"Is this the promised end?" Kent mournfully asks as King Lear carries Cordelia's corpse on stage at the close of Shakespeare's most harrowing tragedy. "Or image of that horror?" Edgar, more …
Two major productions of "King Lear" are taking place on opposite sides of the River Thames, but for London audiences this embarrassment of Shakespearean riches is as normal as autumn's gunm…
"Merrily We Roll Along," the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical with a checkered record in the theater, is like a safe stuffed with jewels waiting for a director who can finally crack the…
The sorcery behind "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" - the eighth story in the J.K. Rowling series, this one written as a stage play - is of vintage pedigree. The epic tale of two boys mak…
Forgive me if I don't take this moment to congratulate the theater community on its self-congratulatory outcry against our new tweeter-in-chief Donald Trump, who used his megaphone this week…
Martin McDonagh, the British-born playwright of Irish heritage and humor, made a sensational debut in 1996 with "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," his bruising comic melodrama that announced the…
In a Broadway season heavy on revivals, shows from another era have been given starry makeovers. But everything old isn't new again. Classics aren't created by crowded marquees. Pla…
California may still be counting votes, but already there's a musical responding to the new Trump era. "Miss You Like Hell," which is having its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, was …
A few eccentric hors d'oeuvres are served before the main surrealist dish in John Sinner's "An Invasion of Decency!" " a wild theatrical spree that makes a direct appeal to the unconsc…
A play about Donald Trump set to open a little more than a week before the presidential election seemed like perfect timing " this summer. Oh, but how these last weeks of the campaign have a…
Independent Shakespeare Co., the group behind the popular Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival, has taken "A Midsummer Night's Dream" indoors, which might seem strange given that…
Playwright Karen ZacarÃas was tired of the way so many dramas written by Latino authors were dismissively compared to telenovelas. Her response was to write a play that celebrates, sends …
Tom Stoppard reflect on a his long playwriting career
The word trauma originally referred to a physical wound or defeat. Later usage, influenced by Freud, stressed an injury of the mind " invisible but no less real for being unseen. Unseen but …
"I don't think I've ever spent half an hour in my life doing research," said playwright Tom Stoppard when asked about the impressive erudition behind his intellectually dazzling comedies. "I…
The chief reason to see A Noise Within's production of Molière's "The Imaginary Invalid" is Apollo Dukakis' delightfully cranky portrayal of the play's tyrannical hypochondriac, a patriarch…
Three years ago, theater artist Aaron Posner had a postmodern field day updating Chekhov in his frisky comedy with the unprintable title that we've taken to politely calling "Stupid … Bird…
Monologist Mike Daisey has made his name channeling outrage on a range of contemporary issues while seated calmly behind a desk before an audience. His manner may be that of a homeroom teach…
David Mamet once described two of New York's leading drama critics as the syphilis and gonorrhea of the American theater. Edward Albee, whose death at age 88 on Friday marked the end of his …
When playwright Robert O'Hara writes comedy, outrageousness is a given. His play "Bootycandy," a series of connected skits about growing up black and gay that was produced last year by Celeb…
From London to NY and now in LA this Ivo Von Hove-drected Olivier/TONY-Winner arrives starring a dazzling cast lead by FREDERICK WELLER, CATHERINE COMBS and ANDRUS NICHOLS running through Oc…
In Ivo van Hove's celebrated production of Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge," the direction is the star. The Belgian auteur, who leads Holland's preeminent theater company, Toneelgroe…
Calls for a national conversation on race are routinely made in the wake of crises, but a better idea would be a requirement for all citizens to familiarize themselves with the work of playw…
Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184 BC) has been described by classicist and novelist Erich Segal as "the least admired and most imitated" of the ancient Greek and Roman dramatists. His plays,…
The new theater season is a loaded lineup, with offerings from Deaf West, Ivo van Hove and Anna Deavere Smith. Here are 13 picks: Sept. 10-May 21 A Noise Within's 25th anniversary A quart…