All Entries in the "Weeklies" Category
Trailer Park 2013 is STILL Live!
Yes indeed, yes indeedy, LemonHeads, the inaugural launch of Trailer Park is now live! Thanks to the folks at Hollywood Fringe – especially Ben and Stacy and Dave – as well as the peeps at Combined Artform – that would be the QuinnMeister – you can now catch Trailer Park right here (see video below) [...]
Critique of the Week
I’m late with the COW this week, but hey, it’s Fringe. But being that it IS Fringe, this one from Tony is a tasy treat. Especially like the little anecdote at the end. Tony has that way sometimes. PHILOSOPHY IN THE BOUDOIR Tony Frankel – Stage and Cinema PHALLUS IN BLUNDERLAND Who has been accused [...]
The Monday Moment
My four-year-old son Max leading a dance movement piece at Fringe Family on Sunday. I call this one “flock of wounded birds”. He’s the little guy in the orange shirt.
The Los Angeles Post Interviews Bitter Lemons’ Editor
Yes, I just spoke of myself in the third person. It’s a painful occurrence, trust me. Below is a little interview conducted by Los Angeles Post theater critic Rose Desena. It’s a veritable potpourri on the history of our site and the state of Los Angeles Theater. It’s interesting, I think, maybe, I dunno, so [...]
Trailer Park 2013 is Live!
Yes indeed, yes indeedy, LemonHeads, the inaugural launch of Trailer Park is now live! Thanks to the folks at Hollywood Fringe – especially Ben and Stacy and Dave – as well as the peeps at Combined Artform – that would be the QuinnMeister – you can now catch Trailer Park right here (see video below) [...]
The Tony Awards Entertainment Explosion or “The Monday Moment”
Wow. What more can be said about this dude Neil Patrick Harris? Sign him up for the Oscars, shit, just let him host everything he’s available for. He is simply a walking talking, signing, dancing talent bomb. This opening from the Tony Awards last night is about as spectacular as you can get. Unfortunately, I [...]
Critique of the Week
This critique has some serious giddy-up-and-go to it, plus Liffany is just a cool name. And one I haven’t heard from, I think…ever? Apologies if I have. So it’s this week’s COW. Boom. PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT: THE MUSICAL Liffany Chen – Neon Tommy The musical “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” adapted from the [...]
Let’s Fringe! Tuesday Broadcasts
Tuesday, 6/4 @10am The Blood They Shed Slingshot Media The Blood They Shed is a Broadway-style, one-man show written by Aaron White, Co-Director of the NAACP Award winning play, THE DANCE: The History of American Minstrelsy (featured in Cincinnati Fringe Festival, 2008). The Blood They Shed is a coming of age theatrical experience about a [...]
Critique of the Week
More an American History Lesson than a critique, nevertheless, this is a beaut from Sir Tony the Frankel. THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS Tony Frankel – Stage and Cinema AMERICAN TRAGEDY BECOMES MUSICAL COMEDY 1931 was a crossroads in American history. With no economic recovery in sight, the Depression had people edgy, and when Americans are edgy, [...]
Let’s Fringe! Monday Broadcasts
Monday, June 3 @11am Cleaner Than Blood Ensemble Theatre Award-winning playwright Jen Silverman and director Alexander Thomas Scott bring you a night of revenge, identity and fate that spins wildly out of control. Opens June 11th at the Lounge Theatre. 1pm Me Love Me ensemble company A new play about a man, his girlfriend, his biological clone, and their [...]
Funding Fridays Fringe Edition 2: Gracie & Rose
Friday May 31 Funding Friday: Fringe Edition! Host: Cindy Marie Jenkins Guests: Anastasia Coon & Che’Rae Adams of Gracie & Rose* Have questions about crowd-funding, fund-raising or the Fringe? Ask in the comments below or tweet to @CindyMarieJ Want to be a guest on Funding Friday? Put your link in the comments with a Friday you’re available. Watch more Funding [...]
The Friday Feature
This is just so cool and so fun. Be careful at work, because you’re gonna wanna get on up and get lucky! Daft Punk!
Let’s Fringe: Town Hall Teasers
Navigate the Hollywood Fringe Festival! First two are dark but they get better. Quick teasers I shot at the last Fringe Town Hall, asking artists to pitch their show in 20 seconds. Some really did it: ‘ Ceremony w/ Michael Kass Brilliant Traces Bobbywood by Bill Ratner A Man of No Importance (musical) The Real [...]
Critique of the Week
This is a brutally honest review from Ms. Hunter. Of the show, of herself and in many ways of the state of much of Los Angeles Theater and the state of theater criticism. Mediocrity is always more painful that just plain bad. You can almost taste the bile in this one even though it’s not [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
This one caught my eye because I read it almost immediately after reading David C. Nichols’ LA Times’ review of the same play. The stark contrast between this one by Jesse and David’s praiseworthy critique was striking and I always find these collisions of perception to be fascinating. Who is right? Who is wrong? Is [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Runner Up
This is highly unorthodox, nevertheless…an “anonymous reader” (I know who you are!) sent me the link to this “review” from an “audience member” who saw Stages of Gray’s production of “True West”. The reader did so because of Randall Gray’s checkered past where he decided to review his own play and try and pass it [...]
The Saturday Saying
“They ask me how I can go to theater four or five times a week. I just look at them and ask how they can watch television four or five nights a week. Everyone has their own church at which they worship. Mine happens to be theater.” Lee Melville – LA Stage Times
Critique of the Week
As usual, Tony is laser sharp with his assessment of a show. I saw this production last night and I have to say this appraisal of the production is about as close to how I would assess it as well. I would have been a lot harsher on the direction though, the “concert style staging” [...]
The Monday Moment
Wow. Musical Theater in space, if you will. This is a music video version – the first ever recorded in space apparently – of Bowie’s “Space Oddity” performed live in the international space station by Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield. It’s a bit precious here and there, but mostly it’s quite spectacular and oddly moving. [...]
Critique of the Week
This one from Anthony Byrnes is more conversational in tone – probably due to the fact that he actually READS these on air at KCRW – but in the writing it’s an interesting and engaging style as well, kind of like a folksy storyteller pulling up by the fire. This praise is in direct contrast [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
The two critiques that stood out for me this week were both praises, but differed widely in their presentation, which I like. This one here from Myron Meisel is a veritable burst of intellectual joy and Myron’s writing is always smart and curious. JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter The [...]
The Saturday Saying
“What did he say?” Standing on a stage and repeating lines does not make one an actor. For those of us who were introduced to theater during the heyday of the great Britons—Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, et al—it is a great disappointment to listen to the mushy ramblings of many of today’s “stars”.The current stage actors’ mantra, “act [...]
The Antaeus Company Shows Us How to do the Teaser Trailer
It’s a little long – they’ll figure that out as well – but clearly what the The Antaeus Company has already figured out – and what we’ve been pushing here for years at the Lemon – is that the teaser trailer for theater needs to ENTERTAIN. It needs to entertain to such a degree that [...]
Critique of the Week
Like a master class in theater history every time this dude deigns to offer us a morsel. Too few and far between for my tastes. Ernest! Pick it up for Chrissakes! HURACLOWN Ernest Kearney – Working Author Clowning is a very serious business. Emmett Kelly, Bill Irwin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, the great Vyacheslav [...]
Funding Friday: Fringe Edition!
Friday May 3 5:30pmPT/8:30pmET Live Broadcast Funding Friday: Fringe Edition! Hosted by Cindy Marie Jenkins Guests include: Fund-raising Consultant Michael Kass Lily Mercer & Allie Costa: Before a Fall Danielle Ozymandias: The Other F Word Matthew Hill: Jason <3 Medea, a fresh look at an ancient love story Have questions about crowd-funding, fund-raising or the Fringe? Ask in [...]
Lost Moon Radio at South Coast Rep this Weekend
One of my favorite companies, Lost Moon Radio, is doing a weekend of shows this weekend only, May 2-5, 2013, at South Coast Repertory as a part of their Studio Series. If you’ve never seen them, go, if you’ve seen them before, go again and bring a friend. If you can’t do either pass the [...]
Critique of the Week
This is something new for Bob Verini. I’ve always thought of Bob as a master of the shorter form review, along with Bill Raden of LA Weekly. They are able to say a lot about a show in a very short time. But now that Bob is writing more and more for ArtsInLA, he is [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
Andrew Moore gets down and dirty with the Red Bastard. RED BASTARD Andrew Moore – MadTheatrics There’s a nagging little imp inside our minds that is telling us we could do more, accomplish more, be more. We try to shut him up with pills or alcohol or simply being “too busy,” but he’s there, waiting [...]
The Saturday Saying(s)
“The ancient Greeks, with their complicated notion of catharsis, thought theater could speak to these questions. Great plays, like Medea or MacBeth, have taken us into unspeakable acts and if not made sense of them – at least honestly plumbed their depths. The folks at Boston Court couldn’t have imagined how their choice of plays [...]
The Monday Moment
Okay, I’ve been trying not to get caught up in the recent Insane Gamma Delta Sorority Letter craze, but then I saw this interpretation from actor Michael Shannon over at Funny or Die and now I am posting unashamedly because we all need to laugh today. And you will, oh, you will. Alert: this is absolutely [...]
