Stage Raw

THE ANDERSONVILLE TRIAL at the Grove Theatre Center

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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

A SHRED OF EVIDENCE at Theatre 40

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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

SUMMER AND SMOKE at the Actors Co-op

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David C. Nichols – LA Times Summer and Smoke” may stand a little higher in the Tennessee Williams canon after you see an exceptional Actors Co-op revival of the 1947 drama, one of the best offerings in the company’s storied history. Read more… Les Spindle –  Frontiers L.A. Tennessee Williams’ sultry and thought-provoking 1947 drama, strongly … Read more

WOMEN LAUGHING ALONE WITH SALAD at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

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Margaret Gray – LA Times Is “Women Laughing Alone With Salad” the first play inspired by an Internet meme? In 2011 the feminist website the Hairpin published stock photographs of slender models appearing to exult over forkfuls of mixed greens. We’d all seen these images in advertisements, but we’d never really looked at them, or … Read more

CLOUD 9 at the Antaeus Theatre Company

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Terry Morgan  –  Stage Raw The Antaeus Theatre Company once again demonstrates its immense value to the Los Angeles theatre community, this time with a superb revival of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9. It’s an ambitious and tricky work, but under Casey Stangl’s thoughtful direction, an inspired ensemble does the play proud. As usual, Antaeus “partner-casts” … Read more

YOU NEVER CAN TELL at A Noise Within

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Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw George Bernard Shaw’s’s turn of the 20th century rom-com, had a rocky start. Set to debut in 1897, it failed to make it to the stage that year, as actors struggled with the material and one leading lady quit, complaining the comedy had neither enough laughs nor enough exits. Not … Read more

SPIES ARE FOREVER at the NoHo Arts Center

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw This slick little musical is a spoof of the James Bond movies, with emphasis on their snazzy-jazzy opening credits. The book is by Tin Can Brothers, a team made up of director Corey Lubowich and ensemble members Joey Richter and Brian Rosenthal, with a score by Clark Baxstresser and Pierce … Read more

A GAMBLER’S GUIDE TO DYING at the Ruskin Group Theatre

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Jenny Lower – Stage Raw In just over an hour, Scottish playwright Gary McNair’s affectionate portrait of the rise and fall of an inveterate gambler manages to span 45 years, chart a grandson’s disillusionment and recovery of faith in his hero, mull the randomness of the universe, and probe the legacy of any human life. … Read more