THE SAME OLD RHYME I herewith invite you to check out The Troubies (especially those who may call yourselves Newbies). Though their antics are puerile You'll smile for a while With this asso…
MARK ME DOWN AS MILD ABOUT HARRY What's a critic to do when he desperately wishes to support Los Angeles theatre, but also desires to hold theatre to a higher level? During the intermission …
I'M IN THE NUDE FOR LOVE The main reason that the Groundlings company remains L.A.'s number one improv training and performance space is their emphasis on character work. When actors come to…
THANKS FOR THE MEMOIRS If there were an award for "The Best Idea for a Theatrical Entertainment," the winner surely would be Celebrity Autobiography, in which celebrities read the actual mem…
LOW PLATELETS In his vision of a new translation of Frederico Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding, director Jon Lawrence Rivera offers a diverse cast and updates the original 1933 setting in Spain …
A TERRIFIC STORY AND EVEN BETTER MAGIC SHOW; BUT THE TRICK IS BEING ABLE TO SEE IT Suave and debonair Guy Hollingworth is not only a full-time British barrister (specializing in intellectual…
WHEN GOOD ENOUGH IS NOT ENOUGH The Los Angeles Times needs to be a player on the world stage and therefore assigns Critic-at-Large Charles McNulty to review plays in NYC and London. While th…
HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FESTIVAL REVIEWS 2011 [Editor's Note:Â Our either amazing or insane (you decide) theater correspondent Tony Frankel saw what is believed to be in the area of 40 Fringe sh…
THEY'VE GOT MAGIC TO DO It simply cannot be avoided: with Fun Family Festival of Tragedy, L'Enfant Terrible, a startlingly brilliant new theatre company, is poised and ready to take over the…
YOU WILL LIKE IT VERY MUCH INDEED Credit adapter and director Tony Tanner for As You Like It " The Musical; he freely adapted Shakespeare's Forest of Arden comedy into a text that contains t…
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 …