FRIENDS IN TRANSIENT PLACES
Monday, October 17th, 2016A planeload of passengers jetting from New York to L.A. transports playwright Jonathan Caren into Sarah Ruhl territory in Friends In Transient Places, Caren’s experiment in magic realism that, while it may not have you glued to the edge of your seat as did his The Recommendation and Need To Know, offers its own unique pleasures.
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ATLAS PIT, OR THE GARBAGE MAN’S SON
Saturday, October 8th, 2016
Playwright Alex Burkart takes a grieving teenager, the girl he’s lost for eternity, his desperate parents, and a drug-dealing high school buddy, stirs in the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, and mixes these ingredients to often powerful effect in his World Premiere drama Atlas Pit, or The Garbage Man’s Son, the latest from The Los Angeles New Court Theatre.
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BLUEBERRY TOAST
Wednesday, September 21st, 2016Ozzie And Harriet could take lessons from Walt and Barb in suburban perfection, or at least they could until Walt’s disdain for this morning’s breakfast entree turns things haywire in Mary Laws’ bizarre absurdist black comedy Blueberry Toast, an Echo Theater World Premiere highlighted by a pair of bravura performances by Jacqueline Wright and Albert Dayan.
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MUTUAL PHILANTHROPY
Sunday, September 4th, 2016Copiously consumed whisky and wine fuel a dinner party for four as playwright Karen Rizzo puts a personal face on the social divide between the super-wealthy and the other 99% of us Angelinos in her explosive dark comedy Mutual Philanthropy, now getting an excitingly acted World Premiere by Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA.
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THE TWO KIDS THAT BLOW SHIT UP
Sunday, August 28th, 2016
Playwright Carla Ching takes a tried-and-true formula (best friends who can’t quite get it into their noggins that they are Made For Each Other) and turns it on its head in her World Premiere dramedy The Two Kids Who Blow Shit Up, not only L.A. theater at its intimate best but a textbook example of how #diversity works.
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DRAMA QUEENS FROM HELL
Sunday, August 21st, 2016NOT RECOMMENDED
Significant trimming and tweaking is needed to make Peter Lefcourt’s Hollywood-spoofing Drama Queens From Hell the comedy hit it aspires to be despite some occasional insider hilarity and several deliciously scene-stealing performances.
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BLUEPRINT FOR PARADISE
Saturday, August 13th, 2016
The weeks leading up to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor provide the historical backdrop for Blueprint For Paradise, Laurel M. Wetzork’s fascinating, fact-inspired look at the unlikely friendship between the heiress wife of an American Nazi sympathizer and the African-American architect hired to design a “refugee compound” on fifty-acres of the couple’s Pacific Palisades estate.
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ELECTRICITY
Monday, August 8th, 2016
Opposites not only attract, they generate Electricity in Terry Ray’s captivating World Premiere tale of two gay men who just happen to meet Same Time Next Decade in the same Ohio motel room from the early 1980s to the present day and (as the song goes) can’t help falling in love.
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Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
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