@thespeedofJake

A grieving father’s attempt to connect with his deceased elementary-school-age son leads him on an unexpected journey towards healing in Jennifer Maisel’s transformative family drama @thespeedofJake, the superbly directed/acted latest World Premiere from Jon Lawrence Rivera and Playwrights’ Arena.
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FRONT DOOR OPEN

NOT RECOMMENDED

An improbable script, grating characters, problematic performances, lackluster direction, and above all the trivialization of a crippling anxiety disorder afflicting over three million Americans make Tom Baum’s Front Door Open a World Premiere production not worth leaving your house for.
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THE PAINTED ROCKS AT REVOLVER CREEK

Premier South African playwright Athol Fugard once again puts a personal face on apartheid in his deeply moving two-act drama The Painted Rocks Of Revolver Creek, now getting a gorgeously-acted West Coast Premiere at Fugard’s Los Angeles home, the award-winning Fountain Theatre.
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THE FEAST

A suddenly meatless world serves as the pretext for what well may be the most bizarre dinner party in the history of contemporary theater in Celine Song’s absurdist black comedy The Feast, now being given a terrific Los Angeles New Court Theatre L.A. Premiere in precisely the kind of DTLA loft-with-view in which said dinner party might actually take place.
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MIRAVEL

RECOMMENDED

Cyrano de Bergerac gets a jazz-infused contemporary update in Jake Broder’s play with music Miravel, a Sacred Fools World Premiere that scores high marks for performance, both vocal and instrumental, but could use some tweaking and tightening, particularly in its overlong first act.
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NEED TO KNOW

Among the many advantages to New York City living, moving in next door to a man like Mark Manners is not one of them, or so a couple of L.A.-to-NYC transplants discover in Jonathan Caren’s seductively suspenseful comedy Need To Know, now getting a world-class World Premiere at Rogue Machine.
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CARRIE The Killer Musical Experience


You don’t have to travel to NYC to see CARRIE The Killer Musical Experience on Broadway, not now that director Brady Schwind’s multiple Scenie-winning*, thrillingly audience-immersive Carrie has reopened at the historic Los Angeles Theater at 615 S. Broadway … smack dab in the middle of DTLA.
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[title of show]

A hit Broadway show performed in the intimacy of a living-room for a lucky thirty invited guests is what the talented students of USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory are offering audiences in their 11th-season opener, [title of show], and it’s hard to imagine a better show to put on for friends and family than the 2004 Broadway gem, one which could easily have started its life in the living rooms of its writer-performers Jeff Bowen (music and lyrics) and Hunter Bell (book) and works every bit as well in USC Hillel’s “living room” as in a more traditionally theatrical setting.
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