Rob Stevens – Haines His Way. Pilot gets off to a fun start with a small group of friends gathered at Sally’s (Jacqueline Wright) Santa Monica mountaintop mansion to celebrate her 50th birthday. As the lights go up on Jeff G. Rack’s well-appointed and elaborate (for The Broadwater) scenic design, the friends are playing a … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw. Loose morals, licentious proposals and live vinyl rule the night at the Broadwater in Hollywood. Foolish Production Co’s latest production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure is a mixed bag of madcap moodiness…. Under Mulhearn’s direction, the show moves quickly and the play’s five acts and multiple plot twists are condensed … Read more
Tracey Paleo – BroadwayWorld. Notwithstanding that they fell into many textbook Shakespeare traps, and that there was zero chemistry between any single one of the characters, the Foolish Production Company cast actually knew what they were doing. And mostly their 1-hour rendition of TWELFTH NIGHT (playing in rep with MEASURE FOR MEASURE at The Broadwater) … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw LaShea Delaney’s drama, Moniece Clark is about the media’s exploitation of crimes against women and the tendency of law enforcement to downplay those crimes if the victim is a woman of color. You don’t have to look far to uncover the deplorable statistics behind those concerns, to be found in the Department … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way Yusuf Yildiz’s Not That Illegal started life as a 15-minute work at the 2019 Strawberry One-Act Festival in New York City where it received a Best Play nomination. Now he has expanded it to a 90-minute one-act at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. It’s about 60 minutes too long in its present … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way If you are seeing a new musical at the Hollywood Fringe Festival that starts off with a character known as Cockman who wakes up the sleepy town every morning singing about choking his chicken, you would think you were in for a wild and fun time. Unfortunately, those first … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw “There are no words . . .” This phrase is among the platitudes that writer-performer Colin Campbell excoriates in his solo performance about people straining to offer comfort in the aftermath of his losing his two teenage children in a car crash, on the other end of a drunk … Read more
Dana Martin – Stage Raw John Norris is a serious actor who doesn’t take anything too seriously and the outcome is very funny. Mr. Chonkers defies definition. It’s a late-night rendezvous with the absurd — a completely ridiculous and thoroughly enjoyable 50 minutes. The evening is full of good old-fashioned silliness. Mr. Chonkers emerges from … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way A friend recently returned from his first trip to Paris. Among the many sites he visited was the grave of Oscar Wilde. I need to ask him if the gravesite looked very disturbed. I would think it would be nearly uprooted with all the spinning in his grave Mr. … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Ben Moroski won a Best of Fringe award in 2012 for The Vicious Minute and a Top of the Fringe award in 2014 for his solo performance of The Wake. This year he’s back at The Fringe with his latest solo piece, Dog— a downer of a tale nonetheless presented with the same singular, mesmerizing … Read more