GOLDFISH


John Kolvenbach’s unabashedly romantic take on life is front and center once again in his latest play, Goldfish, now getting a superb World Premiere production at South Coast Repertory.
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FACING EAST


The religious bigotry that led in large measure to the passage of Prop 8 last November is given a human face in Carol Lynn Pearson’s powerful one-act play, Facing East, now being brought beautifully to life by San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre. 
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FIDDLER ON THE ROOF


No matter how many times you’ve seen Fiddler On The Roof, you have never seen a Fiddler like the one currently playing at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura, under the masterful direction of James O’Neil.
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TENNESSEE WILLIAMS UNSCRIPTED


The improv geniuses who brought us Jane Austen UnScripted make a welcome return with their latest concoction—Tennessee Williams UnScripted. Like its predecessors, which spoofed Austen, Shakespeare, and Sondheim, Tennessee Williams UnScripted is a two-act comedy completely improvised in the style of its titular writer.  Because this is Williams, author of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Glass Menagerie, the director’s note promises that the only thing the cast knows in advance is that “some poetic sensitivity…will be crushed by brutal forces from the outside world.”  The rest is up to the imagination of the oh-so-creative improvisers.
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THE BIG FUNK


If ever there was a stage/film writer whose work defies easy categorization, it’s John Patrick Shanley.  Films like Moonstruck and Joe And The Volcano are fanciful, quirky romances. Recent Shanley plays like Doubt and Defiance are straight-forward albeit complex looks at the “closed societies” of the convent and the military.  Earlier theatrical works run the gamut from the dark romantic eroticism of Danny And The Deep Blue Sea to the bizarre surrealism of The Dreamer Examines His Pillow and Beggars In The House Of Plenty. 
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A SKULL IN CONNEMARA


The residents of Connemara, a small town in rural Galway, Ireland, appear not to need television or the movies for diversion. They’ve got each other—and their secrets and gossip and gleefully traded insults—to keep themselves and each other entertained night and day.
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THE QUESTION


Productions like Susan Stroman’s Tony-winning Contact and Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man have shown how powerfully and effectively contemporary dance can tell dramatic stories without a single spoken word being uttered.  To that list can now be added JT Horenstein’s The Question, an Alfred Hitchcock-esque romantic thriller told through dance.
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THE TAMING OF THE SHREW


Director Geoff Elliott re-envisions Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew as a 1950s movie set in Italy and succeeds at the challenge with flying colors, making A Noise Within’s production a veritable treat for Shakespeare lovers and classic film buffs alike.
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