OUR FEATHERED FIENDS This is not Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, a 1963 horror fest about being pecked to death and delighting in Tippi Hedrin and Suzanne Pleshette's contagious distress. It's…
HISTORY IN A HOLE The America Play was inspired when author Suzan Lori-Parks observed a professional African-American Lincoln impersonator hard at work pleasing a crowd. This strange early w…
CLOSET EMANCIPATOR For what it's worth, the other "F-word" is now a play's title, presumably rivaling the "N-word" for shock effect. Well, anything called Abraham Lincoln Was A F*gg*t is not…
PRIVATE DANCERS It's a stunning vote of artistic confidence. The repertory of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's Summer Series, their latest dancefest at the Harris Theatre, consists of three wo…
HITCHES IN EXECUTION In his latest one-hour act, Simon Coronel divides the world into three categories: people who want to know how a magic trick is done, people who don’t want to know…
WHAT A DOG The term "Dog Days" refers to the hottest period of the year, the sultry part of summer when Sirius, the Dog Star, rises in unison with the sun. It's a time marked by sluggishness…
GREAT DEPICTION OF WAR, BUT WHAT FOR? Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, America, Kuwait, written and directed by Daniel Talbott, begins in near darkness with a Serbian Woman (Jelena Stupljanin) in a de…
COPE WITH HOPE A tale for all ages, this perennially popular musical by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (creators of I Do! I Do!) got a major make-over in 1990: The 30th anniversary tour with R…
SCULPTED TO PERFECTION Boris Eifman's kinetic Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg is quickly becoming known for full-length ballets, quite often with a plot and literary source. What you will se…
SIX SINGULAR SENSATIONS No text or context, no name-dropping or dates delivered, no editorials about the art–the songs just sing for themselves. The revue's title–A Marvin Hamlis…
WINDOWS ZERO This could have been a conversation. Employing flashy strips of LED lights, twelve video monitors, and digitalized backdrops, Goodman artistic associate Regina Taylor's stop. re…
HAROLD THE CONQUERING HERO Harold Pinter wasn’t an Ivory Tower practitioner who won a Nobel for writing twenty-nine shocking plays about morality and five or six books of rather precio…
THE UNEXPECTED CUE Yasmina Reza is the most internationally popular playwright France has produced in a long time; certainly since Jean Genet, possibly since Molière. Her 1994 play Art, in …
NO FLOWERS IN A TOO-SECRET GARDEN It's right that Court Theatre completes its 60th season with this redemptive tale–and it comes just as summer finally delivers its much-appreciated pr…
HOW SWEET THIS SOUND The standout theater company Elevator Repair Service (ERS), much acclaimed for their six-hour-plus show Gatz, among others, brings the first part of William Faulkner's n…
RULIER THAN THOU I came to this show in a bad mood and left in a better one, which is as much praise as I can heap on a one-woman show about identity issues. There’s no theatrical faun…
THEATER OF WHAT THE FUCK As an impresario and creative force, the man who calls himself Zombie Joe is the envy of the North Hollywood arts scene. Largely on the remarkable popularity of Urba…
THE LAST VICTIMS An urban massacre grabs headlines for days, then burns out as quickly as it erupted. There's always the next shock of the known to deal with: Without meaning to be cruel, we…
THE CRAGS OF DELIVERANCE If bad reviews are the flattest line my pen can draw, a steppe of the imagination that writes its unsurprising self, a good review is the Caucasus. To critique Impro…
EVERYTHING OLD COUNTRY FEELS NEW AGAIN In Mark Roberts' delightful and moving play New Country, skillfully directed by David Harwell, 25-year-old country music star Justin is up to his usual…
DEAF, DUMB, BLIND–AND FABULOUS! Right now there's a lot of noise in the attic–Mary's Attic in Andersonville. The uproarious occasion is Miracle!, a gender-bending, cross-dressing…
A METAPHORICAL MESS "The truth can be cruel." That's the twisty motto of the interactive quiz show within Quiz Show, a maddeningly metaphorical one-act from Strawdog Theatre Company. The U.S…
PREGNANT PAUSE A loving, liberal, and somewhat quirky childless couple, Craig and Katie, discovers that the only option to have their own baby is to implant her egg and his sperm in another …
LIVING A LEGACY At this very moment Islamic State terrorists are on the brink of invading–and possibly destroying–the ancient Roman capital of Palmyra. Loathing any past but thei…
LIFE AS WE KNOW IT It was one of those magical evenings in the theater that shall live with me forever. When Kulunka Teatro's André & Dorine appeared at the Los Angeles Theatre Center f…