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Theater Review: DESTROYING DAVID (Dezart Performs)
There is a profound beauty in watching something fragile survive. In Dezart Performs’ breathtaking West Coast Premiere of Jason Odell Williams’ Destroying David, that fragility is everywhere: in the literal cracks of a 500-year-old statue, in the fractured heart of a grieving mother, and in the very air of the theater itself. Running through March…
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Theater Review: MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT (Shattered Globe at Theater Wit)
A POST-PANDEMIC RECKONING WITH ISOLATION AND MENTAL HEALTH A moving character study elevated by a nuanced central performance The oddest thing about Kirsten Greenidge’s Morning, Noon, and Night is how fundamentally conventional its construction is. Not that this is necessarily a negative, but for a play that involves eco-doom-scrolling, cheating on exams with Google, and…
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Theater Review: HAMNET (Royal Shakespeare Company at Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
SHAKESPEARE’S NAME, SOMEONE ELSE’S STORY A generic weepie that gloms onto the prestige of Shakespeare while offering nothing of substance in return Rory Alexander and Kemi-Bo Jacobs as William and Agnes Shakespeare Let’s start with a simple exercise: If you were to replace the name “Will,” as in William Shakespeare, with a random name—say, Robert,…
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Theater Review: POT GIRLS (The Story Theater at The Raven)
A SMART, PLAYFUL SPIN ON A FEMINIST CLASSIC Paul Michael Thomson’s witty homage to Top Girls is dazzling—if occasionally too clever for comfort Myah Bridgewater and Laney Rodriguez A world premiere from Story Theatre, performed at the Raven, Paul Michael Thomson’s Pot Girls is a charming update on Caryl Churchill’s Thatcher-era feminist classic Top Girls,…
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Theater Review: BARTLEBY (Fiasco Theater at The Old Globe)
A SCRIVENER WHO PREFERS NOT TO A minimalist Melville adaptation turns quiet resistance into compelling theater Andy Grotelueschen as The Lawyer and Michael Crane as Bartleby Fiasco Theater is presenting the world premiere of Bartleby at The Old Globe in Balboa Park. The play is a stage adaptation of Herman Melville’s 1853 short story, “Bartleby…
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Off-Broadway Review: CHINESE REPUBLICANS (Roundabout Theatre Company)
A POWER LUNCH WITH KNIVES UNDER THE TABLE Ambition, rivalry, and assimilation simmer in Alex Lin’s sharp corporate comedy There are ordinary lunches, and then there are Chinese Republicans lunches, the subject of a new play by Alex Lin, directed by Chay Yew at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre. In it, four high-achieving Chinese-American…
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Theater Review: GOD OF CARNAGE (South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa)
CIVILITY CRUMBLES, BUT THE COMEDY NEVER BUILDS South Coast Rep’s revival exposes how thin satire needs sharper direction to truly sting Melinda Page Hamilton and Kim Martin-Cotten The first time I saw Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage was at The Ahmanson Theatre with an all-star cast, one so good that they practically hid that the…
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Theater Review: TOP GIRLS (Raven Theatre)
A 1982 CLASSIC THAT REFUSES TO AGE Raven Theatre’s revival lets Churchill’s blistering feminist satire land without cosmetic updates Yourtana Sulaiman, Hannah Kato, Claire Kaplan, Luke Halpern, Morgan Lavenstein, and Susaan Jamshidi Almost 45 years after its debut, Caryl Churchill’s seminal play is as depressingly relevant as ever. In 1982, three years after Margaret Thatcher…
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Theater Review: CHARGES (THE SUPPLICANTS) (North American Premiere at Theatre Y)
A CHORUS OF EXILE IN AN ARCHITECTURE OF ISOLATION Theatre Y’s North American premiere immerses its audience in complicity and unease Makai Walker Before we get into the merits of Elfriede Jelinek’s Charges (The Supplicants), now at Theatre Y in its North American premiere, we need to talk about Steven Stoll’s set: a series of…
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Off-Broadway Review: PETITE ROUGE (Company XIV at Théâtre XIV in Bushwick, Brooklyn)
A FAIRY TALE REBORN IN HEELS, CORSETS, AND CANDLELIGHT Little Red gets very bad — and very fabulous — in Company XIV’s Petite Rouge PhillVonAwesome In its twentieth anniversary season, Company XIV unveils Petite Rouge (from Charles Perrault’s 1697 Le Petit Chaperon Rouge) and allows the classic fable of Little Red Riding Hood to frolic…
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Opera Review: AKHNATEN (LA Opera)
STILL THE PHARAOH-EST OF THEM ALL, AKHNATEN STUNS AT LA OPERA An intellectually rigorous, visually arresting production that embraces the opera’s challenges rather than disguising them John Holiday as Akhnaten There is a structural difficulty at the heart of Akhnaten that admiration alone cannot resolve—although admiration at last night’s opening at The Chandler is never…
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Theater Review: FOURSOME (IAMA & Celebration at Atwater Village Theatre)
FOR SOME, MAYBE — FOR OTHERS, A CHORE An exhausting exercise in enforced fun and emotional emptiness (Seated) Felix (Jimin Moon), Noah (Matthew Scott Montgomery, (on floor) Kobe (Calvin Seabrooks, and Tahj (Adrián Javier) are two couples You know that one friend who exhausts everyone in the room? That annoying one in your wider friend…
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Theater Review: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (North American Premiere Tour at American Conservatory Theater)
A.C.T. EMBRACES HORROR WITH A STYLISH, SUSPENSEFUL STAGE ADAPTATION A slow-burn ghost story elevated by design, atmosphere, and committed performances A.C.T. continues its 2025/26 season by branching out and taking a chance on a new genre: horror. If the posters and ad campaigns look familiar, they should—to fans of the original films. Paranormal Activity is…
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Theater Review: SOMEWHERE OVER THE BORDER (Cygnet Theatre Company)
A LATINO MUSICAL ODYSSEY INSPIRED BY IMMIGRATION AND THE WIZARD OF OZ A heartfelt journey centered on resilience, with fantasy touches along the way The Cygnet Theatre is presenting the local premiere of Somewhere Over the Border, a Latino musical by playwright Brian Quijada. He based his story on his mother’s real-life struggles in the…
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Off-Broadway Review: MEAT SUIT, OR THE SHITSHOW OF MOTHERHOOD (Second Stage Theater)
AFTER BIRTH Meat Suit is a carnival of motherhood that mistakes provocation for revelation Meat Suit, or the Shitshow of Motherhood, a Second Stage Theater production which opened last night at the Pershing Square Signature Center, dares its audience to linger in a clownish carnival of motherhood while serving up the glaringly obvious. Written and…
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Theater Review: RICHARD III (A Noise Within)
A GENDER-FLUID RICHARD III ROOTED IN HISTORY AND PERFORMANCE TRADITION A commanding central performance anchors a sharp, theatrically confident staging The Tragedy of Richard the Third, William Shakespeare’s second-longest play after Hamlet, and the fourteenth most produced play in his canon (the first being Midsummers Night’s Dream), has an exceedingly straightforward plot. Richard wants to…
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Theater Review: CLUE (Second North American Tour at the McCallum Theatre)
A BOARD GAME FAVORITE TURNS INTO A LIVE-ACTION FARCE OF MURDER AND MAYHEM A high-energy whodunit that entertains, even when the pacing wobbles The classic whodunit murder mystery game Clue leapt from the board to the boards last night at McCallum Theatre. The production—directed by Casey Hushion—is a bit of a double-edged dagger. While it…
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Theater Review: ZABEL IN EXILE (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre)
THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF ARMENIAN WRITER ZABEL YESSAYAN BROUGHT TO THE STAGE A reflective memory play balancing biography, imagination, and urgency In keeping with Boston Playwrights’ Theatre’s commitment to bringing new plays to the stage, Zabel in Exile, by R. N. Sandberg, presents the life of Zabel Yessayan, an Armenian writer and activist born…
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Theater Review: M. BUTTERFLY (San Francisco Playhouse)
A REAL-LIFE ESPIONAGE SCANDAL BECOMES A MEDITATION ON POWER, IDENTITY, & ILLUSION A gripping, well-acted drama that explores gender, fantasy, and cultural collision M. Butterfly, the 1988 Tony Award–winning play for Best Play, is currently playing at San Francisco Playhouse. It is loosely based on a real-life espionage scandal between a French diplomat and a…
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Theater Review: THE RECIPE (La Jolla Playhouse)
A WORLD PREMIERE CHARTING JULIA CHILD’S RISE FROM RESTLESSNESS TO CULINARY ICON A biographical play that finds its flavor in a stronger, more compelling second act The La Jolla Playhouse is presenting the world premiere of The Recipe, Claudia Shear’s biographical play about the early life and culinary career of American chef and author Julia…
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