Brigadoon @ PASADENA PLAYHOUSE

Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA This production is richly produced, newly balanced with a remarkable updated script, and acted with exceptional clarity and heart, proving you don’t have to break a Golden Age classic to make it matter to modern audiences—you just have to find its heartbeat. Read more… F. Kathleen Foley – Stage Raw … Read more

Primary Trust @ CENTER THEATRE GROUP

Terry Morgan – Arts Beat LA One never knows where inspiration will strike. Eboni Booth’s play, Primary Trust, is partly set in a tiki bar that is its protagonist’s favorite place on Earth. Although the story is set in New York, Booth mentioned in an interview that her inspiration for that bar was Damon’s, an … Read more

The Little Mermaid @ NOCTURNE THEATRE

            Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA While some might find this a tail as old as time, this exceptional reinvention of breathes fresh oxygen into the story. If you’re looking for a night of theatre that’s deep in heart and high on spectacle, this is a wave of pure theatrical … Read more

Exit the King @ A NOISE WITHIN

Ed Rampell – Hollywood Progressive If cinéma vérité filmmakers such as D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock, Jean Rouch or the Maysles Brothers had cameras inside of the Trump White House (that is, what’s left of it), their fly on the wall footage would likely reveal lunacy akin to that of “Exit the King’s” court. I’m sure … Read more

The Piano & Me @ ENSEMBLE THEATRE COMPANY

Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA This freshly conceived production, which swerves from the usual formula of all the previous successful Hershey Felder one-person explorations over nearly 30 years, examining the lives and music of the most famous composers in the history of music, uniquely captures the essence of how one of our time’s most prolific … Read more

Diavolo: Escape @ L’ESPACE DIAVOLO

Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA While Jacques Heim’s internationally renowned company is famous for its gravity-defying feats, since it’s being performed in this eclectic private former warehouse studio, this production brings the audience literally within five feet of the action. With only 90 seats in the house, the massive yet somehow intimate black box setting … Read more

English @ THE WALLIS

Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Although people say the long-running 2023 Pulitzer-winning play, just opening for a too brief run at the Wallis, is being presented at a bad time, it’s something with which I could not disagree more strongly. This stunning masterwork lifts us from the discouragement and ugliness of the moment as it … Read more

The Baptist Witches of Shelbyville @ WHITEFIRE THEATRE

Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Although I have to admit Julie Shavers’ rather predictable tale of a Fourth of July family reunion in the rural Tennessee backyard of the miserable Moon family womenfolk covers absolutely no new ground, she breaths glorious life into the familiar convoluted goings-on with her unique knack for creating lovable—though suitably … Read more

Amerika or, The Man who Disappeared @ OPEN FIST THEATRE COMPANY & CIRCLE X THEATRE

Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Dietrich Smith’s adaptation of Franz Kafka’s first novel finds all the sly complexities and colors that, as in the source material, are camouflaged by the narrative: the eternal battle between the haves and the have-nots, the shabby treatment of individuals deemed lesser than others, and the search for a reason … Read more

Sex, Lies and Harold Pinter @ ODYSSEY THEATRE

Ed Rampell – Hollywood Progressive Pinter’s slyly subversive 30-ish minute piece does to those veddy British drawing room plays what The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface does to human beings. Although I hasten to add that this is not to say that Party Time is a horror production per se, but rather that it Pinteresquely piquantly … Read more