Today is Monday, December 22, 2025 Broadway Baby Birthdays: Ralph Fiennes Andrew Lippa
When a play rolls into town promoting itself as the most Tony Award-nominated play in history, and the winner of Best Play and other awards, it creates high expectations. Which is fine, espe…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 06:54PMIt’s a truism that, as one gets older, time seems to move more quickly. One is more aware of the sound of the ticking clock of mortality, and the myriad of possible futures one idly contem…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 01:06PMHere’s something I never thought while watching the film Paranormal Activity in 2009: One day I will be writing a review of the theater version of this found-footage movie. I vividly recal…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 03:48PMWhen one is feeling confused or scared, it’s human nature to try to find somebody who knows more and be guided by their knowledge. This is great when A) said person actually does know more…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 06:36PMI’m combining two reviews in one article this week, one unique solo show at the Pasadena Playhouse and a sequel to a popular play at East West Players. These productions are not connected …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 12:18AMWhat is real? Perhaps more than any time in human history, there is more of an ability to realistically fake anything. Worse, there are any number of people actively trying to use those tech…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 06:32PM“Only connect,” wrote E. M. Forster in his 1910 novel, Howards End, an epigraph encouraging the merging of the mind and the heart so as to live a fuller life. That doesn’t mean it’s …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 11:42PMWhen one reads the title The Night of the Iguana, one hopes that it will be one of those Fifties flicks about radiation creating a giant iguana terrorizing hapless humans. But, alas, it is n…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 09:02PMAs I trust you all know, back in 1743 an Italian playwright named Carlo Goldoni wrote a play in the commedia dell’arte style called The Servant of Two Masters. It probably swept the Ita…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 08:32PMGone are the days of yore when sex farces frolicked across the theatrical landscape like so many smarmy bunnies, slamming doors and likely featuring partial nudity, if one lived in a part of…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 07:06PMI’ve been reviewing theatre for twenty-eight years and writing criticism for thirty-five years in total. Early on I came up with what I think of as “the Critic’s Prayer,” which is: �…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 10:42PMOne of the most important things that art does is to put a spotlight on or explore topics that would otherwise not get the public notice that they deserve. The primary beauty of art is the o…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 08:03PMPatrick Hamilton’s 1938 play, Gaslight, is the only theatrical title I can think of that later became a verb, and moreover one that’s still in use today. The show was a success, running …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 01:48PMIn my most recent review on this site, I discussed my general wariness about imposing new directorial takes or twists on Shakespeare works. Once in a rare while, these changes can illumin…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 09:36PMI usually am somewhat wary of “new takes” or “twists” on classic plays, with cause. Changing the time period of a story or modernizing the text is no guarantee that the play will be …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:24PMSometimes, although not commonly, sheer visual spectacle without significant content is enough to qualify a play as a success. A lot of critics recently have been opining this about the Harr…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 08:02PMThere’s a line in Tom Jacobson’s new play, Tasty Little Rabbit, which reads, “Today’s blasphemy is tomorrow’s orthodoxy.” Five words, but they’re imbued with so much historical…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 07:02PMMorgan’s Rule #1 about theater reads thusly: When a play doesn’t work, ninety-five percent of the time it’s due to the writing. Sure, sometimes an actor doesn’t quite connect with a …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 11:48PMAs a Literature major in my distant past, I have a shameful confession to make – I’ve never read Jane Eyre. I’ve read Ulysses and Absalom, Absalom, Toni Morrison and Annie Proulx, but …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 07:36PMBat Boy: The Musical premiered in 1997 here in Los Angeles at the Actors’ Gang Theatre, then went on to the West End and Off-Broadway, garnering awards and making the world somewhat safer…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 10:06PMWell, it took nine years, but the Harry Potter play has finally arrived in Los Angeles. I knew it would possibly be a while before it got here after premiering in London in 2016, but I didn�…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 06:36PMAntaeus Theatre Company has an excellent and longstanding reputation for being expert with classical theater work, from Ibsen to Pinter, with a particular affinity for Shakespeare. As best a…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:32PMAmidst the current blitzkrieg of corruption currently happening from the new presidential administration in this country, it’s difficult to gather focus to write a theater review. I mean, …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 05:48PMI have said before in these pages that I think Steve Yockey is one of the most original playwrights currently working. His combination of dark humor, oddball subject matter (ghosts, demons, …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 09:06PMIt’s late December, when the events of the year are summed up and judged by the media, and why should I withhold praise? Every year has amazing theater in Los Angeles – sometimes a bit m…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 09:42PMPhoto credit is Ashley Erikson. Ah, it’s that time of year again, when the holiday lights go up, the temperature dips to the perilous lows of seventy-five degrees and children everywhe…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 02:42PMOne thing that sadly doesn’t seem like it’s about to change in America anytime soon is the country’s love of guns. Whether it’s the byproduct of decades of fearmongering politicians …
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 03:18PMOne of the things I most admire about the work of Stephen Sondheim is that he actively tried new things within the musical format. He certainly set himself technical challenges, such as tell…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 04:42PMAlthough new plays can be exciting and are crucial to the continuing vitality of theatre, I’m especially fond of older works, the more obscure the better. It’s cheap time travel, immersi…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 09:18PMMessage plays are a pillar of western theater. Our entire theatrical ecosystem is unthinkable without works such as Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House or Larry…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 08:18PMIn my twenty-five years of theater reviewing, time and again when I find myself less enthusiastic about a show, ninety-nine percent of the time the culprit is the writing. One would think th…
SOURCE: Arts Beat LA at 10:24PM
