Posts Tagged ‘Davidson/Valentini Theatre’

COCK


One of 2022’s finest productions has returned to the Davidson/Valentini Theatre even more impressive than it was last June thanks to an exciting new cast addition, a more polished design, and the once again stunning contributions of its gifted young director and the three returning stars who once again dazzle in Mike Bartlett’s provocative tragicomedy Cock.
(read more)

COCK


A young man finds himself torn between two lovers, one male and one female, in Mike Bartlett’s provocative comedic four-hander Cock, one of the most impressively staged and performed productions I’ve seen at Hollywood Fringe since the festival was inaugurated back in 2010.
(read more)

EXIT STRATEGY

A longtime teacher’s unexpected reaction to the impending closure/demolition of the beleaguered Chicago inner city school she has for decades called home serves as catalyst to Exit Strategy, playwright Ike Holter and the L.A. LGBT Center’s gripping, gut-punching follow-up to their 2015 critical/box-office smash Hit The Wall, and one of Fall 2017’s must-see productions.
(read more)

THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

Ten of L.A.’s finest actresses (and a couple of equally talented guys) deliver superb performances, and the production they are starring in proves one of the year’s most stunningly designed. Still, as was the case when I saw Lily Tomlin perform it as a one-woman showcase back in 1987, I found The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe, Jane Wagner’s collection of (mostly women’s) monologs and occasional multi-character scenes only intermittently engaging in its Los Angeles LGBT Center intimate-stage “revisitation.”
(read more)

FOOL FOR LOVE

I may never go gaga for Fool For Love, but if ever a production could make me a believer in Sam Shepard’s overheated take on Greek tragedy in today’s Wild Wild West, it’s the one now playing at the Davidson/Valentini Theatre thanks to some refreshingly subtle directorial touches and a quartet of superb performances, chief among them star turns by Burt Grinstead and Charlotte Gulezian.
(read more)

HIT THE WALL


“I was there!” roar the eclectic band of 1969 Greenwich Village People who populate Hit The Wall, Ike Holter’s slice-of-Stonewall now getting a daringly staged, thrillingly visceral West Coast Premiere that is, simply put, the next best thing to having actually been “there.” (Take that, Roland Emmerich!)
(read more)

STANLEY ANN: THE UNLIKELY STORY OF BARACK OBAMA’S MOTHER

Ann Noble makes an indelible impression as the woman who gave birth to our country’s president in the World Premiere production of Mike Kindle’s one-woman bioplay Stanley Ann: The Unlikely Story Of Barack Obama’s Mother.
(read more)

THE GOAT, OR WHO IS SYLVIA?

A different kind of Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name speaks its name in Edward Albee’s Tony Award-winning Best Play Of 2002, The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?, the latest from the theater and director who revived Ira Levin’s Deathtrap to brilliant, controversial life a couple years back—and that’s about all I have to say about the team’s latest production before launching into a spoiler-filled second paragraph. Proceed with caution.
(read more)