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Samuel Garza Bernstein
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Theater Review: HI, ARE YOU SINGLE? (Woolly Mammoth, IAMA)
JUDGING RYAN Ryan J. Haddad opens his autobiographical solo play Hi, Are You Single? with a funny, sexy, and sweetly awkward phone masturbation scene. His search for sex and intimacy as a queer man with cerebral palsy is by turns seductive and acerbic. And he is not coy about wanting to get laid. Haddad pushes…
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Theater Review: BOLLYWOOD KITCHEN (Geffen Playhouse)
CURRY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CURRY About a week prior to virtually attending Bollywood Kitchen, Sri Rao’s inventive solo memoir and home cooking experience, a beautiful box arrives containing seven jars of curated Indian spices, a Bollywood popcorn kit, a chocolate chai affogato kit, basmati rice, coconut powder, recipe cards, and a shopping list…
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Theater Review: A CHRISTMAS CAROL (starring Jefferson Mays)
SINGING THE PRAISES OF A CAROL At this time of year, productions about dear old Scrooge are ablaze as usual, even in streaming mode. One-man shows, radio plays, and reruns on film. What’s your favorite? The first widely successful sound version (there were many silent ones) starred Reginald Owen in 1938?; Alastair Sim following in…
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Theater Review: THE ABUELAS (Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale)
THE DIRTY WAR COMES HOME Stephanie Alison Walker’s The Abuelas at Antaeus Theatre is the story of a woman discovering that she is a child of the “Disappeared,” the approximately 30,000 people killed through state-sponsored terrorism during Argentina’s 1976-1983 Dirty War, when opposition to the military junta-led government was ruthlessly quashed. Two generations of women,…
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Theater Review: A PLAY IS A POEM (World Premiere by Ethan Coen at the Mark Taper in Los Angeles)
SHOWTIME AT THE VANITIES Ethan Coen’s A Play Is a Poem at the Mark Taper Forum strikes me as neither a poem, nor, strictly speaking, theater. I don’t know what it is. For the most part the five short playlets come across as sketches — and not in a good way. Coen attempts to project…
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Theater Review: SKINTIGHT (Geffen Playhouse)
THE NEW NORMAL A weird dynamic takes over the house at Skintight, Joshua Harmon’s comedy, now at the Geffen Playhouse. In broad terms, it feels like a battle of the sexes — with men in the audience, straight and gay alike, cheering for Elliot (Harry Groener), a seventy-year-old billionaire clothier who defines love as something…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: WE SHOULD HANG OUT SOMETIME (Santa Monica Playhouse)
A GUY WITH ONE LEG WALKS INTO A THEATER: This show-in-residence at the Santa Monica Playhouse (it plays most Friday nights) is a funny, exhilarating dive into comedian, best-selling author, Paralympic champion, and YouTube star Josh Sundquist’s sometimes bizarre, always engrossing experiences as a guy who, although he had plenty of friends and a great…
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Theater Review: READY STEADY YETI GO (Rogue Machine Theatre at Electric Lodge in Venice)
GRAFFITI THAT ASKS PERMISSION Carly Uhlenbeek (Jasmine St. Clair), an African American suburban seventh grade girl, seeks answers in playwright David Jacobi’s Ready Steady Yeti Go, a Rogue Machine production that is part of the National New Play Network’s rolling world premiere program. She assembles her friends to reenact the events of a recent hate…
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Theater Review: HAPPY DAYS (Mark Taper Forum)
HAPPY DAYS IS HERE AGAIN I had never read nor seen Samuel Beckett’s absurdist classic Happy Days, now at the Mark Taper, but was excited at the prospect of seeing the great Dianne Weist in the flesh. Like many people, I’ve loved her ever since Hannah and Her Sisters, one of Woody Allen’s best films,…
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Theater Review: SOUTHERNMOST (Playwrights’ Arena)
VOLCANOES WITHIN AND WITHOUT When you walk into the theater for playwright Mary Lyon Kamitaki’s Southernmost, Justin Huen’s scenic design transports you immediately into another world: An indoor-outdoor ramshackle house in Naalehu, on the coast of a largely unpopulated area on the Big Island of Hawaii. It is the southernmost inhabited space in the United…
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Theater Review: MY LIFE ON A DIET (Renée Taylor at The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
TAYLOR MADE If timing is everything with comedy Renée Taylor in My Life on a Diet is proof positive. This revival of her one-woman show, based on her 1986 memoir of the same title, is a master class in getting laughs. She takes sentences that wouldn’t necessarily be funny on the page and makes them…
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Theater Review: FAITH HEALER (Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles)
THE BUSINESS OF FAITH The late Irish playwright Brian Friel’s Faith Healer premiered some 40 years ago and is now considered one of his greatest works. It is a memory play with three characters, told in a series of monologues. Frank is an Irish faith healer who takes his one-man show to isolated villages and…
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Theater Review: TOO MUCH SUN (Indie Chi Productions at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles)
TOO MANY CHOICES If Chekov’s characters could be said to be trapped by society, circumstance, and their own neuroses, the characters in playwright Nicky Silver’s Too Much Sun, now at the Odyssey Theatre, are more spoiled for choice. Money and opportunities give them physical possibilities; the guilt of those who have failed them and their…
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Theater Review: HIR (Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles)
CRUEL INTENTIONS Now at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Hir had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizon in 2015, engendering a rave in the The New York Times and going on to play internationally to enthusiastic reviews everywhere. I searched for other reviews because while the stated tone and subject matter of the show are what…
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Theater Review: LAST CALL (Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre)
RAGING AGAINST THE DYING LIGHT Elderly parents losing their independence is more significant demographically in America now than at any time in our history. Most still-living Greatest Generation parents of Baby Boomers are in their seventies to nineties or even early one-hundreds. After lifetimes of gritty independence, often forged during the Depression, they tend to…
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Theater Review: LINDA VISTA (Mark Taper Forum)
BEAUTIFUL HONESTY The title of Tracy Letts’ play Linda Vista, Steppenwolf Theatre’s production now at the Mark Taper Forum, translates as “Beautiful View.” In a literal sense, it refers to a San Diego apartment complex with a tiny slice of ocean visible (if you know where to look). It is also ironic. Nothing here looks…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: SMART LOVE (Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE VS. AUTHENTIC EMOTION Brian Letscher’s new play, now at Pacific Resident Theatre, is pitched as a cutting-edge take on how our species might be affected by new developments in artificial intelligence. The narrative follows a family in Michigan through a night of unexpected developments that challenge their identities in the present, as well…
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Theater Review: LOVE ACTUALLY LIVE (The Wallis)
ACTUALLY MAGICAL I didn’t have any idea what to expect from this hybrid theatrical invention. It employs scenes from the beloved Richard Curtis film Love Actually, live musicians (who often arrive onstage as characters), and stage actors who act out some of the scenes and then sing songs from the soundtrack as well as a…
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Review: DAVID SEDARIS (Royce Hall at UCLA)
BALLGOWN AT A URINAL Bestselling author David Sedaris provided evidence Friday night that he has not exaggerated in the stories he has written about shopping in Japan with his sisters Amy and Gretchen. The three of them (or sometimes just two) giddily, and with acknowledged codependence, buy clothes that are outrageous and often outrageously expensive….
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Los Angeles Theater Review: FINKS (Rogue Machine Theatre at Electric Lodge in Venice)
SAVING YOURSELF At the opening performance of Rogue Machine’s presentation of the Los Angeles premiere of playwright Joe Gilford’s Finks, artistic director John Flynn welcomed the audience and drew comparisons between Finks and Rogue Machine’s other current offering, Oppenheimer. The two plays do complement one another. It could be said that the creation of the…
Theater Review: THE PILON (Red Theater in Chicago)
by Mitchell Oldham | November 6, 2025
in Chicago, TheaterTheater Review: PAPER WALLS (Broadwater Mainstage)
by Shari Barrett | November 6, 2025
in Los Angeles, TheaterDance Review: PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY (2025 Lincoln Center Residency Opening Night)
by Gregory Fletcher | November 5, 2025
in Dance, New YorkTheater Review: TICK, TICK … BOOM! (Umbrella Stage Company in Concord, MA)
by Lynne Weiss | November 4, 2025
in Boston, TheaterOff-Broadway Review: CIRQUE LE SWING (Immersive Supper Club Experience at Swing 46)
by Paulanne Simmons | November 3, 2025
in Cabaret, New York, TheaterTHE ART OF PLAY: FROM STAGECRAFT TO DIGITAL PERFORMANCE
by Brandon Metcalfe | November 3, 2025
in ExtrasOff-Broadway Review: BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL (Encores! at New York City Center)
by Kevin Vavasseur | November 2, 2025
in New York, TheaterConcert Review: CÉCILE McLORIN SALVANT (Berklee Performance Center, Boston MA)
by Lynne Weiss | November 2, 2025
in Boston, Concerts / Events


















