Neal Weaver – Stage Raw When critic Walter Kerr reviewed the musical Zorba, he observed that it was the only musical he’d ever seen where he actively hated the chorus. This show, with book, music and lyrics by Molly Bell, is an intimate musical so it has no chorus, but the characters are, if not hateful, … Read more
Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw In the pantheon of African-American playwrights, the name Charles Gordone isn’t as well-known as others like Lorraine Hansberry or August Wilson. But he was the first black playwright to receive a Pulitzer Prize, and this 1969 drama was the first off-Broadway play to receive the award. Read more… Now running … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Writer/solo performer Barbara Tarbuck has titled her vibrant one-act Stopping By, a phrase that calls to mind Robert Frost’s iconic poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, with its meditation (as I interpret it anyway) on human mortality. Read more… Now running through April 13.
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw I think there will always be people who ask “Why on earth do another production of Othello? What more can you say than hasn’t already been said?“ Fortunately, director Melissa Chalsma’s crackling production of Shakespeare’s spite-fest boasts plenty of reasons to captivate and intrigue — though perhaps not the ones that … Read more
Bob Verini – Stage Raw Let’s start by talking about the song, and if you’re reading about Dreamgirls you already know what song I mean. It’s the one that everyone’s always waiting for, the one that practically single-handedly justifies a revival of the Tom Eyen-Henry Krieger-Michael Bennett 60s pop musical in and of itself. It stands as … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw I remember, back when young and impecunious, sneaking into the house during first intermission to catch the last two acts of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy, only to be so smitten that I returned the following day to buy a ticket to see the first act and stay again for the … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw While Alejandro G. Iñárritu customarily and pretentiously inflated the purported weight of the soul in his 2003 movie 27 Grams, Bryony Lavery more tangibly measures the palpable bulk of a dead human body in her insightfully written Dirt, a West Coast premiere presented by Rogue Machine Theatre with SRS Production Wing. Read more… Now running … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA There are numerous delights to be found in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder — the raucously hilarious musical play that opened last night at the Ahmanson Theatre. The ingenious and lavish puppet theater-like set, designed by Alexander Dodge; the gorgeously detailed period costumes, designed by Linda Cho; the clever book and … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw When the assignment comes down the pike that you are going to be sent to review a production of Saul Levitt’s courtroom drama, The Andersonville Trial, it is hard not to give into the temptation to heave a large sigh. After all, this is the quintessential, super old-fashioned, pre-Aaron Sorkin trial … Read more
Not so much a ‘whodunit’ as a guilty cover-up, Sheriff’s stuffy old mystery A Shred of Evidence plays like a trip back in time to quaint 1950s England. Sheriff begins with a small action — the switching on of a radio — that completely alters the course of his central character’s life. A morning news report of a nearby … Read more