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…
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 containin…
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 yo…
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 peopl…
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 the f…
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 the a…
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…
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 M…
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 t…
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: An in…
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…
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 charact…
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 Ody…
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…
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…
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 refers to a…
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 develo…
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 often …
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 audience a…
A 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 …
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…
CULTURE 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 oppo…
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…
LOCKED 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 perf…
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…