60 stories from Engine 28
The memories in the Robert Anderson's 1968 memory play I Never Sang for My Father belong to Gene Garrison, a widower with both parents in declining health. Mother Margaret, survivor of ca…
A man goes into the desert and dies … or dreams. Storywise, that’s it. But this spare scenario allows for kinetic visual imagery and a series of bilingual monologues to anchor Teatro…
It's 8 p.m. on Thursday, the opening night of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) National Conference, and downtown Los Angeles' Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is packed with stage professiona…
June's coming home for closure. She finds it, but not in the package she expects in Another Effing Family Drama, Catherine Pelonero's Hollywood Fringe Festival production playing at ArtWorks…
A recent study found that women whose first relationship was marked by constant approval-seeking "Â asking, for example, “Do you love me?” again and again " are more likely to …
My podcast review and impressions of ‘Titus Redux’ – an update of William Shakespeare’s ‘Titus Andronicus’ by the Not Man Apart and New American Th…
 Ronnie Walker barely moves. He faces a corner of the prison yard, relaxed, swaying gently. When a fight breaks out, the correctional officers bark, "Yard down!" and then begin screaming…
Playwrights, artistic directors and other stage pros were not only moved by the opening-night performance of Neva at Radar LA, Guillermo Calderón‘s latest work being produced by Tea…
You walk down a hallway at Los Angeles Theatre Center and into a large, brightly lit room. But where do you sit? Painted black wooden boxes line a wall and row on row of metal …
Among the many benefits of a consolidated festival like Hollywood Fringe is the ability to cram attendance at several shows into one night. Even if you have a specific subgenre you are inter…
If you indulge in the HBO series Weeds, you know Jack Stehlin. And if you don’t know his role as Drug Enforcement Agency Captain Roy Till, you probably know him from any number of &…
Here’s a parlor game for all your dramaturg friends: Prod them for their opinions of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. The aesthetes among them will point out that no less …
It turns out that it’s not that hard to get car-dependent Angelenos to sacrifice their vehicles for a few evenings. “There’s a lot of enticement, because if we use your car…
Despite its age, the term performance art remains a useful one, if only because no other phrase encompasses so many types of alternative theatrical expression in which you hear so much about…
In The Method Gun, Austin-based collective Rude Mechs explores the “cult of acting” as an ensemble, abandoned by their guru, rehearses for performances of a reimagined Streetcar …
One of the most anticipated sessions taking place at the TCG conference was today’s playwriting workshop led by Marsha Norman. Last week in New York Norman helped celebrate the seco…
Since its Tuesday premiere as part of the RADAR L.A. festival, Fleur Elise Noble's enigmatic and captivating hybrid experience 2 Dimensional Life of Her — part film, part the…
Read Mark Twain’s A Ghost Story and you’ll get a hybrid tale that teases readers with all the clichéd elements of suspense but ends with one of the author’s signature less…
We just can't get over the Bard. Even at RADAR L.A. and the Hollywood Fringe, dueling festivals devoted to the theatrical cutting edge, the ultimate warhorses are still running strong " thou…
Five actors stand, facing downstage and smiling at the audience. One is in a brilliant orange jumpsuit. She holds an old, faded kitchen timer. On a whiteboard upstage, an overhea…
The fighting has ended for the title characters in "Brewsie and Willie," an  adaptation of Gertrude Stein's rumination on American World War II veterans that opened last night as part…
Right in the middle of a presentation of manifestos at RADAR L.A. on the Future of Theater, Shawn Sides from Austin’s Rude Mechs subverted the whole idea of the panel discussion. In th…
The Company takes Ulysses out of its box. Any parent of small children knows you can have more fun with a cardboard box than the most expensive toys, but The Company takes the concept beyond…
A downtown adaptation of Gertrude Stein’s last book As Willie, the amiably angst-ridden protagonist and agonist of Brewsie and Willie might say, "How is it, fellows, that you could mak…
Presenting your art to an audience doesn’t make it theater. Only when Fleur Elise Noble’s puppets have stripped down their setting — the artist’s messy studio —…
