TALKING ABOUT A BETTER WORLD Violence cuts across the walls in The Word Begins; sirens blare as iconic images of bloodshed and warfare, political figures and propaganda are projected larger than life onto the graffiti-covered set. The media continually broadcasts this reminder: we are at war. But onstage at Rogue Machine Theatre, writer/performers Steve Connell…

WHEN GOOD ENOUGH IS NOT ENOUGH The Los Angeles Times needs to be a player on the world stage and therefore assigns Critic-at-Large Charles McNulty to review plays in NYC and London. While this may exasperate the local theatre community (which desperately needs and deserves coverage), McNulty’s reviews and recent commentary on the ladies of…

HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FESTIVAL REVIEWS 2011 [Editor’s Note:   Our (either) amazing or insane (you decide) theater correspondent Tony Frankel saw somewhere in the area of 40 Fringe shows during its ten-day festival; we’re pretty sure no one else exceeded that.   Although the Fringe is now over, some of the shows that were featured have kept going…

THEY’VE GOT MAGIC TO DO It simply cannot be avoided: with Fun Family Festival of Tragedy, L’Enfant Terrible, a startlingly brilliant new theatre company, is poised and ready to take over the theatre world. Founded by director Justin Zsebe, writer Angela Berliner and producer Seth Compton, this group is dedicated to the art of storytelling….

YOU WILL LIKE IT VERY MUCH INDEED Credit adapter and director Tony Tanner for As You Like It – The Musical; he freely adapted Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden comedy into a text that contains the meat of the play with the Bard’s best lines while tossing in some modern references. By doing so, Tanner makes…

A PLAY THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN VISITED IN THE FIRST PLACE I was actively  angry after the opening of Revisiting Wildfire at the Odyssey Theatre (bad theatre will do that to you). I had to tell myself myself over and over, “No, no. Calm down. No one got hurt. It was just a bad play.”…

IN PRAISE OF LITERATURE Saving the “What is Literature?” and “Are Plays Literature?” arguments for another time, allow me to unequivocally state that there is a starvation for new drama as literature. Lacking lexicographical skills, allow me to paraphrase Mr. Webster: In the broadest sense, “literature” means any written material. Usually, however, it means the…

A TWIST OF LEMON Tony, a frantic theatre critic, calls John, his editor, in the middle of the night. John: [sleepy] This better be good. Tony: What’s happening to the theatre? [sobbing now] My God:the theatre: John: Take it easy, Shakespeare. Tony: Where is Jerome Robbins? He was standing here a minute ago. John: What’s…

NO TROUBLE HERE I vividly remember the first time I heard William Finn’s   March of the Falsettos, Adam Guettel’s   Floyd Collins, Michael John LaChiusa’s   The Wild Party, and Jason Robert Brown’s   Parade. Already inured to Loesser and Sondheim, it was thrilling to hear from these brand new composer/lyricists: they were immediately recognizable as those who…

WORKING WITH WHAT THEY’VE GOT theTRIBE’s simplistic production of an updated revision of Working – Stephen Schwartz’ soapy musical adaptation of Studs Terkel’s book – actually left an emotional impression, largely thanks to seasoned performers and a huge dose of earnestness and love. Yes, there is some amateur acting and silly dialects. Yes, the group…

WHAT IS ART ANYWAY? What if you were an alcoholic ex-bartender who lived in a mobile home in a trailer park in Bakersfield that was furnished with junk bought from rummage sales and who found, in the back of someone’s garage, a painting that you didn’t really like, but, after all, at $3.00, it seems…