All Entries in the "Featured" Category
Canadian Playwright “Hacks” Montreal’s Prestigious Classical Theatre Company
Now this is clever stuff and I imagine was highly entertaining for all involved. Except of course the company that was being “hacked”. The story is here in the UK’s Guardian. And here’s the gist of what transpired: Instead of roaming the streets of Montreal, however, the audience for Choinière’s Projet blanc – as this one-night event [...]
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD (CAL REP): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Cal Rep has remained faithful to Stoppard’s vision even while giving it their own interpretation, one that is both creative and original. Barnaby Hughes – Stage and Cinema SWEET Such a masterful script should be a can’t-miss production when paired with a high-caliber theatre company like Cal Rep. And that’s just what we get. [...]
LA Weekly Critic Steven Leigh Morris Responds to Bitter Lemons Editor Colin Mitchell
Yeah, I know, I just referred to myself in the third person in that headline. Trust me, it pains me to do so, but since nobody else is gonna write this sumbitch, I figure what the fuck. Plus, ya gotta admit, that’s a pretty attention-grabbing headline up there. Huh? Huh? Anyhoosiers. So Steven just published [...]
The Dramaturg: Dramaturgy Case Study: “Hey Ladies” music video
“Hey Ladies” was the first single off of Paul’s Boutique, the Beastie Boys’ 1989 follow-up to their massive debut, License to Ill. At the time, the ambitious Paul’s Boutique was considered somewhat of a conceptual mess, a reach for a group that had previously specialized in frat-boy anthems about one’s right to party and drink [...]
THE SQUARE ROOT OF WONDERFUL: 100% – SWEET
SWEET It was truly a delight to see the cast working so well together to bring Carson McCuller’s words to life. Jack Doehring – LifeInLA SWEET The iconic Carson Mccullers mixes Southern tradition with cosmopolitan New York setting, quite the contrast, to make for a most intersting melodrama, “The Square Root of Wonderful,” playing at [...]
My Fringe Show: MISSION TO MATE
Can you feel it? The drumbeat of the Hollywood Fringe Festival approaching. Oh yeah, it is on! And besides the Lemon once again being a proud sponsor of the Fringe, your favorite Editor-in-Chief, me, also has an actual show premiering in the Fringe! Yep, it’s called MISSION TO MATE, something I wrote and am directing [...]
CAFE VIDA (LATC): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Regardless of what you think about this brief interruption, the production as a whole coheres persuasively, as directed by Cornerstone artistic director Michael John Garcés. I missed 3 Truths in 2010, but otherwise I think I’ve seen all of Cornerstone’s major productions since Garcés took the helm of the company six years ago, and [...]
HOLDING ON – LETTING GO: 100% – SWEET
SWEET Intelligently written, passionately acted and sponsored by one of the larger hospice services in the area, it walks one couple through the processing of grief. Grim as this may sound, the play offers a window on the wisdom and beauty that can accompany an essentially ugly thing. Frances Baum Nicholson – Pasadena Star-News SWEET [...]
BEDFELLOWS (NEW AMERICAN THEATRE): 75% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Still, Bedfellows otherwise gathers enough momentum to, well, win an election or two. And how rare is it to see a play that’s set in the world of local LA politics? Don Shirley – LA Stage Watch SWEET Rose’s script intelligently defines these moral conflicts, and a committed cast make them visceral. The campaign [...]
SCOTTSBORO BOYS (OLD GLOBE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Musicals are supposed to raise your spirits and warm your heart, right? Not necessarily. And certainly not in the case of “The Scottsboro Boys,” the fearlessly inventive show about one of the most notorious episodes of racial injustice in America. It disturbs audiences as much as it entertains them. Charles McNulty – LA Times [...]
The Monday Moment
Yes, our education system is in good hands. This is an actual email from a high school principal to parents. Greetings from [name of principal and name of school]. We are trying to improve how the district and staff communicates with you, our educational community. In order to do so, we need to ensure that [...]
LA Drama Critics Circle Website has a New Look
It’s a start. But they still have a long way to go before fully revitalizing their relevancy for a new generation of LA Theatre Makers.
Critique of the Week
Steven Leigh Morris is simply a master contextualist. Case in point, this week’s COW. Enjoy. CYRANO & THE HEIRESS Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly In Henry James’ short novel Washington Square, set in 1850 New York, when a homely, awkward and guileless young heiress named Catherine Sloper comes to believe, like her sophisticated father, [...]
The Saturday Saying
“The LA Stage Alliance has finally picked up the ball in the last month. They have organized 4 meetings for the producers to discuss the formation of a producers organization. So here we are–at probably the most significant crossroads LA Theater has seen in the past 20 years. There was a lot of discussion at the first [...]
TICKLED PINK: 91% – SWEET
SWEET Taking her comic novel Tickled Pink as inspiration, Las Vegas headliner Rita Rudner and husband Martin Bergman have penned a two-act comedy not coincidentally titled Tickled Pink—and the results now onstage at the Laguna Playhouse are likely to tickle the fancy of anyone in the mood for a couple hours of laughs … along [...]
The Roller-Coaster of Self-Producing Theater – by Sethums
No this is not an ad for a fertility clinic. We were contacted by this fellow Seth Lepore – he likes to go by “Sethums” – fair enough – and he asked if we might repost this article from his own blog. I read it and said, “Sure”. It’s a little long, but it’s a [...]
Time for a Los Angeles Theatre Producers Organization – by Rick Culbertson
Los Angeles Theatre Producer, Rick Culbertson is back and he has a plan. And he is right. The time is now for a Producers Organization and he has provided a way forward for those who want to call themselves “Los Angeles Theatre Producers”. It’s not perfect, but it is a true honest to goodness blueprint. [...]
The Dramaturg: Totally Uninformed Tony Picks
The Tony Award nominations were announced this week! Double exclamation point!! I struggle mightily to connect the Tony Awards to my daily, professional life. I feel no personal stakes in these awards, no ownership of my industry, no sense of pride in what we as a group have accomplished. I understand that there is a [...]
What is Art? And Why Does It Matter?
A film commission for the Arts Council’s annual State of the Arts conference by artist film-makers straybird (Becky Edmunds and Lucy Cash) featuring Jeanette Winterson and Hofesh Shechter, amongst others. Find out more about State of the Arts http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sota12 Find out more about straybird http://www.straybird.org
Downer Don Does the Math
I’ve been remiss linking to this article from Don Shirley over at LA Stage Watch – a fact he was not shy in reminding me when I saw him at the LA Stage Talks event the other night – and it’s a good read. As usual Don does all the legwork and according to Actors [...]
The Thursday Thought
Is there really such a thing as a coincidence? Or do we fear that that there is actually a grand design and we just don’t want to really take a look at it when it makes its self visible? Follow me on this one. So my brother sends me this new Proclaimers video (see below) [...]
SUKIE AND SUE: THEIR STORY: 80% – SWEET
SWEET Sukie and Sue: Their Story will not change your life, and that’s okay. The Blank Theatre has produced a delightful diversion, a ridiculous excursion into the high times of a couple of nurses who have a slight demon-possession problem. The laughs are ample and the cast gleefully tackles Michael John Lachiusa’s absurd new comedy. [...]
Fifteenth-Date Exam for MFA Couples
Begin with a pad of paper and a pencil each. Face each other over snacks and beverages. Read answers out loud. Part One: Sentence Completion 1. The object of art is _____. 2. The potential of art is _____. 3. My involvement with art is _____. 4. My passion for art results in _____. Two [...]
The Question Nobody Asked at the LA Stage Talks Panel on Arts Criticism
“How are theatre critics going to remain relevant in a climate where their opinions simply mean less and less?” I suppose I could have asked it, but I nodded off a couple of times and then lost track of where I was and whether it was over or not and frankly there really wasn’t ample [...]
THE WOMAN IN THE WALL: 100% – SWEET
SWEET This entrancing performance takes the audience on a spiritual journey that illuminates the power of women despite intensely limiting social circumstances. Sarah Taylor-Ellis – Stage and Cinema SWEET Nevertheless, there is a plaque at the entrance to the Hall that says, “The beautiful sights greeting your eyes in this room are for the delight, [...]
CYRANO (DEAF WEST/FOUNTAIN THEATRE): 93% – SWEET
SWEET Sachs and director Simon Levy have embarked on a major mission: bringing Rostand’s poetry-spewing protagonist to life using ASL, spoken word, and e-language. Thanks to Jeffrey Elias Teeter’s projections, flashed onto eight omnipresent monitors incorporated into Jeff McLaughlin’s versatile bare-bones set, nothing is lost in this superbly crafted production besides a large tub of [...]
THE FIX (INTERNATIONAL CITY THEATRE): 67% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Even more fortuitously, director Randy Brenner (who helmed a previous production of the show at Musical Theatre Guild), manages to balance the book’s melodrama and the satire. He makes sure that the actors on the stage aren’t mouthpieces, but convey that they believe every line they say and sing. Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania BITTERSWEET [...]
MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET: 80% – SWEET
SWEET So in between some good-natured alpha-male posturing and even a few flashbacks of early meetings—mostly told via heavily Southern-accented first-person monologues from Phillips—MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET more than anything assembles some truly rousing musical numbers, with every actor on stage playing their own instruments live! Michael L. Quintos – BroadwayWorld BITTERSWEET With cast members doing [...]
CONCEALING JUDY HOLLIDAY: 75% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER I was hoping for more of a story about Judy Holliday, who I thought was a fine actress and who, unfortunately, passed away at a very young age. The dreams did not really offer me a clear insight into this young woman nor cause me to have any feelings for her as a person. [...]
THE HEIRESS (PASADENA PLAYHOUSE): 97% – SWEET
SWEET The theater might want to frisk future ticketholders for produce, or add an anger-management session to the bill: It’s that hard to handle the emotions provoked by this gorgeously directed and acted revival. Margaret Gray – LA Times SWEET “The Heiress” can easily devolve into a potboiler costume drama in the wrong hands, but [...]