Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen Look out, baby, cause here they come. Ain’t Too Proud—The Life and Times of The Temptations opened in Los Angeles at Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre last night, just hours after it was announced the show will transfer to Broadway in spring 2019. Read more… Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw The … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw An old saw states that comedy is hard; a qualifying truth might well be that farce is the hardest. It requires wit, energy, sometimes broad slapstick and, above all, exquisite timing. When everything clicks, you get a masterpiece such as Noises Off. When it doesn’t, the results can be frustrating. Performed … Read more
Frances Baum Nicholson – The Daily Breeze When Rachel Dolezal was forced to step down from the presidency of the local branch of the NAACP in Spokane, Wash., in 2015 because she was not (as she had claimed) African-American, it spurred a debate on the nature of race and cultural appropriation which was long past … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Irish playwright Colin McPherson explores the dark hollows of the human psyche in this penetrating drama. A sad, intensely human story, the play speaks knowingly to the guilt, regret and unfulfilled desires that dwell within many of us.Read more… Now running through August 26
Erin Conley – On Stage and Screen You cannot walk five feet in the Pantages Theatre without encountering a bunch of mini pies for sale, perfectly setting the scene for Waitress, the hit Broadway musical that opened in Los Angeles for the first time last night. Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way In 2007 writer/director/actress … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Actor/writer/musician/producer/designer/musicologist Hershey Felder is about as close as they come to a modern Renaissance man. He has racked up an impressive array of musical biographies — one-man shows in which he plays noted composers. But this time there’s a difference. As narrator, Felder portrays not Beethoven but his friend and … Read more
Lovell Estell III — Stage Raw Plays about broken people dealing with issues of addiction, violence, and toxic sexuality are legion, but they don’t always translate into provocative and humorous theater. Both qualities are found in this dour comedy by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright .Read more… Now running through August 26
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw If one were to attempt to find a work comparable to Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, it would likely be Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Both plays deal with the mundane and the sacred, and both delve into the complexities of small communities.Read more… Now running through August 25
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Murray Mednick’s play, having its world premiere, is a tale of two suicides: that of the Russian Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, who shot himself in the heart in 1930, and that of Nadezhda Alliluyeva (Nadya), the second wife of Joseph Stalin, who shot herself in her bedroom during a Communist … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Caring for an infant is an important part of life, yet its difficulties are rarely depicted in the arts. While there is no lack of stories about pregnancy and birth, once the child is born, the drama seems to be considered less interesting. Playwright Molly Smith Metzler begs to differ…….Read … Read more