Stage Raw

APPROPRIATE at the Mark Taper Forum

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Les Spindle –  Edge on the Net In “Appropriate,” the initial conventionality in introducing the characters and basic storyline elicits raucous and sardonic laughs, as the depth of resentments among the siblings and their family members gradually come to light. Yet, there’s far more than garden-variety family baggage afoot here, Read more… Pauline Adamek  – ArtsBeatLA … Read more

ANTIGONE at A Noise Within

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Myron Meisel – Stage Raw …it is piquantly paradoxical that such a determined ironist as Jean Anouilh (Becket, Waltz of the Toreadors, The Lark), the most commercially and critically successful French playwright internationally immediately following the Second World War, now can be seen to exemplify some of the pitfalls of logical colloquy. Read more… Now running … Read more

THE BAKER’S WIFE at the Actors’ Coop

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Les Spindle –  Frontiers L.A. Featuring an appealing score by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin) and a charming though rather thin book by Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof, Zorba), based on a 1931 French film, this 1976 musical remains more a cult favorite than a classic. Read more… Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Among the most gratifying of musicals being presented in … Read more

THE GHOULMASTER’S HAUNTED PLAYHOUSE at the Hudson Theatre Mainstage

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Pauline Adamek  – Stage Raw Brimming with imagination, humor and macabre themes, The Ghoulmaster’s Haunted Playhouse is a high-concept and highly inventive cabaret production expressly created for the Halloween season.  Read more… Now running through October 31.

A PICASSO at the Promenade Playhouse

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Paul Birchall  – Stage Raw Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher’s drama artfully combines a threatening atmosphere with a charged debate on art and politics.  And, if the conversation on the nature of art occasionally edges into the cerebral, the grounded performances and pleasantly nuanced arguments are enough to keep the work vivid and compelling. Read more…

MAN COVETS BIRD at the 24th Street theatre

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Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw The 24th Street Theatre has distinguished itself by staging plays that have something to say to children and adults alike. While the productions display elements of fun and fancy, they also deal with disappointment and aging and loss – experiences we all encounter as part of our human condition. Read more.. … Read more

HIT THE WALL at the Los Angeles LGBT Center

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Bob Verini  –   Stage Raw After well-received productions in Chicago and Off-Broadway, Hit the Wall delivers nothing less than a gut punch in its West Coast debut at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Playwright Ike Holter calls his absorbing treatment of the 1969 Stonewall Inn riots a “remix” of scholarship, oral history and legend…..Read more… David C. … Read more

THE OBJECT LESSON at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

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Myron Meisel – Stage Raw  Object Lesson, created and enacted by Geoff Sobelle, is a determinedly odd amalgam of performance art and clowning, an extended existential joke deploying self-aware empty gestures, obsessive materialism and well-established gags consciously stranded in the context of a litter-strewn vacuum. And yes, a desire to be loved. It’s as if … Read more