Los Angeles

A MATCH MADE IN HOLLYWOOD Last year, the Pacific Opera Project (POP) put on a show about a serial killer who also happened to be a barber: Sweeney Todd. This year, they have staged a production about a much different kind of barber. Figaro, the titular Barber of Seville, is a matchmaker who’s trying to…

A TRIUMPHANT TRAINWRECK If you’ve never applauded a trainwreck, be prepared to do so when you see Peter Quilter’s End of the Rainbow. I am not talking about the gossip-driven, hardly revelatory play about Judy Garland’s last days; I am talking about Tracie Bennett’s devastating portrait of a Ritalin-addled, vodka-soaked, emotionally greedy and equally needy,…

THE WILDE ACCORDING TO BURBANK By Los Angeles standards, Theatre Banshee’s The Importance of Being Earnest is pretty good.   It’s a time-tested script; the actors know their lines, the director knows where to find the laughs, and one efficient, mostly lovely set by Arthur MacBride serves as three.   But two of those three settings feature…

WHEN ‘TOMORROW’ ISN’T ANOTHER DAY Anyone who cares about acting or classical theater or Shakespeare (particularly Macbeth) must see Donald Freed’s new play Tomorrow. It has moments of spot-on, sublime specificity that make you gasp out loud. Without fuss, without preening, it explores the art of acting as a means of exploring the art of…

THE PRIDE OF JAZZ PURITANS Wynton Marsalis has received a plethora of awards from numerous countries, committees and academies for his talents and contributions to the world as a musician, arranger, composer, and cultural ambassador. In 2009, he received the Insignia Chevalier  of the Legion of Honor from France; it’s the equivalent of attaining knighthood in…

TRAINSPOTTING IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK Whether L.A. theatergoers are ready or not, seat of your pants Productions has resurrected it’s much ballyhooed 2002 mounting of Henry Gibson’s Trainspotting at the Elephant Theatre in Hollywood and while much of its power remains intact, it is definitely not for the squeamish. All matter of human excrement…

SOUL MASSAGE It’s easy to walk into a salon and pamper your body with a facial, pedicure, or rubdown, but there is a different salon in town where once a month there is an opportunity to have your soul massaged: a Chamber Music Concert Series called Le Salon de Musiques, a compendium of LA’s most…

FINDING YOUR TRIBE Theatre of Identity, aka Social Issues Theatre, is a fascinating phenomenon: this genre promotes a particular people’s cultural identity and invites members of that culture and other cultures to experience that culture’s joys, problems, history, traditions, and point of view.   Plays like Torch Song Trilogy, The Boys Next Door, and Yellow Face…

L. A. THEATER RISES FROM THE DEAD With an assemblage of the bravest actors in Los Angeles, Zombie Joe returns with an all-new Urban Death, the naturalistic horror show in the style of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. In just under an hour, this ghoulishly delightful series of vignettes serves up unfathomable repulsions, profound evils, distressed…

FAKE BOOK COMES TO TRUE LIFE Published in Paris in 1894, The Songs of Bilitis is a book of poems and epitaphs describing the life and loves of an ancient lesbian heroine named Bilitis. With emotional flourish, author Pierre Louí¿s biographically describes her simple country upbringing, pinnacles of romantic love and sexual gratification, and eventual…

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A BAD MOM? Chalk Repertory Theatre continues presenting non-traditional, site-specific theatre with the world premiere of Dorothy Fortenberry’s newest work, Mommune. “Mommune” is the name of a childcare center, and the two-hour real-time melodrama about motherhood – featuring an all-woman ensemble – takes place at an actual day care center,…

SALVATION IN A STORM Who is the titular Flying Dutchman? Is he a mythological figure, a type of the wandering Jew bound to traverse the earth in travail until his day of salvation comes? Is he in some way the composer, an outsider and a genius yearning for acceptance and recognition? Or he is simply…

HOWLER Steve Yockey’s new play isn’t new, and it isn’t a play. The first contention first: Part of a new promotional concept of “rolling world premieres” designed specifically to hype theaters and the scripts they mount, Wolves already played in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Tempe last year. This isn’t a tour; it’s four different productions…

GAY ABSTRACTION For years, Ken Roht has proved himself to be one of the most inventive theater practitioners in Los Angeles. His avant-garde works include the renowned 99 Cent Only shows, which contain extravagant costumes by Ann Closs-Farley and sets wholly manufactured with items acquired at the 99 Cent Only Store. The original, entertaining and…

WHAT WERE JEW THINKING? Baby boomers should recall the time when a great comedy album could be played with regularity. Some of my favorites were Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow…Right! (1963), which contained his iconic “Noah” sketches; George Carlin’s Class Clown (1972) with its infamous track entitled “Seven Words You Can Never Say…

THE PLAY ABOUT A TRIAL ULTIMATELY BECOMES A TRIAL TO WATCH Stephen Adley Guirgis’ The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a courtroom drama set in Purgatory where the guilty or not guilty verdict literally means heaven or hell for the one standing trial. The one being judged in this case is former apostle and…