Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly Los Feliz’s Skylight Theatre has become the home for L.A. scribe Shem Bitterman, who’s had his plays staged in this city for decades. His latest, a real estate mystery named Open House, premiered last week. Before getting to Open House, it’s worth perusing Bitterman’s past writings, which reveal patterns … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA If there’s a more sheerly interesting playwright in the United States these days than Bruce Norris, I don’t know who it is. In a continuing series of audacious, ambitious comedies, he has remained resolutely non-P.C. in questioning some of our culture’s most cherished assumptions on race (his Pulitzer winner Clybourne Park), … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly …..Stephen Sachs‘ Heart Song, which just opened at the Fountain Theatre, also looks at the capacities of art to overcome the seeming finality of death. Act One is as literal — with explanations about the purpose of art that border on the tendentious — as A Fried Octopus is abstract. Act Two, however, … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA Director-writer Nancy Keystone doesn’t exactly crank ‘em out quickly through her Critical Mass Performance Group, but they sure are worth the waiting for. Her 2006 Theatre @ Boston Court staging of Suzan-Lori Parks’s The America Play made keen sense out of that peculiarly remote text, and now, with Alcestis, Keystone and … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA It’s not every day you get to be heavyweight champion of the world—for a professional sportsman it’s a once in a lifetime event, at least the first time is… In 1964, at the tender age of 22, boxing legend Cassius Clay (soon thereafter known as Muhammad Ali) ascended to the pinnacle … Read more
Seminar by Theresa Rebeck. Hoyt Hilsman – The Huffington Post Plays about writers and writing present major challenges for both audiences and playwrights. Because writing is such an internal process, full of grinding frustration and occasional exhilaration, it is a tough subject to portray on stage. Playwright and film/TV writer Theresa Rebeck makes a valiant but flawed assault on … Read more
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle has announced the winners and special awards for excellence in Los Angeles and Orange County theater for the year 2011. You can now follow the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle on twitter via @LADramaCC. The 43rd Annual Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards ceremony took place Monday, March 19, 2012 at A Noise Within in Pasadena, and was co-hosted by Lesli Margherita and Jason … Read more