Monday, September 26, 2011
The opening of Cirque du Soleil’s astonishing new Iris at the Kodak Theatre raises a self-serving but inevitable question within the LA theater community – “what’s in it for us”?
O…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 08:59PMWednesday, September 21, 2011
Twenty-four years after its US premiere in downtown LA, Cirque du Soleil is finally becoming a permanent Angeleno. After Iris, a new Cirque show about the essence of cinema, opens Sunday, it…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 07:57PMFriday, September 16, 2011
Michael Ritchie's grade of using LA content and LA talent is moving from last year's F to this year's C, thanks to scheduled shows at the Mark Taper Forum and the Kirk Douglas Theatre, if no…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 08:49PMMonday, September 12, 2011
The panel and talkback following My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Theatricum Botanicum is much more dramatic than the solo play itself, especially if devoted advocates of Israeli and Palestin…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 08:52PMMonday, August 29, 2011
My Name Is Rachel Corrie, one of the most debated plays of the last decade, finally arrives in LA at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum -- a venue not previously known for red-hot controvers…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 06:57PMMonday, August 22, 2011
Despair in dramatic characters isn’t necessarily dramatic. Woe-is-me on the stage can easily translate into woe-are-we in the audience. So should theaters ignore despairing, even suicidal …
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 07:19PMMonday, August 15, 2011
The official count of the crowd at Independent Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet last night was 1,240 – a new record for the ISC. Because attendance is free, with no tickets required, the num…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 09:42PMMonday, August 8, 2011
The current This and last year's The Wake, CTG productions at the Douglas, have a lot in common -- too much, in the larger context of CTG programming. This is Chekhovian, in a sense, but the…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 11:30PMMonday, August 1, 2011
Gospel According to First Squad, the third play in Tom Burmester's War Cycle, brings the chaos of America's involvement in Afghanistan to full-bodied life. Gregory Nabours' delightful song c…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 08:36PMMonday, July 25, 2011
Anna Deavere Smith's Let Me Down Easy, at Broad Stage, is more about the oft-depicted subject of mortality than it is about health care, and it loses some of its edge as a result. D is for D…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 06:00PMMonday, July 18, 2011
The Troubies are "devised" and they're capable of touring, as they proved with successive weekend of Fleetwood Macbeth in Burbank and La Mirada. Of course they're also sidesplitting and orig…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 08:32PMTuesday, July 12, 2011
The Chance Theater is taking a chance on the oft-protested satire, Jerry Springer: The Opera, and it's a compelling clash of luxurious music and astoundingly graphic profanities. Shakespea…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 05:25PMTuesday, July 5, 2011
Fagin is missing from Twist -- and good riddance. The counterpart to the original Oliver Twist's Nancy is much changed too, but one really bad guy is worth hissing. The Twist book improves o…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 07:32PMMonday, June 27, 2011
CTG artistic director Michael Ritchie hates subscribers, he told Theresa Rebeck in a refreshingly candid interview for Howlround. The second Hollywood Fringe Festival offered a few minor imp…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 06:58PMMonday, June 20, 2011
LA contributions to Radar L.A. were among the festival highlights, but three in particular wore their "made in LA" labels with pride. Oskar Eustis paid tribute to Gordon Davidson last week -…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 10:14PMThursday, June 16, 2011
RADAR L.A. present two productions about troubled acting troupes, The Method Gun and Neva, that combine the same Chekhovian tones of rueful loss and affectionate satire. Maybe they're not fo…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 06:24PMMonday, June 13, 2011
Why does the LA Times over-cover the Tonys while barely covering the theater awards ceremonies in LA? What part of LA theater is really under-represented on the Times panel discussion on Tue…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 06:57PMTuesday, June 7, 2011
The aftermath of the Cambodian genocide is treated in the Colony's Year Zero, set among Cambodian Americans in Long Beach, and Extraordinary Chambers at the Geffen, set in Cambodia with Amer…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 05:55AMMonday, May 23, 2011
Which LA theater company has the highest profile right now on Broadway? Would you believe it’s the Pasadena Playhouse – the company that has recently had a lower profile here in LA than…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 10:21PMMonday, May 2, 2011
The mating habits of scientists are under intense scrutiny by playwrights these days, judging from the premieres of Pursued by Happiness at the Road Theatre, House of the Rising Son at Atwat…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 03:38PMMonday, April 25, 2011
Tom Jacobson's two plays at Atwater Village, The House of the Rising Son and The Chinese Massacre (Annotated), are very different, but their joint presentation adds up to a sum even greater …
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 09:28PMMonday, April 18, 2011
Two small productions are providing evidence that provocative plays set in LA aren't all that difficult for the larger theaters to find. The LA-oriented plays are The Temperamentals at the…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 10:20PMMonday, April 11, 2011
With Ionesco's The Chairs, A Noise Within has produced a fitting valedictory for its final regular season in Glendale. But why hasn't the Times theater critic written more often about LA's l…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 08:32PMTuesday, April 5, 2011
Phylicia Rashad's Ebony Rep revival of Lorraine Hansberry's masterpiece A Raisin in the Sun should be seen by every LA theater lover -- is there anyone out there who might arrange a transfer…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 03:49AMTuesday, March 29, 2011
Born in California 55 years ago, Marc Masterson is finally about to return to the state as South Coast Repertory's new artistic director. He discusses some of the differences between South …
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 03:17PMMonday, March 21, 2011
Southern Comforts, The Frybread Queen and The Weir lead to reflections on when to show, not tell, and when to tell, not show. Two young men's scripts, Bonded and The Next Fairy Tale, addre…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 08:24PMTuesday, March 15, 2011
Within a city block of each other, The Sonneteer and The Young Man From Atlanta examine early '50s homophobia, among other subjects, but in very different cultures and using very different s…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 03:12PMMonday, March 7, 2011
A Noise Within's Comedy of Errors is a perfect fit in the burlesque hall dreamed up by director Michael Michetti, but why is Actors Co-op's King Lear set in 1850s California? Plus comments o…
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 08:33PMMonday, February 28, 2011
The Author at the Kirk Douglas raised big questions about how theater artists and audience deal with inflammatory subject matter such as porn and suicide. Meanwhile, Wrinkles offers a very …
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 06:53PMFriday, February 18, 2011
Madonna or whore? Three big musicals examine this stereotype of young women: Dangerous Beauty, Gigi and Rock of Ages, with mixed results. READ MORE
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 07:08PMFriday, February 11, 2011
Which theater company attracts the most young adults? Why can't Clybourne Park coincide with A Raisin in the Sun? Would 33 Variations fit the Taper better than the Ahmanson? READ MORE
SOURCE: LA STAGE Times at 10:37PM 
