THIEVES
Saturday, March 21st, 2015Family relationships don’t get any more twisted than those of the dysfunctional East Texas brood who air their dirty laundry in Charlotte Miller’s high-octane comedy-drama Thieves, now getting a humdinger of a World Premiere production at the Monroe Forum Theatre inside North Hollywood’s historic El Portal.
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tokyo fish story
Monday, March 16th, 2015Sushi Wa Jinsei. Sushi Is Life … in Kimber Lee’s “slice-of-sushi” dramedy tokyo fish story, now getting its World Premiere at South Coast Repertory, and like the raw-fish-&-steamed-rice confections created by master chef protagonist Koji, Lee’s latest is one tangy treat.
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LIGATURE MARKS
Wednesday, March 4th, 2015Edgy contemporary romcom meets seductive classic film noir as the latter might unfold in an addictive online multi-player computer game not so coincidentally titled “Noir” in Mac Rogers’ Hollywood Fringe Festival hit Ligature Marks, recast, redirected, and restaged by Theatre Unleashed in a production that held me in its quirky, funny, romantic, fatal-attraction spell from intriguing start to breathtaking finish.
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THE ROAD TO APPOMATTOX
Saturday, February 21st, 2015A war approaching its bloody end and a marriage quite possibly nearing its own death throes come together Catherine Bush’s enlightening, entertaining new dramedy The Road To Appomattox, now getting its West Coast Premiere at Burbank’s Colony Theatre.
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SONS OF THE PROPHET
Monday, February 16th, 2015“We’re like the Kennedys without the sex appeal” quips 29-year-old Joseph Douaihy about his woe-beset blue-collar Eastern Pennsylvania family in Stephen Karam’s extraordinary new play Sons Of The Prophet, now getting its Los Angeles Premiere at Hollywood’s The Blank, as fine an example as one could wish for of just how crucial the Los Angeles 99-Seat Plan is to our city’s one-of-a-kind intimate theater scene.
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HELLMAN V. MCCARTHY
Thursday, February 12th, 2015Hell hath no fury like a best-selling author dissed, or so Lillian “The Little Foxes” Hellman made abundantly clear when she sued fellow writer Mary McCarthy for disparaging words uttered during a 1980 TV interview with PBS talk show host Dick Cavett.
Playwright Brian Richard Mori returns to the scene of the alleged slander with none other than 78-year-old Dick Cavett playing a 40something Dick in Mori’s terrifically entertaining comedy-drama Hellman v. McCarthy, now getting its West Coast Premiere at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40.
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KNEEHIGH’S TRISTAN & YSEULT
Monday, February 2nd, 2015When you’ve taken Broadway and the world by storm with your magical, imaginative, supremely theatrical adaptation of Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter, the question is what to do for an encore? Well, if you’re the Cornwall-based Kneehigh Theatre, the answer is to revive a decade-old company hit, then take it on the road, which is precisely why Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory is the place to be over the next few weeks for Kneehigh’s magical, imaginative, supremely theatrical adaptation of the legend of Tristan & Yseult.
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hey brother
Sunday, December 7th, 2014A 20something Asian-American adoptee fantasizes about the sibling she might possibly have in China as a pair of North Carolina brothers find their real-life relationship considerably thornier than the one she can only imagine in Bekah Brunstetter’s World Premiere dramedy hey brother, the terrific latest from the company of young artists who call themselves Fresh Produce’d L.A.
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