Monday, February 1, 2021
JUDGING RYAN Ryan J. Haddad opens his autobiographical solo play Hi, Are You Single? with a funny, sexy, and sweetly awkward phone masturbation scene. His search for sex and intimacy as a qu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:04AMMonday, January 25, 2021
CURRY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CURRY About a week prior to virtually attending Bollywood Kitchen, Sri Rao’s inventive solo memoir and home cooking experience, a beautiful box arrives contain…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:40PMFriday, December 4, 2020
SINGING THE PRAISES OF A CAROL At this time of year, productions about dear old Scrooge are ablaze as usual, even in streaming mode. One-man shows, radio plays, and reruns on film. What’s …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:02AMSunday, October 13, 2019
THE DIRTY WAR COMES HOME Stephanie Alison Walker’s The Abuelas at Antaeus Theatre is the story of a woman discovering that she is a child of the “Disappeared,” the approximately 30,000…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:28PMWednesday, September 25, 2019
SHOWTIME AT THE VANITIES Ethan Coen’s A Play Is a Poem at the Mark Taper Forum strikes me as neither a poem, nor, strictly speaking, theater. I don’t know what it is. For the most part t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:35PMTuesday, September 17, 2019
THE NEW NORMAL A weird dynamic takes over the house at Skintight, Joshua Harmon’s comedy, now at the Geffen Playhouse. In broad terms, it feels like a battle of the sexes — with men in t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:33AMMonday, July 8, 2019
A GUY WITH ONE LEG WALKS INTO A THEATER… This show-in-residence at the Santa Monica Playhouse (it plays most Friday nights) is a funny, exhilarating dive into comedian, best-selling author…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:57PMSunday, June 2, 2019
GRAFFITI THAT ASKS PERMISSION Carly Uhlenbeek (Jasmine St. Clair), an African American suburban seventh grade girl, seeks answers in playwright David Jacobi’s Ready Steady Yeti Go, a Rogue…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:34PMSaturday, May 25, 2019
HAPPY DAYS IS HERE AGAIN I had never read nor seen Samuel Beckett’s absurdist classic Happy Days, now at the Mark Taper, but was excited at the prospect of seeing the great Dianne Weist in…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:41PMMonday, April 8, 2019
VOLCANOES WITHIN AND WITHOUT When you walk into the theater for playwright Mary Lyon Kamitaki’s Southernmost, Justin Huen’s scenic design transports you immediately into another world: A…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:38PMSunday, April 7, 2019
TAYLOR MADE If timing is everything with comedy Renée Taylor in My Life on a Diet is proof positive. This revival of her one-woman show, based on her 1986 memoir of the same title, is a mas…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:52PMSunday, March 24, 2019
THE BUSINESS OF FAITH The late Irish playwright Brian Friel’s Faith Healer premiered some 40 years ago and is now considered one of his greatest works. It is a memory play with three chara…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:39PMMonday, March 4, 2019
TOO MANY CHOICES If Chekov’s characters could be said to be trapped by society, circumstance, and their own neuroses, the characters in playwright Nicky Silver’s Too Much Sun, now at the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:08PMTuesday, January 22, 2019
CRUEL INTENTIONS Now at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Hir had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizon in 2015, engendering a rave in the The New York Times and going on to play internation…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:26PMMonday, January 21, 2019
RAGING AGAINST THE DYING LIGHT Elderly parents losing their independence is more significant demographically in America now than at any time in our history. Most still-living Greatest Genera…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:55PMThursday, January 17, 2019
BEAUTIFUL HONESTY The title of Tracy Letts’ play Linda Vista, Steppenwolf Theatre’s production now at the Mark Taper Forum, translates as “Beautiful View.” In a literal sense, it ref…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:52PMMonday, January 14, 2019
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE VS. AUTHENTIC EMOTION Brian Letscher’s new play, now at Pacific Resident Theatre, is pitched as a cutting-edge take on how our species might be affected by new deve…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:59PMSunday, December 16, 2018
ACTUALLY MAGICAL I didn’t have any idea what to expect from this hybrid theatrical invention. It employs scenes from the beloved Richard Curtis film Love Actually, live musicians (who ofte…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:26PMMonday, November 12, 2018
SAVING YOURSELF At the opening performance of Rogue Machine’s presentation of the Los Angeles premiere of playwright Joe Gilford’s Finks, artistic director John Flynn welcomed the audien…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:26PMA GHOSTLY CAROL TO REMEMBER A Christmas Carol keeps the lights on at theaters across the country, filling their coffers every year and helping underwrite their other productions. It usually …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:19AMSaturday, November 10, 2018
LOVING THE COCKROACH WITHIN Playwright Eric Reyes Loo wisely observes that the messiness of love and grief does not easily coexist within the binary world of Facebook. In his new play, Death…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:07PMCULTURE CLASH Narratively, there are two cultural clashes at the center of A Bronx Tale, now at the Pantages as part of its North American Tour. Italians and African-Americans are on opposi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:39PMTuesday, October 30, 2018
WALKS LIKE A DUCK, QUACKS LIKE A HIT Playwright Eliza Clark, in notes about Quack, her new play now in its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, writes that she has been…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:26PMLOCKED IN Dalton Trumbo’s novel Johnny Got His Gun was published in September 1939, the same month Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. It was not an immediate hit, but it was pe…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:48PMSunday, October 28, 2018
THE DEVASTATION OF POWERLESSNESS When the curtain comes down at the end of The Little Foxes you hear a remarkable sound: 80 people letting the air out of their lungs. We have all been holdin…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:52AMTuesday, October 23, 2018
PARTNERING ARROGANCE WITH SACRIFICE In taking residence at the Electric Lodge, their new digs in Venice, Rogue Machine makes an audacious choice with the American premiere of Tom Morton-Smit…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:52PMFriday, October 12, 2018
HANNIBAL THE CANNIBAL WANTS A WHIFF OF SOMETHING SPECIAL I didn’t know what to expect when I made plans to see Bucket List Theatre’s production of Silence! The Musical, a parody of the m…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:01PMMonday, October 8, 2018
ANCIENT LIES AND MODERN QUESTIONS Theatrical magic happens when all the elements of a production come together to form a seamless whole; when the text, direction, acting, and technical contr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:22PMFriday, October 5, 2018
A THOROUGHLY METROPOLITAN LIFE A worshipful cult greeted Fran Lebowitz at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel in downtown L.A. on September 30. She seemed incredibly pleased but not at all surprise…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:29AMSaturday, September 29, 2018
FEAR THAT TASTES LIKE CHICKEN IAMA Theatre Company’s 2018-19 season opener, Bess Wohl’s American Hero (a Pasadena Playhouse guest production at the Carrie Hamilton Theatre) is a portrait…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:27PMMonday, September 24, 2018
THE ENDURING LEGACY OF JERRY HERMAN AND THE ‘STAR VEHICLE’ The chief pleasure in Musical Theatre Guild’s presentation of Mame at the Alex Theatre is hearing the music, full-out, as wri…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:55PM 
