Dany Margolies – Arts In LA One will glean from her solo show that Judy Gold desperately wants her own sitcom, in part to promote her personal history of ultimately earning acceptance from her family, and thus she created this 95-minute saga (co-written with Kate Moira Ryan), packaged with its own theme song. In that … Read more
Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly Sequels are tough. Expectations are generally high and you can never attain the novelty factor of the first outing. Writer-director Jaime Robledo’s Watson and the Dark Art of Harry Houdini, the second installment in his Watson series, is less dazzling (far fewer action set-pieces) and more talky than the first … Read more
Pauline Adamek – LA Stage Times Didn’t get enough of Watson at Sacred Fools Theater in late 2010, or when it returned in the summer of 2011? Don’t worry — the saga continues. Writer/director Jaime Robledo’s sequel Watson and the Dark Art of Harry Houdini, reportedly darker and more personal, opened last Friday night.Read more…
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Book by Frank Smith, Ryan Harrison, Lauren Ludwig and Dylan Ris; Music and lyrics by Dylan Ris, Mikey Wells, Ryan Harrison, Frank Smith and Rich Ramberg. The Lost Moon Radio kids are back at the Fringe with yet another one of their hilarious musical spoofs. This time it’s the alleged playback of an old BBC children’s television show from the seventies … Read more
Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly There’s a certain fragility mixed with permanence in Maria Irene Fornes’ melancholy tragedy Mud, and the characters seem to exist beyond the performance that unfolds before us. In seventeen short (sometimes brutally short) scenes, Fornes depicts a squabbling couple, Lloyd (Riley Smith) and Mae (Annie Hamilton), who seem stuck in some kind of rural poverty. … Read more
Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly Joe Green’s derivative, amateur and R-rated musical assembles all the beloved maids from TV sitcoms, past and present, and parades them through his nostalgic tribute. The slim premise has divorcee and mother of two teens Ashley (Lani Shipman) vying for an audition on a reality TV show.Read more…
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA It’s not every day you get to be heavyweight champion of the world—for a professional sportsman it’s a once in a lifetime event, at least the first time is… In 1964, at the tender age of 22, boxing legend Cassius Clay (soon thereafter known as Muhammad Ali) ascended to the pinnacle … Read more
RENT by Jonathan Larson. Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly Because of its repetitive musicality, rock opera Rent lives or dies on the vocal strength of its cast. This production has mostly excellent, robust and irrepressible singing that is only occasionally obliterated by the mediocre live band. The plot of Jonathan Larson’s legendary Broadway smash clings to its … Read more
Written by Brian Friel. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA A study of language and identity, Irish playwright Brian Friel’s Translations charts the beginning of a grim passage of Irish history where the imperialism of the brutish British government threatened to wipe out their culture.Read more… Neal Weaver – LA Weekly Brian Friel’s 1980 play is set in 1833. … Read more
DYING CITY by Christopher Shinn. Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly When Peter (Burt Grinstead) unexpectedly shows up at Kelly’s (Laurie Okin) Lower Manhattan apartment, the mood is prickly and awkward. It’s understandable; Peter is the identical twin of her husband Craig, a hard as nails soldier who recently died in a military accident in the Gulf. But … Read more