A PLAY THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN VISITED IN THE FIRST PLACE I was already angry after the opening of Revisiting Wildfire at the Odyssey Theatre (bad theatre will do that to you) when some wr…
PAST TO THE FUTURE To be honest, I was not a fan of Rogue Artist Ensemble's Hyperbole at [inside] The Ford last year. Their current work, D is for Dog, clearly elucidates what was lacking in…
IN PRAISE OF LITERATURE Saving the "What is Literature?" and "Are Plays Literature?" arguments for another time, allow me to unequivocally state that there is a starvation for new drama as l…
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES Our planet is overpopulated and sick. Wars are raging. People are telecommunicating so rapidly that we are losing the art of communication. Leaders and visionaries a…
THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD BOY YET I couldn't think of a better way to pop my Hollywood Fringe Festival cherry than with Steve Ochs and his solo outing, Life in the Middle Ages, which has right…
ENTERTAINING, BUT HARDLY INTRUSIVE When Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to an "interloper" in his writings, it was most assuredly with a negative connotation, for in the 1800s an interloper was…
WHO'S CHEATING WHOM? The spookiest image of Death (with a capital "D") is that of a tall, hooded, scythe-carrying figure. It merely points with bony finger towards that ultimate location to …
A TWIST OF LEMON Tony, a frantic theatre critic, calls John, his editor, in the middle of the night. John: [sleepy] This better be good. Tony: What's happening to the theatre? [sobbing now] …
NO TROUBLE HERE I vividly remember the first time I heard William Finn's March of the Falsettos, Adam Guettel's Floyd Collins, Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party, and Jason R…
THE BEGINNING AND THE END Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years is contextually brilliant: it is a two-character musical that starts at the end of a five year relationship for the woman, …
WORKING WITH WHAT THEY'VE GOT theTRIBE's simplistic production of an updated revision of Working " Stephen Schwartz' soapy musical adaptation of Studs Terkel's book " actually left an emotio…
PLENTY OF TALE " VERY LITTLE CITY The much-anticipated Tales of the City just opened at A.C.T. in San Francisco. Although the libretto (by Avenue Q's Jeff Whitty) splices together the first …
WHAT THE FUNK? When giving feedback at High School theatre competitions, adjudicators are reminded to encourage, not discourage young performers: negative criticism, however accurate, may da…
SHE MAKES IT LOOK EASY With Let Me Down Easy, Anna Deavere Smith's powerful, engrossing and resonant solo outing, you may feel inspired to have a meaningful conversation with friends and fam…
BY GEORGE, I THINK THEY'VE GOT IT; THE SCRIPT, HOWEVER… A friend of mine is an Alan Ayckbourn fanatic, owning dozens of the prolific playwright's scripts, yet he can count on one hand the …
HOT AUGUST PLAY NEEDS EVEN MORE HEAT It was impossible not to have any expectations prior to The Old Globe's production of Tracy Letts' Pulitzer Prize and Tony© Award-winning three-act bl…
IT'S NOT THE SIZE OF THE PLAY THAT MATTERS Say what you will about Voice Lessons, Justin Tanner's shockingly uproarious one-act play, now receiving an encore presentation at Sacred Fools The…
A CRITIC WHO RHYMES? IT'S A SIGN OF GOOD TIMES. I tell you, there's no place that I'd rather be in, than a theatre where actors become Jacobean. A classical company, Antaeus by name, has cre…
DISAPPEARANCE ACT After the opening night performance of Fin Kennedy's existential and enigmatic drama How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, someone remarked that, while film is ab…
MASTERS OF AUTOSCHEDIASM I was so blown away by Impro Theatre's Shakespeare Unscripted that I had to check out Unscripted Rep at the Odyssey, where the inimitable company is having fun in…
THE WILD, WILD BRECHTIAN WEST The Chinese Massacre (Annotated), Tom Jacobson's rousing new play, is like a fun day at Disneyland. Jacobson chronicles the 1871 lynching of 18 Chinese men by a…
A SHOW IN HOT WATER The Chance Theater is the best and most enterprising small theatre in Orange County; under the guidance of managing director Casey Long and co-founder and current artisti…
FOXY TROT There are three reasons to attend Burn the Floor " the heart-pounding Ballroom Dance Sextravaganza now throbbing and thumping on the boards at the Pantages: one, the sexiest bodies…
I SING THE THEATRE ELECTRIC Any mental notes I had regarding I Never Sang For My Father at The McCadden Place Theatre disappeared just after curtain call. I was haunted by thoughts of my own…
HOW THE HELL DO THEY DO IT? Ah, celebrity. If you think that the headlining of television stars in Broadway musicals is a new phenomenon, check out the action in the early 1960s: brassy redh…