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 TALENTED MR. JACOBSON Tom Jacobson is nothing if not ambitious. He is not only the most prolific Los Angeles playwright of the moment, but he is the one, given the astonishing record of …
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…
IN PRAISE OF ECCENTRICITIES It is not surprisng that Tennessee Williams preferred The Eccentricities of a Nightingale to Summer and Smoke. Freed of the conflict between Puritanism (repressed…
TIME SPENT WITH A MUSICAL GENIUS If ever a production fitted so perfectly within the walls of the elegant Pasadena Playhouse as George Gershwin Alone, I can't imagine what it may have been. …
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…
DRUGS AND RELIGION In full disclosure, I had a junkie boyfriend for about three years, so I have pretty firm opinions about drug addiction " none of them very sympathetic. Set in a Catholic …
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…
THE ACTOR AND THE ARTIST: TWO MASTERS AT WORK AND PLAY What a joy it is to watch the Los Angeles Theatre Center roar back to life. Once considered a dodgy neighborhood, the Historic Core has…
WHAT AN ABSURD WEEKEND: EXISTENTIALISM 101 You're watching a play but you have no idea what's happening. There is no plot, the dialogue is gobbledygook, and characters are filled with despai…
NOT SO WILD ABOUT HARRY Real-life gay activist Harry Hay and the West Coast Premiere of The Temperamentals — a play based on his story — have much in common: fascinating but pecu…
THE PLAY'S NOT THE ONLY THING Reinterpreting the setting of Shakespeare's plays for modern audiences will always be a subject for debate: purists believe that a play's relevance lies in the …
AN EVENING OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVENESS It was one of those magical nights in the theatre: a confluence of activism, sterling talent, and magnificent playwriting, made all the more joyous …
SHOO SHOO BABY "How do you review The All Night Strut?" my theatre companion asked as we left The Colony Theatre. Well, you don't. This short Cabaret-style evening of songs (culled from the …
A CONVERSATION between A REVIEWER WITH BATTLE FATIGUE and A REVIEWER WHO CONTINUES TO LOVE THE THEATER (A PLAYLET) BATTLE FATIGUE: I sometimes feel that I spend so much time in the theater t…
UNCOMMON GRACE In order to validate his experience of a play, a reviewer should dissect and probe the components of a production, but once in a while a show comes along which catapults the h…
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO LANFORD WILSON? The beautifully detailed lower Manhattan loft that Ralph Funicello has created – complete with fire escape and skylight, unfinished walls daubed w…
WHERE'S A TOUGH-MINDED AND PROLETARIAN WHORE WHEN YOU NEED ONE? The most interesting thing about Jane Anderson's The Escort is the revelation that a Cadillac call girl takes on the attitudes…
DRUID’S EVER STURDY CRIPPLE Since I think that the Druid and Atlantic Theater Company production of Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan, under the sublime direction of Garry Hyn…
PURITY IN THE THEATER: FOUR PERFORMANCES ONLY Pure. Perfect. Impeccable. Mesmerizing. Exquisite. Hilarious. Work of Art. Take your pick. Any one of these " or all of them " aptly describe Sa…
TAKING JUKEBOX MUSICALS TO TASK Grab those love beads and tie-dye shirts, smoke a bowl, and head down to Long Beach to hear kick-ass songs from the 60s and 70s delivered with professional gu…
THE GENERAL AND THE ARCHBISHOP Gore Vidal wondered if the stupidest city in the world even deserved a play as radical as Donald Freed's Devil’s Advocate. He certainly seemed, in a post…