HENRY IV, PART ONE
Friday, March 20th, 2015Outstanding performances and a stylish contemporary design distinguish The Antaeus Company’s 2015 season opener, William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One. A hefty three-hour running time may test the patience of those for whom “90 Minutes No intermission” are the sweetest four words ever heard, but Bard fans will definitely feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth with this one.
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LIGATURE MARKS
Wednesday, March 4th, 2015Edgy contemporary romcom meets seductive classic film noir as the latter might unfold in an addictive online multi-player computer game not so coincidentally titled “Noir” in Mac Rogers’ Hollywood Fringe Festival hit Ligature Marks, recast, redirected, and restaged by Theatre Unleashed in a production that held me in its quirky, funny, romantic, fatal-attraction spell from intriguing start to breathtaking finish.
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THE OTHER PLACE
Sunday, February 22nd, 2015Trust nothing you see or hear until about halfway through the riveting, complex puzzle that is Sharr White’s The Other Place, now getting its first Los Angeles production, and a superb one at that, at North Hollywood’s 99-seat-plan Road Theatre.
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TIME STANDS STILL
Sunday, January 25th, 2015A wounded photo-journalist’s return home from the war zone proves even more challenging than a life lived on the edge in Donald Margulies’ intelligent, perceptive, often funny, always compelling Time Stands Still, back in town now in a production every bit the outstanding equal of Aquila Morong Studio’s previous intimate revivals of Proof and Crimes Of The Heart.
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THE GAYEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER!
Monday, December 22nd, 2014The Gayest Christmas Pageant Ever! is back for the holidays, tidings of good joy for anyone in search of outrageously funny end-of-year cheer out North Hollywood way.
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SERIAL KILLER BARBIE
Saturday, November 29th, 2014The season’s brightest, bounciest, and most crowd-pleasing musical surprise turns out to be Colette Freedman and Nickella Moschetti’s Serial Killer Barbie, hardly the splatter fest its catchy albeit misleading title might suggest, but a show that anyone who’s gone through the 12 rounds that are Elementary, Middle, and High School can identify with and cheer.
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john & jen
Saturday, November 8th, 2014A pair of outstanding lead performances highlight the first local production in as far back as I can remember of Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald’s john & jen, costars Ann Villella and Taylor Minckley alone providing more than enough reason to celebrate the 1995 off-Broadway gem’s all-too-brief arrival at North Hollywood’s Secret Rose Theatre.
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WEDDING BAND: A LOVE/HATE STORY IN BLACK AND WHITE (Sweet Potatoes)
Sunday, November 2nd, 2014If any great production is worth experiencing twice, any great Antaeus Company production (and so far just about everything Antaeus has done fits neatly into that category) is even more worth that second visit if only to experience the added excitement of seeing each and every role played by a brand new actor (courtesy of the Antaeus custom of “partner casting”).
A second visit to Alice Childress’s Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story In Black And White (click here for my original review) proves equally as rewarding as the first—and the “Sweet Potatoes” every bit as brilliant as the “Honey Bunches”—albeit with often quite distinctive looks and equally diverse takes on the multifaceted roles Childress has written for them.
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