163 stories by "Don Shirley"
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 ch…
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 number …
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…
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…
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…
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…
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. Shakesp…
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…
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…
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 -…
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…
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…
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…
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 jus…
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…
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 …
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 t…
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…
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…
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 Sout…
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, add…
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…
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…
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 ver…
Madonna or whore? Three big musicals examine this stereotype of young women: Dangerous Beauty, Gigi and Rock of Ages, with mixed results. READ MORE
