YOURS, ISABEL
Saturday, February 4th, 2012
Playwright Christy Hall reinvents the epistolary play (one based on an exchange of letters) with her zesty, captivating World War II romance Yours, Isabel, now getting its official American Premiere at Hollywood’s Actors Co-op, and an all-around splendid one at that.
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EXPECTING TO FLY
Monday, January 30th, 2012RECOMMENDED
“There you stood on the edge of your feather, expecting to fly. While I laughed, I wondered whether I could wave goodbye, knowin’ that you’d gone.”
The strains of Neil Young’s melancholy “Expecting To Fly” provide a musical prelude to Michael Hyman’s World Premiere drama of the same name, a play which despite considerable script shortcomings nonetheless provides a terrific acting showcase for its two stars, Justin Mortelliti and Casey Kringlen, who deliver riveting performances as lovers Jared and Sean under Kiff Scholl’s highly imaginative direction.
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NOgoodDEED
Friday, January 27th, 2012
“No good deed goes unpunished,” or so Richard Jewell discovered when the mass media, having previously heralded his heroism at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, turned viciously against him, dragging the security guard through the mud without a shred of proof—or even evidence, all because he “fit” an FBI criminal profile.
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DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
Monday, January 16th, 2012
Emmy-winning writer JP Miller examines the devastation wrought by alcoholism on a young couple’s marriage in his best-known work, Days Of Wine And Roses, now being revived to powerful effect at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre.
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THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE
Saturday, January 14th, 2012
Irish playwright Martin McDonagh might well have entitled his first play, The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, No Exit, for that’s how trapped its mother-daughter protagonists find themselves in the 1996 black comedy that put McDonagh on the playwriting map. Nominated for a 1998 Best Play Tony Award and winner of Best Play Drama Desk, Drama League, Lucille Lortel, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, The Beauty Queen Of Leenane now gets an intimate Los Angeles staging that ends up easily The Production Company’s finest effort since moving into its larger Hollywood digs a year ago.
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FRUIT FLY
Monday, January 9th, 2012
Leslie Jordan answers the age-old question—“Do gay men really become their mothers?”—in his latest autobiographical one-man show, Fruit Fly, and as anyone who’s ever seen the Chattanooga native in Sordid Lives or on Will And Grace can well imagine, there’s not likely to be a more delightful autobiographical one-man show in any foreseeable future.
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CHRISTMASTIME IS QUEER 4
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
The talented writers and actors of Playwrights 6 are back onstage at Celebration Theatre for the first time in seven years with the latest installment of their popular anthology of holiday/LGBT-themed one-acts, Christmastime Is Queer 4. Despite not even a dash of the nudity that made 2004’s Christmastime Is Queer 3: Naked Christmas particularly memorable, this all-new collection of playlets may well be the best of the bunch so far.
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CRIMES OF THE HEART
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
Having earlier this year joined forces to bring Los Angeles their multiple Scenie Award-winning production of David Auburn’s Proof, Open Fist Theatre Company and Aquila Morong Studio For Actors are reunited once again for a terrific intimate theater revival of Beth Henley’s Crimes Of The Heart.
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