Los Angeles

A SELF-INFLICTED WOUND POSING AS THEATER. SAFE WORD: CURTAIN An erotic psychological thriller script without the erotic, psychology, thrill, or script Dear Gay Theater-makers, I am writing today to encourage you to see the terrible new play Punish Me, by triple-threat writer-producer-actor Michael Dukakis, currently renting space at the Hudson Backstage Theatre. Do I recommend…

MY WINNER WITH LAWRENCE As part of the 30 Minutes or Less Festival presented by Matthew V. Quinn and Bertha Rodriguez at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre in Hollywood, writer-performer Lawrence Meyers manages to fill every nanosecond on stage with his Against All Odds: Coincidence, Chaos, and Everyday Miracles. Clever and witty to a fault,…

ZANDER RAPHAEL SPINS PUPPETRY INTO GOLD Gilded Spindle offers Shannon L. Reagan’s retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin tale with a slight #MeToo twist. While the talents and artistry of Reagan, the Wyndwolf Players and Wyndwolf Puppets are present on the stage of the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre, the roughness of the production itself is unable to…

Kind Stranger … A Memory Play, conceived and performed by Rick Simone-Friedland is successful as a historical rendering of Playwright Tennessee Williams’ life. It is also successful as a reconstruction of Williams’ public persona–that calm, lackadaisical soul who answers questions in a slow Southern drawl between lingering puffs on the black ivory cigarette holder. But…

THREE ERAS, ONE MISSED OPPORTUNITY Brownstone collapses under unfocused, baffling staging Catherine Butterfield’s Brownstone (2008) is built around a solid, even enticing idea: we have three couples, each occupying the same second-floor apartment in a Manhattan brownstone during three eras—1930s, the 1970s, and the turn of the 21st century. Instead of three separate acts in…

A MURDEROUSLY FUN MUSICAL SEND-UP OF KIDS-TV STARDOM Nathan Wang and Matthew Leavitt turn wholesome childhood icons into gleeful chaos— fast, filthy, and ridiculously entertaining. Sets are declarative. I have walked into theatres, taken one glance at the set occupying the stage, and could have written my whole review then and there. Anthony Lucca, Will…

OPERA AMONG THE GHOSTS From playful parlor deaths to a chilling one-act about crime, punishment, and memory, Source/Filter Music Collective made Heritage Square sing. On November 8, Source/Filter Music Collective returned to Heritage Square Museum with the west coast premiere of Michael Ching’s 2015 true-crime opera Alice Ryley, about the first woman executed in Georgia….

REVENGE AS ENTERTAINMENT With Will Swenson and Lesli Margherita, La Mirada goes all in for this major revival Some shows you make time for. Others you plan around. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is one of those shows — if it’s done right. When the musical first arrived in 1979 (winning 8…

A DELICIOUSLY VERY WRONG WAY TO CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS Santa’s dead, the carols are cursed, and Zombie Joe wants your soul for Christmas If you survived Urban Death: Tour of Terror in October—and lived to tell the tale—Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group is inviting you back for a holiday encore that swaps pumpkin guts for…

A HOLIDAY PANTO THAT KNOWS WHAT IT’S DOING The Actors’ Gang offers a family-friendly fairy tale with teeth Children of the Winter Kingdom – The Bonkers Adventures of Holly and Spruce, now frolicking at The Actors’ Gang in Culver City, is reminiscent of the beloved British Christmas pantomimes. The family-friendly show is festive and song-filled,…

TAKE THAT, NAKATOMI The Troubies blow up Die Hard, Heart-style — and it’s pure holiday mayhem The Troubadour Theater Company — the Troubies — has been wreaking musical-comedy havoc around Los Angeles since 1995, and their latest spoof, Die Heart: The Director’s Cut, might be the most gloriously unhinged holiday offering they’ve detonated yet. Their…

HERBERT ROSS’S BOHÈME RETURNS Beauty polished, questions still lingering Puccini’s tale may be endlessly familiar, yet the recent Los Angeles staging shows how even the most well-trodden path can still feel unsettled and full of open questions. For those new to the work, the opera traces two parallel romances among struggling artists in 1830s Paris….