Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Tom Jacobson’s plays have always taken on enormous artistic challenges, particularly in his ability to present narrative obstacles requiring the most experienced of veteran artists to untangle. The history at the heart of this two-part, four-hour-plus production could not be more epic, meant not only in physical scope but in … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Lordie, I needed this. Unlike so many new plays these days, the world premiere of Becky Wahlstrom’s delightfully silly A Froggy Becomes from Open Fist doesn’t bombard us with weighty reminders of the massive trials and insurmountable inequities plaguing our fuckedup world, yet it still manages to covertly have something … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Under Shepperd’s direction, a youthful ensemble performs with energy and commitment, and the pace never lags. Read more… Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld Dominique Morisseau’s BLOOD AT THE ROOT is a blistering look at race, prejudice, and the complexity of human relationships. Read more…
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Starmites reviewed by Rob Stevens – In what I think may be the LA-area premiere, Open Fist Theatre Company in Atwater is currently presenting a lively production that really rocks the intimate space. Read more… Socks Whitmore – Stage Raw In 2023, the demand for nostalgia is higher than … Read more
Martίn Hernández – Stage Raw. Following in the satirical footsteps of Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, this Open Fist Company production takes the past year’s cream of the crop of its Thursday night comedy sketch show, This Week This Week, and skewers our calamitous society with mostly hilarious results. Creator and director Ron West and his … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw. Brdar’s play isn’t a play in any traditional sense. It’s a poem. A one-woman confessional in 13 verses, starting with “Age 0” and culminating in “Age 78.” It’s almost a one-woman show performed by Cynthia Ettinger, except for the supporting characters (Carmella Jenkins, Howard Leder and Debba Rofheart) who … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw First produced with the title Gray’s Anatomy at New York’s Circle Rep Theatre in 1994, Jim Leonard’s family-oriented coming-of-age fable strives for the unvarnished poignancy of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town as it recounts the story of a fatherless teen in 1880s rural Indiana. Leonard’s revised version, published as Anatomy of Gray in 2006 and currently directed … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw, Notes From Arden At the northern edge of LA County, in Santa Clarita, The Sandman (played by adult actor Jackson Caruso) is the title character in Dane Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale, “Ole Lukøje,” (“The Sandman”), presented by Eclipse Theatre and the Santa Clarita Shakespeare Festival. Phil Lantis’s play for … Read more
Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, originating in the 1500s and one of William Shakespeare’s most beloved and produced plays, has been adapted in countless ways over the past few centuries, including as films, musicals, ballets, operas, an animated Disney short, and even a disco-oriented off-Broadway takeoff called The Donkey Show, while having an … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In a Rorschach test, an individual is presented with a series of abstract images and asked what they see. Their answers are used by the administering psychiatrist or psychologist to gain insight into that person’s state of mind. Open Fist Theater Company’s current production is titled Rorschach Fest. Presented as three separate … Read more