A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM


Summer has come to L.A., and with it the annual return to Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Shakespearean classic once again delighting audiences of all ages, whether they are experiencing its magic for the first time or returning for another summer afternoon or evening of enchantment.
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THE WINTER’S TALE


If you’ve ever wished Shakespearean English weren’t so darned hard to understand (I certainly have), then Tracy Young’s modern verse translation of The Winter’s Tale, the sparklingly performed latest from Skylight Theatre Company, is the Shakespeare production for you and for me.
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JANE EYRE

A Noise Within follows their spectacular reimagining of Macbeth with a solid production of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, albeit not as effectively staged or as ideally cast as I might have wished.
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MACBETH


Transposing William Shakespeare’s Macbeth from the bleak moors of Scotland to the sultry streets of New Orleans is just the first of director Andi Chapman’s multiple strokes of genius in re-envisioning The Scottish Play to all-around stunning effect at A Noise Within.
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THE SEAGULL

A TV-star-studded guest production at the Odyssey Theater does a mostly terrific job of reminding audiences that Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is, as its author steadfastly maintained, a comedy, but falls short of that goal in the play’s downer of a final act.
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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST


Inspired direction, pitch-perfect performances, and a gorgeous production design combine to make Antaeus Theatre Company’s 2024 season opener about as perfect a The Importance Of Being Earnest as any Oscar Wilde lover could wish for.
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CYRANO DE BERGERAC


The translation’s the thing, but far from the only thing that makes Pasadena Playhouse’s dazzling staging of Martin Crimp’s “free adaptation” of Edmond Rostand’s French classic Cyrano de Bergerac the latest Pasadena Playhouse winner.
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TARTUFFE: BORN AGAIN


That Bible-thumping scoundrel Tartuffe is once again bound and determined to rob a wealthy family blind, albeit this time in the big-haired, big-shouldered 1980s, in Tartuffe: Born Again, Freyda Thomas’s Baton Rouge-set translation of the 1664 Moliere classic, now tickling audience funny bones under Topanga skies at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum.
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