499 stories by "ROB WEINERT-KENDT"
Something strange is happening in Los Angeles: Its two biggest nonprofit theaters, on either side of town, currently feature plays not only cast largely with L.A.-based actors but directed b…
A tantalizing prospect, no? (h/t Colin Mitchell; more here)
"No one who believes in the greatness of certain plays would go to any one of our houses to enjoy them. They exist as thundering productions in the mind only. We know they might be done (Ki…
It's my first trip to Mother Russia, and my first Golden Mask Festival, so most likely no posting for the next week.More anon. Till then, do svidaniya!
"There's a guy who wrote a book about SITI Company, and he saw [Room] a number of times, and in rehearsal once, he asked Ellen Lauren (the performer of Room) what she was thinking or doing i…
The criminally underrated Charlotte Hatherley.This spring's Menken vs. Webber showdown (each has three musicals running on Broadway, and when's the last time that was true of even one compos…
Today's best, most versatile musical theater performers have one thing in common, as different as they are: the uncanny ability to bring utter conviction and vitality to a form too often see…
Busy busy with deadlines galore but recent readings have turned up a few items of interest...Stefanie Zadravec was writing a play about a baby with a rare disease when she got pregnant and h…
I've got an essay in the program for the Ahmanson Theatre's West Coast premiere of American Idiot, a show I quite like. A sample:Blame it on Rodgers and Hammerstein...The match between rock …
The onslaught from all quarters has become tedious, I know, but I want to direct attention to three thoughtful pieces by folks who actually know Mike Daisey's work in the theater, whose view…
Above, the poster image for Artist Repertory Theatre's current production of Race, which certainly ups the ante on the original Broadway art, below:
Mike Daisey, right, with his wife and director Jean-Michele GregoryThe swirling meta-drama around Mike Daisey's solo show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs has often competed with the …
I've been hearing good things about Jeff Whitty's The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, a camp fantasia imagining Ibsen's heroine in a kind of post-suicide purgatory with a number of other…
"Don't forget that there are people in this audience tonight who are seeing live theatre for the first time...there are also some who are seeing it for the last." -Emily Anderson, a theater …
I don't endorse everything rural-arts gadfly Scott Walters has to say, but I am grateful that he persists in making his case for arts funding redistribution, because frankly, who else is doi…
Today on American Theatre's Facebook page I asked what sorts of souvenirs folks take away from productions they've been involved with. Apart from the usual programs, postcards, and bits of s…
From Hotel Torgo, a shambling documentary about the making of the epic Manos The Hands of Fate
"The word 'Africa' is not uttered until deep in the second act of Hurt Village, but the continent hangs like a specter over Katori Hall's new play at the Signature Center. The African-Americ…
"There are only three kinds of scenes: 'fights, seductions and negotiations.' " -Mike Nichols, quoted by Riedel today
Most of the time the press releases I receive can also be located somewhere online, but some of the smaller theaters that send info to American Theatre aren't quite at that level of informat…
Not that these are presidentially themed...Bad reviews as a potty-training tool? That's one way to put them behind you.Smash superfan sez: Don't watch it tonight.Looking for some good news a…
I don't agree with every particular in Charles McNulty's big, bold, fed-up editorial on the artistic leadership void at SoCal's major resident theaters, centrally the Old Globe and Center Th…
Harrily We Roll Along.Against the paranoid style in criticism.So Godspell is doing Santorum jokes now?1-800-Flowers epic fail (I post because it happened to me, dear readers).Spacey: Ham wha…
Last June, I found myself running the Power Point for a session at the TCG Conference in L.A. titled "What If…We Could Bridge the Divides? The Role of Theatre in Iraqi-US Reconciliation", …
