A musical based on Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” seems like a good idea. A charming holiday crowd-pleaser. So why was the audience at the Pantages Theater, filled with kids and their parents, so amazingly quiet? No giggles.
I‘m having a hard time coalescing my thoughts about Bill Cain’s new play, “Equivocation.” Enjoyable, yes. Easy, not so much. An anachronistic, erudite visit with William Shakespeare and what he might have called “The Old Globe Gang,” the play begins with an order issued by King James I for a new dra
To be an artist is to be an outsider. A loner. A person overwhelmed by his passions. And more than a little insane. That’s the premise of Stacy Sims’ play “As White As O,” now having its world premiere at the Road Theatre in North Hollywood.
What if bygones are never bygones? What happens to a man, betrayed by a friend, who seethes in anger and bitterness for the next 30 years? And what happens to that former friend who has, ostensibly, “put the past behind him,” but has to live with the ineradicable knowledge of that betrayal and the s
What are friends for? “To blow the whistle on you when you’re insane,” according to the playwright. Can you build an entire play around this premise? You can if you’re John Patrick Shanley, whose popular plays and films have won him a Tony, an Oscar and a Pulitzer Prize.
So, color me old-fashioned. I like a well-written play that engages me, that gets me to really care about the characters and what happens to them, and prompts me to think about them afterwards.
A seedy-looking, longhaired Matthew Modine stumbles into his agent’s office looking for a “cause” that will bring him back from obscurity and get him invited to “A-list” parties again.
Morlan Higgins is one of my favorite actors currently working in L.A. theater. I’ve never given him anything but a rave review. And this is another one.
What do Tony Kushner, Larry Kramer and Moises Kaufman have in common? A lot. They are all award-winning contemporary playwrights. They have all been civil rights activists.
A reclusive old man wanders from room to room in a cluttered, old-fashioned apartment that hasn’t been attended to since his wife passed away. The furniture is from another era and the walls and bookcases are filled with tchotchkes accumulated over a long lifetime.
If I were to take a vote right now, I’d have to say that Gordon Bressack’s new play “Fuggedaboudit!” is the worst play I’ve seen this century. But then, of course, the century is new.
So there’s this radio DJ who is running a contest to find the best new musical talent in town. Doo-wop doo-wop doo-wop. Then there’s Denny (the cute one) and his buddy Eugene (the nerd) practicing their moves in Denny’s basement.
