Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA This is one of the first theatrical responses to the pandemic, an experience that took such a huge chunk out of our lives and as so, presented in the usual-unusual modus operandi for which the Actors’ Gang has become known, nothing and no one is left without a voice, from … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Promising new playwright Laura Stribling employs a fascinating device, seamlessly and innovatively melding history and fiction as two real-life groundbreaking astronomers and author/poet/abolitionist/suffragette Julia Ward Howe are presented as characters interacting with some equally interesting fictional women beaten down by the inequities of being a member of what was long … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Through the bleakness and hardship, there’s an omnipresent glimmer of hope the threads throughout Conor McPherson’s brilliant Girl from North Country as a stepped-upon group of tyrannized survivors of the Great Depression fight to discover what it is they want in their lives and how they can pull themselves up … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA The underlying message of The Hope Theory comes through this worldclass conjuror and raconteur’s skills and, for a brief time, he makes the chaos we all share these days disappear with the ease of his sleight of hand, shuffling our communal cares and worries back into the deck. Read more… … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Tira Palmquist’s well-meant and occasionally beautifully poetic play could have so much to say and her characters should be people we quickly come to care about but unfortunately, somewhere it completely and glaringly misses its mark. As is, its promise is more a pitch for a future movie on the … Read more
Terry Morgan – ArtsBeatLA According to the great sages of the internet, Hamlet is the most produced play in world history, and whether or not that claim is true, the indecisive Dane is certainly ubiquitous. And if it isn’t an actual production of the play, there are innumerable films that borrow the plot to serve … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA This disappointing “Monster” is a badly constructed and often confusing clunker that couldn’t possibly be more predictable, with a continuous series of monologues played directly to the audience that droned on with tired exposition that did nothing to make me care a whit about either character—both of whom should be … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage Ham,’ meet ‘Hedley.’ Plus plays looking forward, plays looking back. Also includes comments on Dinner with Friends, Kairos, High Maintenance, Could I Have This Dance?, Funny Girl, Into the Breeches, Power & Light, Stalin’s Master Class. Read more…
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA So what makes this old funny girl funnier than ever before? Simply put, Katerina McCrimmon is absolutely the best Fanny Brice I’ve ever seen—and I’m old enough to have seen the original star-making turn by Babs herself before the film version cleaned her up a tad. Evoking Edith Piaf with … Read more
Travis Michael Holder – TicketHoldersLA Alex Edelman possesses one of the most distinct and unique voices to emerge on the scene since the late Robin Williams. Last November in the special engagement in the shuttered Mark Taper Forum, Edelman’s hilarious and perfectly timed Obie-winning Just for Us became the recipient of my annual TicketHolder Solo … Read more