The Actors Gang

(IM)MIGRANTS OF THE STATE at The Actors’ Gang

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Socks Whitmore – Stage Raw. Like other Actors’ Gang productions, (Im)migrants of the State draws from a distinctly stylized form of physical theater, ranging from the comedic use of cardboard cutout props to the out-of-time, slow-motion dramatization of a gang jumping. The medium feels fitting for the project; the technical simplicity keeps the focus on … Read more

UBU THE KING – at The Actors’ Gang

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Terry Morgan – Stage Raw When the young artists of the newly formed company The Actors’ Gang did a midnight show of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu the King in 1982, informed by punk rock and an anger against the Reagan administration, I doubt that any of their number imagined that the troupe would be doing a fortieth anniversary … Read more

CAN’T PAY? DON’T PAY! at the Actors’ Gang

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Dana Martin– Stage Raw The Actor’s Gang has balls. Originally co- authored by Italian playwrights Dario Fo and Franca Rame in 1974 with current translation by Cam Deaver, Can’t Pay? Don’t Pay!addresses the effect inflation has on a fed-up, abused and browbeaten working class at the mercy of greedy, powerful, anonymous corporations while being slowly crushed under the … Read more

WE LIVE ON at The Actors’ Gang

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Terry Morgan – Arts Beat L.A. In 1970, journalist Studs Terkel released his book, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, in which he interviewed people about living through that desperate time and how they made it through. There are certainly parallels between that time and our own, from the existential terrors of the … Read more

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at Ivy Substation

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Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Why is this Night different from all other Nights? To start with, it’s smart, it’s imaginative, it’s beautiful, it makes sense of the peculiar world Shakespeare created. It takes the titular dream to heart, as characters shape-shift and locales subtly morph. Still, the text is clear. Under the direction … Read more