I, DANIEL BLAKE
Wednesday, October 16th, 2024Brilliant performances and dazzling production design aside, Dave Johns’ unrelentingly bleak stage adaptation of I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach’s Kafkaesque 2016 film about a good man living a British bureaucratic nightmare is the most depressing 90 minutes I’ve spent in a theater in a very long time.
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BROOKLYN’S WAY
Sunday, September 22nd, 2024An on-fire Amye Partain is a definite find, but an off-putting male protagonist, an overly tangled time frame, and an approach that takes meta to the extreme do neither the play’s leading lady nor the audience any favors in Sam Henry Kass’s Brooklyn’s Way, a Theatre 68 World Premiere.
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A GOOD GUY
Monday, September 16th, 2024
Playwright David Rambo tackles the hot-button topic of school shootings from the point of view of a teacher who takes matters into her own hands in A Good Guy, a gripping, suspenseful, surprise twist-packed Rogue Machine World Premiere.
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CLARKSTON
Sunday, September 15th, 2024
No one writes with more insight, depth, and compassion about ordinary lives in the American Northwest than prolific Idaho playwright Samuel D. Hunter, whose unique talents are once again on display in the West Coast Premiere of Clarkston, the latest Echo Theater Company spellbinder.
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THE DOUBLE V
Monday, August 26th, 2024A little-known aspect of World War II-era African-American history is brought to life in Carole Eglash-Kosoff’s entertaining, elucidating, mostly successful The Double V, an International City Theatre World Premiere.
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CREVASSE
Saturday, July 27th, 2024
Adolph Hitler’s favorite filmmaker meets the man who made animated movie stars of Snow White, Pinocchio, and Bambi in Tom Jacobson‘s Crevasse, a fascinating, stunningly staged co-production of Son of Semele and The Victory Theatre Center.
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THE BAUHAUS PROJECT: BAUHAUS WEIMER
Saturday, July 20th, 2024Over the past two decades, Tom Jacobson has established himself as one of L.A.’s most adventurous and original playwrights, creating such risk-taking winners as Bunbury, Ouroboros, The Twentieth Century Way, and his extraordinary Bimini Baths Trilogy. I can’t, unfortunately, add Bauhaus Weimer, Part One of his World Premiere triptych The Bauhaus Project, to that list.
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THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE
Sunday, July 14th, 2024Five years after his acclaimed star turn as Willy Loman, Rob Morrow returns to the Ruskin Group Theatre in another powerhouse role, that of Holocaust survivor-turned-New York publisher Isaac Geldhart in Jon Robin Baitz’s The Substance Of Fire, a family drama unfortunately not in the same league as Death Of A Salesman.
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Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
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