Dana Martin – Stage Raw Have you ever wanted to be a star or would you rather remain a mere mortal? Stardust: An Immersive Theater Experience produced by Alterea Inc. at the Sassafras Saloon in Hollywood offers you the chance to experience both. Read more… Through November 20
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Man’s Favor Devil’s Plan, by Kwik Jones, takes place on the loading dock at the rear of a hotel in Los Angeles in 1938. The story concerns the relationship between the hotel’s White owner, an unmitigated racist and an otherwise cruel and unscrupulous individual, and the hotel staff, who are African … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Taking a break from their usual musical fare, Center Theatre Group-Ahmanson is offering2:22-A Ghost Story by Danny Robins through December 4. The opening night was November 4, missing Halloween by a few days. Little costumed trick or treaters may have provided more scares than what transpired on stage. The reviewers … Read more
Terry Morgan – ArtsBeatLA When Harper Lee wrote her novel To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960, she didn’t think it would be a big success. Sixty-two years later, the book has been taught to millions of students in schools, was the source of a classic 1962 film of the same name, and recently inspired a theatrical version … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw When the young artists of the newly formed company The Actors’ Gang did a midnight show of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu the King in 1982, informed by punk rock and an anger against the Reagan administration, I doubt that any of their number imagined that the troupe would be doing a fortieth anniversary … Read more
Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld The world premiere of Arlene Hutton’s ACCORDING TO THE CHORUS is a lively slice-of-life look at the backstage antics of an unnamed Broadway show (that’s been running longer than CATS) in 1984. Set in a quick-change room devoted to six chorus girls and their three dressers, the makeshift family squabbles, complains, … Read more
Jonas Schwartz-Owen – Theatermania The final five minutes in Part 1 of Matthew Lopez’s epic Tony-winning The Inheritance, now running at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, are some of the most gut-wrenching moments in theater. At the performance I attended, the entire audience sat connected — some teary-eyed, some crying — but it seemed everyone was … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw The Chance Theatre is pulling nothing but power moves this season. Kristoffer Diaz’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, is masculinity on overdrive. Macedonio Guerra, or The Mace (Rudy Solis III) knows his wrestling history. What’s more, he reveres the form as high art worthy of praise and … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Before becoming a playwright and screenwriter, Beau Willimon worked as a political operative, toiling behind the scenes on the campaigns of Chuck Schumer, Hilary Clinton, Bill Bradley and Howard Dean. Willimon left politics in 2004, subsequently translating his experiences as a ringside player in Washington into plays, film and TV, … 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