ONE OF THE NICE ONES
Tuesday, July 19th, 2016
Expect the unexpected—and then some—in Erik Patterson’s One Of The Nice Ones, an edge-of-your-seat dark comedy so filled with “I didn’t see that coming” twists that it’s almost impossible to review without revealing a spoiler or two, but I’ll do my best, while at the same time still providing a taste of the latest from one of L.A.’s most exciting contemporary playwrights now making his Echo Theater Company debut.
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CHURCH & STATE
Sunday, July 3rd, 2016
A North Carolina senator’s “Road To Damascus” conversion from staunch 2nd Amendment advocate to gun control champion may sound about as improbable as Barbara Boxer suddenly turning pro-life, but it makes for powerful, thought-provoking comedy (that’s right, comedy) in Jason Odell Williams’ Church & State, now being given a sensationally acted and directed NNPN Rolling World Premiere* by Skylight Theatre Company.
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MAJOR BARBARA
Saturday, June 25th, 2016
Terrific performances spark Infinite Jest Theatre Company’s revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara under Branda Lock’s assured direction. Sets and lighting may give the production a rather low-end look, but some particularly fine work by Samantha Barrios, William Reinbold, and Graciela Valderama (among others) make it worth your while to catch Shaw’s bitingly comedic, still relevant look at religion and war and wealth and poverty and morality in all their shades of gray.
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RUBEN GUTHRIE
Wednesday, June 8th, 2016
Giving up the bottle in a country where the rate of alcoholism is among the highest in the developed world is no laughing matter, that is unless you’re playwright Brendan Cowell, whose year of self-imposed sobriety inspired the thoroughly entertaining dark dramatic comedy Ruben Guthrie, the second half of the rotating-rep double-bill that marks the welcome return of Los Angeles’s Australian Theatre Company.
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SPEAKING IN TONGUES
Wednesday, June 8th, 2016
The secrets we hide from those we love, the lies we tell to protect both them and ourselves, and the truths that can only be revealed to strangers lie at the heart of Andrew Bovell’s extraordinary Speaking In Tongues, the first half of the rotating-rep double-bill that marks the welcome return of Los Angeles’s Australian Theatre Company.
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LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
Thursday, May 19th, 2016
Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s La Cage Aux Folles is back in L.A. thanks to East West Players, and as anyone who’s seen one of EWP’s annual Broadway musical revivals will tell you, this means yet another thrillingly reimagined Asian take on a contemporary musical theater classic.
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MY MAÑANA COMES
Tuesday, May 10th, 2016
The subsistence-wage busboy protagonists of My Mañana Comes are young men the average theatergoer would normally pay not much attention to, which is just one reason why Elizabeth Irwin’s 2014 dramedy proves such an engrossing, eye-opening treat in its Los Angeles Premiere at The Fountain Theatre.
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THE END TIMES
Saturday, April 23rd, 2016
A university student raised in a religious cult finds himself beginning to doubt his lifelong beliefs in Jesse Mu-En Shao’s World Premiere drama The End Times, an engrossing, thought-provoking first collaboration between Skylight Theatre Company and Playwrights’ Arena.
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