NO HOMO

RECOMMENDED

The 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival hit NO HOMO now gets the fully-staged production I put on my wish list when writing about Brandon Baruch’s hilarious bromcom last year. It also gets a new ending likely to disappoint if not downright infuriate those like this reviewer who fell unreservedly in love with NO HOMO 1.0.
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THE FABULOUS LIPITONES

RECOMMENDED

Barbershop harmonies, sitcom-ready jokes, and a savory dollop of Bollywood spice make The Fabulous Lipitones’ California Premiere a pleasant bit of midsummer fluff likely to please (if not rejuvenate) the Colony Theatre’s longtime subscriber base.
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DOWN THE ROAD

RECOMMENDED

Chaz Bono’s bravura performance as a serial killer incarcerated for life is the best reason to catch Lee Blessing’s gripping if frustrating Down The Road, now playing at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre.
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KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN

RECOMMENDED

Kander and Ebb’s Kiss Of The Spider Woman is back in a rarer-than-rare revival at Santa Ana’s Theatre Out, news that would be a good deal more exciting were its leading lady a better fit for the title role.
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THE ELLIOTS

RECOMMENDED

Readers have been rooting for Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth to rekindle their long-lost love since Jane Austen’s Persuasion first hit the book stalls back in 1817. L.A. theatergoers can now follow their example as South Pasadena’s Fremont Centre Theatre debuts A.J. Darby’s 2015 adaptation, retitled The Elliots. Yes, both Darby’s play and its World Premiere production could stand some tweaking, but Persuasion fans will find much to enjoy in two hours spent with Austen’s now iconic characters.
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MY BARKING DOG

RECOMMENDED

Performances are outstanding and the production design sensational, the director is Michael Michetti (need I say more?), and the ideas put forth are provocative, but an overreliance on monologs proves off-putting in the West Coast Premiere of Eric Cable’s two-hander My Barking Dog, the latest from The Theatre @ Boston Court.
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WORDS BY IRA GERSHWIN

RECOMMENDED

The play may indeed be the thing, at least most of the time, but it’s the songs and the singers (and not the show’s rather uninspired format) that make the Los Angeles Premiere of Joseph Vass’s self-described “musical play” Words By Ira Gershwin worth a drive to Burbank’s Colony Theatre.
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MR. WOLF

RECOMMENDED

Rajiv Joseph takes a provocative look at the human consequences of a despicable crime twelve years after its perpetration in his hit-and-miss World Premiere drama Mr. Wolf, a play I found powerful and affecting in its more realistic moments but frustrating and perplexing in its attempts at the poetic and profound. In either case, performances alone make it worth a look-see.
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