TABLE 17


Audiences are invited to talk back to the exes who reunite at a trendy night spot to rehash the past and maybe, just possibly get back together in the MCC Theater production of Douglas Lyons’ raucously funny off-Broadway hit Table 17, imported to L.A. by the Geffen Playhouse precisely when stressed-out Angelinos need it most.

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TORCH SONG


Michael Mullen delivers a career-best performance as Arnold Beckoff in Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song, now making its long-awaited local debut at Santa Monica’s venerable Morgan-Wixson Theatre.
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JUST ANOTHER DAY

Unlike the characters they play in Just Another Day, The Bad Seed Oscar nominee Patty McCormack and The Wonder Years star Dan Lauria are still sharp as tacks, but sadly I can’t add my voice to those who have raved about Lauria’s overly wordy Alzheimer’s-themed comedy, now wrapping up its run at the Odyssey.
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WINE IN THE WILDERNESS


Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum concludes one of its best seasons ever with an absolutely terrific staging of Alice Childress’s slice-of-1960s-African-American-life Wine In The Wilderness.
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THE SEAGULL: MALIBU


Ellen Geer updates Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull from 1890s tsarist Russia to Malibu, California during the “It’s All About Me” 1970s, and the exhilarating result is The Seagull: Malibu, a romantic dramedy that’s both Chekhovian and Southern Californian, and a Summer Of 2025 treat no matter how you feel about Chekhov.
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ANTIGONE


Neil LaBute puts a 21st-century spin on French playwright Jean Anouilh’s 1944 adaptation of Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy Antigone, itself a thinly veiled attack on the Nazi-allied Vichy government that controlled Paris during World War II, in the compelling, thought-provoking latest from City Garage.
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STRIFE


The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in Strife, John Galsworthy’s more-relevant-than-ever look at the darker side of HBO’s The Gilded Age.
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THE FANTASTICKS

The ups and downs of first love are explored to engaging, tuneful effect in the Ruskin Group Theatre’s 65th-anniversary revival of Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s The Fantasticks, though for me at least, the world’s longest-running musical begins somewhat to outstay its welcome at around the two-hour point.

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