Author Archive

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

Palos Verdes Performing Arts opens its 2016-17 season with its splendid big-stage production of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, a tunefuly, double entendre-packed, laugh-filled treat for Brooks fans and classic horror buffs alike.
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AND THEN THEY FELL

Life can be tough for any teenager but it proves especially trying for the two teen castaways at the heart of And Then They Fell, Tira Palmquist’s riveting World Premiere drama, the latest from Brimmer St. Theatre Company.

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BLUEBERRY TOAST

Ozzie And Harriet could take lessons from Walt and Barb in suburban perfection, or at least they could until Walt’s disdain for this morning’s breakfast entree turns things haywire in Mary Laws’ bizarre absurdist black comedy Blueberry Toast, an Echo Theater World Premiere highlighted by a pair of bravura performances by Jacqueline Wright and Albert Dayan.
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I LOVE YOU BECAUSE

Inventive direction and refreshingly diverse casting are just two reasons to catch The Red Brick Road Theatre Company and Endeavor Theatre Ensemble’s terrifically performed intimate staging of Ryan Cunningham and Joshua Salzman’s musical romcom charmer I Love You Because.
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THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME

Take a classic novel by Victor Hugo, half-a-dozen songs from a favorite Disney film, and the inspired casting of a deaf actor as Quasimodo and you’ve got three, though hardly the only reasons for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame to top any musical theater lover’s must-see list as summer turns to fall.
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THE PLAY ABOUT THE BABY

The Road Theatre Company opens their 2016-2017 season with an imaginatively directed, beautifully acted, gorgeously designed Los Angeles Premiere of Edward Albee’s The Play About The Baby, though whether Albee’s play will speak to you or not will depend on how you feel about abandoning the realistic for the allegorical.
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BARBECUE

Trailer trash knows no color in the sordid lives brought to booze-chugging, drug-snorting, profanity-spewing life in Barbecue, Robert O’Hara’s outrageously twisted, hysterically funny new comedy now making its West Coast debut at the Geffen Playhouse, and that’s just Act One.
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A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE

Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, this year’s Best Revival Tony winner, has arrived at the Ahmanson in a production likely to leave audience opinion split between “brilliantly innovative” and “pretentiously boring.” Though it took me a while to get there, I ended up veering towards the former point of view. Still, unless you’re lucky enough to be sitting either onstage (an option here) or up close (if you’ve got the bucks), the Ahmanson proves far too large a venue for a production as intimate as this one.
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