All Entries in the "Ponderings" Category
The Dramaturg: 5 Theater Things Currently Making Me Happy
I feel like I’ve been kind of a bummer so far here at Bitter Lemons. All I’ve done is complain and pick fights. So, I apologize. It’s February. There’s no good sports on. I get cranky. Forgive me. But it’s like 80 degrees in Santa Monica today and I’m feeling jovial, so let’s turn things [...]
McNulty Blames Jason Alexander for Reprise’s Woes
Chuck is on a freakin’ roll! No, seriously, the man deserves some props for laying down some recent honest albeit uncomfortable truths. First there is this article over at the LA Times on the crumbling of the Regional Theatre model. Now he’s calling out Jason Alexander for his lack of leadership and how it has [...]
My night at the Edwardian Ball: Absinthe, Top Hats and a Guy Playing the Electric Shovel
Very fun evening at the beautiful Belasco Theatre last night. Thanks to Karin and the producers for allowing me to participate. Also got to hang with the gang from EyeSpyLA. You’re on the blogroll now people! The theme was everything Edward Gorey and though I’m not familiar with the artist as much as I’d like to [...]
McNulty on the State of Regional Theatre
Very very interesting article from Chuck over at the LA Times, mostly focused on the effects of the economy on the quality of theatre around the regions. Check out the full article here. Chuck does some excellent work here starting with what he sees as the crux: The problem in a nutshell is this: Established theaters [...]
Latest BLIP: “Do the LA Weekly Awards Fairly Represent the best in Los Angeles Theatre?”
Being the equal opportunity offenders that we are – or supporters depending on how you’re looking at it – we have decided to put the LA Weekly Awards under the harsh light of scrutiny for the latest Bitter Lemons Interactive Poll (BLIP). Our last poll was this: And though it didn’t exactly bring out the [...]
Critique of the Week
I picked this one because I saw the show and I thought this review captured well what I experienced myself, though, admittedly, I experienced a little more profundity than this particular author did. Also, it was such a rare thing to see THR actually reviewing something in its own backyard (you are the HOLLYWOOD Reporter [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
I picked this one because of its incredibly layered context. OSWALD: THE ACTUAL INTERROGATION Earnest Kearney – Working Author For nearly a decade and a half, tucked away between Franklin and Hollywood Blvd the Write Act Repertory Company has been the “little engine that could” of L.A. Theater, staging upwards of a hundred productions while [...]
Critique of the Week- Runner Runner Up
Bowing to the will of the people – or rather the LemonHead Nation – I’m going to add very brief descriptions of why I’ve chosen certain reviews for our “Critique of the Week” (COW) starting with this one. I picked this one because of its almost uncomfortably personal nature. BUDDHA: A FANTASTIC JOURNEY Clare Elfman – [...]
The “Clybourne” Supremacy
Was lucky enough to catch Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park at the Taper this week, this after seeing A Raisin in the Sun a couple of weeks ago at the Kirk Douglas. Thanks to the press folk over there for making it happen! The production of “Clybourne” is simply breathtaking. A Pulitzer well earned. The writing is so [...]
2011 LA Weekly Award Nominations
Here they are LemonHeads! Woohoo! The LAWees! The LAWees! Hide your children, leash your dogs, ignore your cats! Although can someone explain to me the category “two person performance” and why it deserves distinction from any other kind of performance? Also why is “comedy performance” a distinct category from any other kind of performance? Shouldn’t [...]
The Dramaturg: The Devolution of the Modern Day Theatre Critic
None other than our esteemed editor Colin Mitchell weighed in this week on the subject of dramaturgy. Believe me, any time that dramaturgy is mentioned anywhere without someone making the “dramaturd” joke, it is a win. But if you’ll permit me a little point-counterpoint, I will say that before we start giving dramaturgy jobs away [...]
Final Days for Latest BLIP: Do you need the choice for each Critique of the Week explained?
Okay we’re gonna close this bad boy down on Friday but wanted to give the LemonHead Nation a few more days to get their votes in. Here it is: It’s been a fairly small sampling so far, but it’s looking like the majority needs a little more clarity when it comes to our Critique of [...]
News Flash: Los Angeles Theatre is Alive and Well
Caught a few shows over the last couple weeks that I wanted to shout a little bit about. Really enjoyed A Raisin in the Sun courtesy of Ebony Rep with some well-deserved help from Center Theatre Group. Amazing to catch an American Classic given such an excellent production. Director Rashad never lets the melodramatic seams [...]
The Evolution of the Modern Day Theatre Critic: Dramaturgy
No, seriously, hang on for a second, this could work. But first I have to admit this isn’t exactly my original idea, actually I’m sure it’s been raised and dropped and explored on many different levels in many different places, but for me, it came out of a recent conversation with critic Sarah Taylor Ellis [...]
Critique of the Week
A RAISIN IN THE SUN & CLYBOURNE PARK Anthony Byrnes – Opening the Curtain Okay, what’s this whole Clybourne Park – A Raisin in the Sun connection at Center Theatre Group? Good question. Stick with me a minute because this gets a little tricky. A Raisin in the Sun is Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play revolving [...]
Houston, We Have a Problem! by Jay McAdams
The demons that plagued Whitney Houston have also got Los Angeles theatre by the throat! No, not the drugs. Drugs were just the medication chosen to numb her nonstop pain from this disease. I know this because I am a recovering patient, a carrier of this viral spiral downward. I am one who has suffered from wanting to [...]
Critique of the Week
ELEMENO PEA Bob Verini – Variety Molly Smith Metzler makes a minor contribution to American class warfare with “Elemeno Pea.” In a profanity-laden variation on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” she has a trio of proles suffer under the chaotic lifestyles of the rich and feckless, then strains after an eleventh hour stab at poignancy. [...]
A Santorum of Sentiment
The most expensive show produced in America, perhaps the world, is our presidential election cycle. This circus of well-orchestrated disorder amazes the dumb, but surprises nobody cynical enough to recognize it as theater. For cynicism, far from a social evil, now serves as a preventive to the mania infecting the body politic. This is the [...]
Harvey Perr’s Best of Los Angeles Theatre 2011
Some good stuff here, LemonHeads, from one of my favorite writers in Los Angeles, a man I once killed – Harvey Perr, theatre critic for Stage and Cinema. Just check out this tidbit and then go read the rest of it. You will not regret it. Agree or disagree with the man, he is an [...]
The Dramaturg: On Twitter, or The Marketing of Theater to Kittens
News broke last week that The Los Angeles Times will be severely curtailing their theater listings. Even amid the extended and by now predictable death throes of the newspaper industry and its arts coverage in particular, this most recent development seemed to really alarm people. This is because the aforementioned curtailing would include listings online. [...]
Critique of the Week
OUR TOWN Sarah Taylor Ellis – Compositions on Theatre According to a woman sitting behind me at the Broad Stage on Sunday afternoon, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is performed at least once a day somewhere in the United States. The middle aged couple next to me remembered reading Our Town in high school, but they [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
A RAISIN IN THE SUN & CLYBOURNE PARK Don Shirley – LA Stage Watch The tweeters are coming, the tweeters are coming…into the theater. Center Theatre Group has joined the opera companies, orchestras and musical theater groups experimenting with “tweet seats” – sections of the theater in which the use of Twitter is allowed during [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Runner Up
A RAISIN IN THE SUN Frederik Sisa – The Front Page Online It always puzzles me when fellow critics take notes during a performance. I’ll notice them scribbling away on their note pads or in the margins of the press kit – sometimes sedately, sometimes madly – and wonder how they can possibly foster an [...]
You Know You’re an Actor When…
Okay how’s this for a game. Kinda like that, “You know you’re a Redneck when…” Now we have, “You know you’re an actor when…” Hey, my old buddy and master thespian, Eddie Kehler, already started: Eddie Kehler You know you’re an actor when-You pick your mom up at the airport, and you pop the trunk [...]
LA Times to cut all Online Calendar Listings
Except on Sundays. First a question: how many of you actually use the Times Calendar Listing to locate events? Hell, how many of you can FIND the LA Times Calendar Listings? I certainly don’t use them and haven’t in a while. Nevertheless… Strange. Cutting these listings in print is somewhat understandable, but to eradicate it [...]
Hollywood Fringe Festival Opens Registration for 2012 Extravaganza
And offers some tasty news to boot! The Fringe news: that they have teamed up with Open Fist Theatre and their space will be the new Fringe Central. Pulls the locus of control a little further East, but Open Fist is a great space and it sounds like a match made in Hollywood, er, Heaven. [...]
Autistic Child “Awakened” by Theatre Experience
This is pretty cool. Wonder if and how it can be worked into therapy for autistic children. I’m guessing it’s already happening. At least I hope it is.
Funded by Mellon Foundation “Project Audience” to be led by LA Stage Alliance and ExperienceLA
Saw this on the LASA Facebook page. Apparently, the Mellon Foundation has agreed to kick in $570,oo0 to fund this behemoth called “Project Audience”. Seems like they will be working through the already existing ExperienceLA consortium. The end goal as declared in the prospectus (see below) seems to be this: “Project Audience’s goals are to [...]
The Jesus Rap
Cool video about the difference between Jesus and the institution known as Christianity done in rap. Speaks to the change in mindset of the next generation and the questions they are now asking. I’m endlessly fascinated by the parallels between church and theater and how the institutions can simultaneously seem so at odds when they [...]
Enter The Dramaturg
Hello. I’m Dylan. I’m new here. Okay then, enough chit-chat. Let’s get started: I’m of the opinion that, right now, the most commonly understood fact about dramaturgy and dramaturgs is that no one understands what dramaturgy is or what dramaturgs do. And this haziness also applies to the dramaturgs themselves, who spend as much time [...]
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