminito Theatre, Los Angeles Community College

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw This play by Deborah Lawlor, co-founder of the Fountain Theatre, is perhaps a fictionalized personal memoir. It’s about Freddy Herko, a gifted young dancer and pianist, whose talent blazed in New York City’s avant-garde scene in the 1960s, only to be snuffed out by drug addiction. Herko died when he … Read more

THE VIEW UPSTAIRS at the Celebration Theatre at the Lex

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw The Upstairs Lounge was a lively and popular New Orleans gay bar till 1973, when an arsonist doused the stairs leading to the club with lighter fluid, set it aflame, and then rang the doorbell. In the ensuing blaze, 32 people were killed — mocked and ridiculed even in death, … Read more

RUNAWAY HOME at the Fountain Theatre

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Margaret Gray – LA Times Jeremy J. Kamps’ play “Runaway Home,” now premiering at the Fountain Theatre, is set in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward three years after Hurricane Katrina. The waters may have long receded, but the residents still wander like ghosts through the wreckage of their lives.Read more… Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw … Read more

CARMEN DISRUPTION at City Garage Theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Playwright Simon Stephens (Heisenberg, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) deconstructs Bizet’s opera Carmen in an attempt to illuminate contemporary issues of loneliness, isolation and all-around anomie. He includes a couple of Bizet’s arias, the “Habanera” and the “Seguidilla,” as well as a snippet of the Toreador Song, but otherwise … Read more

WELCOME TO THE WHITE ROOM at Theatre of Note

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Trish Harnetiaux’s bizarre dark comedy, three slightly mad scientists find themselves stranded in an entirely white room. They are Mr. Paine (Chris Gardner), Jennings (Sarah Lily), and Mrs. White (Sierra Marcks). Read more… Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review  As Trish Harnetiaux’s “Welcome to the White Room” began, in … Read more

THE DREAMER EXAMINES HIS PILLOW at the Lounge Theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw John Patrick Shanaley is practically unique among American playwrights in that although he has consistently hewed to a distinctly personal vision and style, he has achieved impressive commercial success as a screenwriter (Moonstruck, Doubt) and a director (Doubt). Read more… Now running through September 24

HONKY TONK LAUNDRY at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Roger Bean, who wrote and directed the hit musical The Marvelous Wonderettes and its various sequels, has done it again. He’s written another juke-box musical — but here the emphasis is on country and western songs. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way  Bets Malone and Misty Cotton are two of … Read more