Monday, May 25, 2015

“What if…?”

Theatre Communications Group celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. TCG is encouraging members to discuss the future of theater by exploring “what the field has achieved, the chall…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Rude Mechs’ ‘Method Gun’ Inspires

Five actors stand, facing downstage and smiling at the audience.  One is in a brilliant orange jumpsuit.  She holds an old, faded kitchen timer.  On a whiteboard upstage, an overhead proj…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

‘Hot Pepper’: Downsized Dance by Chelfitsch

Anyone who’s ever worked in a cubicle will recognize the fluorescent-cool pecking order of corporate culture in Chelfitsch’s Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and The Fairwell Speech.  …

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Not Lost in Translation

Supertitles are introducing American audiences new worlds of theater but remain far from perfect. The future of American theater may be as much read as watched. Presenting organizations, fol…

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‘Can We Cause a Revolution?’ Theater Pros Reactions to ‘Neva’ Opening Night at REDCAT [VIDEO]

Theater pros moved by the opening-night performance of Neva at Radar LA Guillermo Calderón‘s latest work being produced by Teatro en el Blanco at the Radar LA theater festival, walked…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Family Dysfunction Fuels Hollywood Fringe

If you’ve never hated the family that you also love, stand up. Now sit down, preferably in some water, because your pants are probably on fire. Almost all of us have, well, complicated rel…

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Gallery Piece?: ’2 Dimensional Life of Her’

Presenting your art to an audience doesn’t make it theater. Only when Fleur Elise Noble’s puppets have stripped down their setting — the artist’s messy studio —…

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‘Off Stage With Engine 28′: Pasadena Playhouse’s Sheldon Epps and Tate Donovan

Ever wish there were more (well, any) TV shows about theater? Engine 28 is here with that answer — except it’s on the Web! In this premiere episode of Off Stage W ith Engine 28, Jess…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Steinspeak: ‘Brewsie and Willie’

A downtown adaptation of Gertrude Stein’s last book As Willie, the amiably angst-ridden protagonist and agonist of Brewsie and Willie might say, “How is it, fellows, that you could m…

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Action Plans: 4 Experts on Women in Theater

* On every significant front—writers, directors, artistic directors, leading roles—the status of women in today’s theater is in dire straits. What is to be done to redress the situ…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Cube Farm: ‘as you are now so once were we’

The Company takes Ulysses out of its box. Any parent of small children knows you can have more fun with a cardboard box than the most expensive toys, but The Company takes the concept beyond…

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RADAR L.A. Symposium on Theater’s Future: An Idea Plus Terror

Right in the middle of a presentation of manifestos at RADAR L.A. on the Future of Theater, Shawn Sides from Austin’s Rude Mechs subverted the whole idea of the panel discussion. In th…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Waiting for Furlough: The Existential Drama of “Brewsie and Willie”

The fighting has ended for the title characters in “Brewsie and Willie,” an   adaptation of Gertrude Stein’s rumination on American World War II veterans that opened last night as pa…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Postmodern Shakespeare, Four Plays, Four Ways

We just can’t get over the Bard. Even at RADAR L.A. and the Hollywood Fringe, dueling festivals devoted to the theatrical cutting edge, the ultimate warhorses are still running strong – …

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‘Asleep at the Wheel’: Waking Up

About a dozen people learned more about sleep apnea, narcolepsy and cataplexy than they might have reasonably expected on a Friday night at a Hollywood Boulevard bar/improv comedy club. They…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

‘Julius Caesar’ on Fast-Forward: Podcast

Orson Welles in 1937. Photo: Carl Van Vechten, courtesy Library of Congress   How do you make Shakespeare edgy enough for the Hollywood Fringe? You resurrect a 75-year-old script edited…

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Does an Apocalypse Have To Be All Bad?

A friend was recently at the playground with her children when a stranger began to explain in detail about how the end of the world was fast approaching. Talk about an uncomfortable conversa…

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Spilling Your Guts in the Spotlight: A Podcast

You know that dream where you’re standing naked in front of an audience? For author/actor Summer “Rain” Sinclair, it’s a reality that’s happened three times this week. Sinclair str…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

It’s Not Over Yet: Asian-American Festival Keeps the Drama Going in LA

Just when you thought Los Angeles’ June theater festivals were wrapping up, it turns out the fat lady has a lot more to see before she sings. As RADAR L.A. and the Theatre Communications G…

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Speaking Youth to Power: The Next Theater Generation

  Hallie Gordon, a Chicago theater professional who helped found and now oversees Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s program promoting theater among youth, delivered what might become …

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Editor’s Letter

I’ve shopped in pop-up stores and eaten in pop-up restaurants – but a pop-up newsroom? When my friends and colleagues Douglas McLennan of artsjournal.com and Sasha Anawalt at USC propose…

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Fringe: In the Cards for Magician Jon Armstrong

Jon Armstrong, a fixture at Hollywood Fringe headquarters, was getting some lip from a fellow magician. “All he could do was prattle on about everything he was a master of. About how he co…

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Publisher’s Letter

What was the big idea behind Engine28.com? E28 is about finding new ways of telling a story, training arts journalists, and engaging and interacting with the audience. The hope is that this …

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Fear and Brooding: Twain’s ‘Ghost Story’

Read Mark Twain’s A Ghost Story and you’ll get a hybrid tale that teases readers with all the clichéd elements of suspense but ends with one of the author’s signature less…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

RADAR L.A.: Experimental Mardi Gras

Remixing New York’s Under the Radar Festival for the West Coast, the RADAR L.A. Festival reflects a shift in contemporary theater, colliding international work with the Los Angeles theater…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Culture Clash’s Herbert Sigüenza: Theater, the Last Soapbox

The performances of the Latino comedy troupe Culture Clash range from sketches to full-length plays, charged with political and social satire. The company is known for its irreverent approac…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Sometimes It Rains Apples: ‘Ground to Cloud,’ ‘Myth and Infrastructure’

Despite its age, the term performance art remains a useful one, if only because no other phrase encompasses so many types of alternative theatrical expression in which you hear so much about…

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What’s Up with Theater in Downtown L.A.?

Engine 28 reporter Walter Ryce, on loan from the Monterey County Weekly, asks regular folks in downtown Los Angeles about their relationship to (or lack thereof) Los Angeles theater.

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’2 Dimensional Life of Her,’ Revisited

  Since its Tuesday premiere as part of the RADAR L.A. festival, Fleur Elise Noble’s enigmatic and captivating hybrid experience 2 Dimensional Life of Her — part film, part the…

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

Backseat Drivers: How Moving Arts Ignites ‘The Car Plays’

It turns out that it’s not that hard to get car-dependent Angelenos to sacrifice their vehicles for a few evenings. “There’s a lot of enticement, because if we use your car…

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Relentless: ‘Titus Redux’

Here’s a parlor game for all your dramaturg friends: Prod them for their opinions of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. The aesthetes among them will point out that no less …

SOURCE: Engine 28 at 05:58PM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards