THE CHILDREN
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
When Susan Smith confessed to having drowned her two small children back in 1994, it was hard not to draw parallels between this murderous mom of today and that lethal lady of mythology known as Medea. Though their motives were different (Susan wanted to get rid of her kids, the better to fool around with a man who didn’t want a “ready-made” family; Medea killed hers to punish her husband for an adulterous affair), the results were tragically the same.
Perhaps inspired by this tale as old as Greek tragedy and as recent as today’s headlines, playwright Michael Elyanow has written an extraordinary (if a tad too intricate) new play, The Children, which Theatre @ Boston Court is now World Premiering under the inspired direction of Jessica Kubzanky.
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LOVE STRUCK
Saturday, May 12th, 2012
Playwright Dale Griffiths Stamos follows her 2011 collection of family-based one-acts, Thicker Than Water, with an even bigger and better bunch for 2012, an octet of love-themed playlets aptly titled Love Struck.
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THE BEWILDERED HERD
Saturday, April 21st, 2012
Among political commentator Walter Lippmann’s best known quotes is the following: “The public must be put in its place…so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.” In other words, if you want democracy to work, you’ve got to control the minds of the masses, something which political consultant Charlie “Bingo” Bingham, the (anti)hero of Cody Henderson’s World Premiere The Bewildered Herd knows only too well. You might even call it Bingo’s mission in life to keep the bewildered herd (i.e. the people in his life—and you and me) in line.
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THE PRINCE OF ATLANTIS
Thursday, April 12th, 2012
An adult adoptee attempts to connect with his birth father, who then concocts a cockamamie scheme to have his younger brother pretend to be Dear Old Dad, in Steven Drukman’s The Prince Of At Atlantis, now getting its World Premiere at South Coast Repertory.
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1969: A FANTASTICAL ODYSSEY THROUGH THE AMERICAN MINDSCAPE
Monday, April 2nd, 2012RECOMMENDED
Ovation Award winner Damon Chua takes audiences on an LSD trip through the year 1969 in his ambitious new play 1969: A Fantastical Odyssey Through The American Mindscape, and though he may have bitten of more than any play or playwright can chew, some particularly fine performances and what could well be the year’s most exciting video design make this a psychedelic voyage that adventurous theatergoers may want to take a chance on.
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DEATHTRAP
Monday, April 2nd, 2012
Ira Levin’s spine-tingling thriller Deathtrap is back, and while it’s not in fact “the first Los Angeles production in 20 years” as proclaimed in press materials (San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre revived it terrifically in 2009), its arrival at the Davidson/Valentini Theatre is exciting news indeed, particularly since the Ken Sawyer-directed production is a prime example of L.A. theater at its all-around finest.
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THE INDIANS ARE COMING TO DINNER
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
Imagine what might happen if you crossed a screwball comedy clan like the one George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart created in You Can’t Take It With You with the Greekly tragic family Arthur Miller wrote about in Death Of A Salesman. What you’d end up with would doubtless be something quite like Jennifer W. Rowland’s highly original and thoroughly entertaining tragicomedy The Indians Are Coming To Dinner, now getting its World Premiere at Venice’s Pacific Resident Theatre.
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HUNGER: IN BED WITH ROY COHN
Monday, February 27th, 2012
If you’re a theatergoer under retirement age, you probably first learned about Roy Cohn from Tony Kushner’s Angels In America, which featured the real-life anti-Communist witch-hunting AIDS-decimated, closet-case lawyer among its cast of otherwise fictional characters.
Playwright Joan Beber now gives Roy Cohn a play he can call his own, one that features supporting appearances by Roy’s mother Dora, his rumored longtime lover G. David Schine, convicted American spy Julius Rosenberg (whom Cohn made sure got sent to the electric chair), Roy’s Hispanic housekeeper Lizette, and none other than Ronald Reagan and Barbara Walters themselves, all of the above in fantasy sequences that make those in Angels In America seem positively realistic by comparison.
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