Patrick Chavis – The Orange Curtain Review Right in time for spookiest season of the year, South Coast Repertory’s Little Shop of Horrors brings back the smooth-talking Audrey 2, aka the houseplant with an agenda and puppetry that made this reviewer look like Audrey 2 more than a couple of times. What I’m trying to … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw La Havana Madrid, a long-forgotten social club that turned into a ’60s social movement, finds new life in Mission San Juan Capistrano’s courtyard. Writer/performer Sandra Delgado’s play of the same name articulates both the oppression and the triumphs of Latin American immigrants who arrived in Chicago during a period of … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage Before a jury held Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million, Trump claimed in a deposition that male “stars” have grabbed and groped women for “millions of years” — “unfortunately or fortunately.” Leaving that unfortunate “fortunately” aside, the musicals that currently … Read more
Martίn Hernández – Stage Raw. After actor-playwright Michael Shayan’s years of pestering his Iranian-Jewish immigrant mother Roya to tell her life story, she finally relented to being recorded. After a writing retreat exercise, he took his mother’s interview and his own imagination and melded them together to craft a compelling one-person show. Part stand-up comedy … Read more
Patrick Chavis – The Orange Curtain Review. The experience of going out and exploring America on a road trip has been a staple in stories, plays, and movies. Some are serious stories like On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and others are comedies like the early 80s film Vacation with Chevy Chase. In Coleman ’72, now playing at South Coast … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage. Plus Geffen’s ‘Breath,’ Kristina Wong, and more. A flood of openings gushed through Greater LA theaters in February — although two of the new productions were delayed by an outbreak of COVID. During the first weekend of the month, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa planned to activate the “repertory” … Read more
Patrick Chavis – The Orange Curtain Review. Little Foxes is an older play from the 1930s written by Lillian Hellman, a famous Broadway playwright. It’s wonderful we still have new productions of these old classics. Are some of the ideas dated — most definitely. But they provide us access to the time and the mindset of … Read more
Patrick Chavis – The Orange Curtain Review. So many powerful stories have been and will continue to be told around the subject of family. What family means in different cultures differs to various degrees, but family is also a universal concept that ties humanity together. It’s in our books. It’s on our TVs. In that … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw A young Nina Simone never aspired to be a singer. Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, the sixth of eight children, she studied classical piano as a child, her training paid for by the white employer of her mother, a Methodist minister who worked part-time as a housekeeper. Later she attended Juilliard … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage Plus ‘Desert Stories for Lost Girls” at LATC, ‘Babe’ and ‘To the Bone’ in Atwater. Dan Sullivan, the former LA Times theater critic who ushered LA readers into the modern theatrical world, died last week at the age of 86. It’s time to remember him, before moving on to current … Read more