GEM OF THE OCEAN
Saturday, October 5th, 2019There is much to rave about in A Noise Within’s big-stage revival of August Wilson’s Gem Of The Ocean, not however its nearly three-hour running time and one particularly over-the-top performance.
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A KID LIKE JAKE
Friday, October 4th, 2019What would you do if your four-year-old son’s love for all things Cinderella represented not just an affection for the fairytale heroine but something considerably more profound? This is the dilemma facing a 30something husband and wife in Daniel Pearle’s engrossing family dramedy A Kid Like Jake, a hot-button-issue IAMA Theatre Company West Coast Premiere.
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LAS MUJERES DEL MAR
Tuesday, September 24th, 2019Playwrights’ Arena closes its all-around terrific 2019 season with Las Mujeres Del Mar (The Women Of The Sea), Janine Salinas Schoenberg’s 3-generation, 2-country, 72-minute Mexican-American family saga told from a female point of view.
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THE SPANISH PRAYER BOOK
Saturday, September 21st, 2019The Road Theatre’s three-year streak of winners ends with Angela J. Davis’s convoluted, uninvolving The Spanish Prayer Book, the company’s 2019-2020 World Premiere season opener.
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THE SOLID LIFE OF SUGAR WATER
Friday, September 13th, 2019Sex, described by its participants in the most graphic of terms, begins the recovery process for a young married couple in Jack Thorne’s The Solid Life Of Sugar Water, a provocative British two-hander made something quite special indeed when translated into American Sign Language and staged by Deaf West Theatre in its American Premiere.
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THE JOY LUCK CLUB
Tuesday, August 27th, 2019Sierra Madre Playhouse offers audiences a timely salute to the immigrant experience while exploring the generation/culture gap that separates four middle-aged Chinese women from their grown American daughters in an exquisitely staged and designed production of Susan Kim’s not entirely successful adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.
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BEAST ON THE MOON
Saturday, August 24th, 2019Richard Kalinsoki’s Beast On The Moon may have been performed in over twenty countries and translated into nineteen languages, but its latest incarnation at International City Theatre reveals flaws both in the play itself and in the production now on stage in Long Beach.
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FRANKENSTEIN
Sunday, August 18th, 2019Playwright Nick Dear humanizes the monster commonly if incorrectly known as Frankenstein in his 2011 stage adaptation of the Mary Shelley classic, an A Noise Within season opener as compelling as it is unexpectedly poignant.
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