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Theater Review: HAND TO GOD (Coachella Valley Rep)
TAKING HOLD OF EVIL Robert Askins’ 2011 two-act Hand to God is both an existential, insightful commentary on religious hypocrisy and a hysterical dramedy about Tyrone, a possessed sock puppet with a raunchy mouth, violent tendencies, and an overactive sex drive. Given the religious right’s current/ongoing tirade against art, books, sensible gun laws, women’s autonomy…
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Theater Review: CLYDE’S (Huntington Theatre, Boston)
A SATISFYING MEAL OF TASTY THEATER You might call Clyde’s the other piece of bread in Lynn Nottage’s sandwich about Reading, Pennsylvania, where the playwright spent two years conducting interviews with residents of what was then named the poorest town in America. The first result of those interviews was Sweat, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer…
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Announcement: LAUNCH OF MURNANE CASTING (Boutique Casting Office in NYC and Nationwide)
Casting director and creative professional Chad Eric Murnane has launched Murnane Casting. Based in New York City, this boutique casting office works on theatre, film, and television projects nationwide. The company specializes in Broadway productions, regional theatre, and developing new works with up-and-coming creators. Murnane has over a decade of experience in casting, having enjoyed…
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Theater Review: ROCK OF AGES (Wildsong Productions in Ocean Beach, San Diego)
WE BUILT THIS SILLY ON ROCK AND ROLL Most musicals start with a premise, develop a plot, and then write songs to fit the themes. Rock of Ages flips the process by starting with classic rock songs of the 1980s (Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Steve Perry, Poison, and more) and tying…
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Theater Review: JIMMY BUFFET’S ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE (Desert TheaterWorks in Indio)
ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE IN THE DESERT Entering the theater at Desert TheatreWorks in Indio (between Palm Springs and the Salton Sea), it sure didn’t feel like the desert. I was greeted by Jimmy Buffet’s Escape to Margaritaville cast members who placed a Hawaiian lei around my neck while at the same time I was awestruck…
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Theater Review: THE HUMAN COMEDY (Actors Co-op)
HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN There is a world premiere now playing at Actors Co-op in Hollywood that is both ambitious and successful. The Human Comedy, set in the fictional California town of Ithaca in the San Joaquin Valley (think Fresno area), was first written as an MGM screenplay by Armenian-American William Saroyan, who was also…
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Theater Review: LET ME IN (Theatre 68 Arts Complex)
LET ME IN, OR GET ME OUT? In writer/director Brynn Thayer‘s Let Me In, now running at the newly and spiffily remodeled Theatre 68 Arts Complex in North Hollywood, actor Jorge Garcia of Lost fame gives a moving, funny, and incredibly nuanced performance as a New York cop on the day of his retirement. Mr….
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Theater Review: DID YOU SEE WHAT WALTER PAISLEY DID TODAY? (La Mirada Theatre)
DROP-DEAD FUNNY What happens when you take Little Shop of Horrors and mix it with The Pink Panther cartoons, and throw in a little dash of Urinetown? You get this fantastic dark musical comedy Did You See What Walter Paisley Did Today? Based on Roger Corman’s 1959 horror-tinged beatnik satire A Bucket of Blood, the…
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Theater Review: PACIFIC OVERTURES (Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA)
PLEASE HELLO! How’s this for an overture: Go see it. Signature Theatre has mounted a very good production of an experimental, rarely performed musical by the late composer Stephen Sondheim. It is both spotty and highly recommended. Pacific Overtures tells the story of the Westernization of Japan through the lens of Commodore Perry’s 1853 forcible…
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Theater Review: THE CHERRY ORCHARD (North Coast Rep in Solana Beach/San Diego)
THE BLOSSOMS DO EVENTUALLY BLOOM IN THIS ORCHARD Russian playwright Anton Chekhov believed his classic 1904 drama The Cherry Orchard was a comedy bordering on farce, but generations of audiences, scholars, and reviewers have leaned toward the play (as well Chekhov’s other major works for the stage) as melancholy pieces filled with frustrated characters enduring…
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Theater Review: INTO THE WOODS (National Tour at the Emerson Colonial Theater in Boston)
NO FAIRY TALE ENDINGS Last night, Boston became the third stop in the 2023 National Tour of the 2022 Broadway Revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s much-Tony’d and much-loved mash-up of some of the world’s most familiar fairy tales, ingeniously linked through plot and music. The touring company includes many cast members from the…
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Theater Review: THE LONELY FEW (World Premiere Musical at the Geffen Playhouse in L.A.)
COME FOR THE SCORE, LEAVE FOR THE BOOK Prior to Geffen Playhouse’s world premiere musical The Lonely Few, a pair of orange ear-plugs in ironically loud cellophane is offered to patrons, indicating a loud show will soon be upon us. We enter the amazingly transformed Audrey Skirball Kennis black-box theater, which now has patrons seated…
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HOW TO GET INTO ACTING
Acting is a creative and rewarding profession allowing individuals to express themselves through art. It can be a challenging industry to break into, but with the right mindset, skills, and guidance, anyone can get into acting. Whether you dream of being on stage or the big screen, there are steps you can take to start…
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THE BEST WAYS TO ADVERTISE COMMUNITY THEATER
Community drama projects play an essential role in fostering cultural appreciation, artistic expression, and social engagement. They provide a unique opportunity for people to come together, collaborate, and showcase their talents while promoting valuable life skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. However, the success of a community drama project largely depends on the audience…
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Theater Review: THE CHERRY ORCHARD (North Coast Rep in Solana Beach/San Diego)
LIFE AIN’T JUST A BOWL OF CHERRIES IN 1903 RUSSIA Written and set in 1903 Russia, Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard would be the master playwright’s final creation. Unless one already has knowledge of that time and place, the play — even with North Coast Rep‘s superlative production — becomes much easier to understand and…
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Theater Review: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Desert Theatricals in Rancho Mirage)
A REAL BEAUTY Desert Theatricals’ line-up for next season is exciting, but there was nothing more thrilling than being in an audience filled with awe-struck children to witness this magical production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. It was a smash on Broadway in 1994 and it remains a smash in 2023, as corroborated by…
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Theater Review: K-I-S-S-I-N-G (Huntington Theatre Company in Boston)
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G Poet, screenwriter, and performer Lenelle Moïse (pronounced Len-EL Moy-EEZ) is a playwright for this co-production from The Front Porch Arts Collective and The Huntington, the latter of which is staging the charming and engaging K-I-S-S-I-N-G, a romantic comedy chockablock with originality. Drawing on Moïse’s experiences of growing up in Cambridge, the play opens with…
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Theater Review: ONCE (Laguna Playhouse)
ONCE UPON AN AMAZING TIME Good theater allows audiences to see the world from the eyes of the creators. In this triumphant production of Once, which opened last night March 12 at Laguna Playhouse, we are invited into the world of a downtrodden buttery-voiced Irish man and a struggling single immigrant mother. A whirlwind of…
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Theater Review: UNDER A BASEBALL SKY (Old Globe)
¡JUGAR A LA PELOTA! Under A Baseball Sky is a likable new play by José Cruz González now nearing the end of a five-week run at the Old Globe Theatre. It’s tight work, running about 90 minutes without an intermission. The comparative brevity still allows the playwright to touch a number of themes, several of them of the…
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Theater Review: LOVE AND INFORMATION (Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale)
LOVELESS DISINFORMATION As I’m ushered into Antaeus Theatre Company’s mainstage theater at Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center in Glendale to see Love and Information, I’m invited (as evidenced by a freshly painted sign) to “embark on an exploration of meaning.” In the 90 painful minutes that follow, however, this promised “meaning”’”like Godot’”never shows….
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