It’s Time, which opens a six-week run at the Ruskin Group Theatre, Santa Monica, on Oct. 21, originated from Paul Linke’s true story Time Flies When You’re Alive, an HBO Showcase. This journey celebrates the paths we choose in life and the resilience of a young family, once broken, living in Los Angeles. Created by the award-winning writer/performer Mr. Linke, … Read More
Rehearsals have begun for the world premiere of “Throw Me on the Burnpile and Light Me Up,” written and performed by the Oscar-nominated Lucy Alibar (Best Adapted Screenplay for “Beasts of the Southern Wild”). “Throw Me on the Burnpile…” begins previews Saturday, Sept 10, and opens Friday, Sept. 10, and continues through Oct. 2, at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas … Read More
Fresh off the Democratic Convention, Obama-ology, an appropriate sequence, continues a Friday-Sunday run at the Skylight Theatre, 1816 ½ N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles 90027, through August. Showtime tonight is 8:30, and Sunday performances start at 7 through Aug 28. Obama-ology runs in rep with the equally entertaining Church & State, which plays on Saturdays at 8:30 followed by Sunday … Read More
Review of Dinner at Home Between Deaths on stage at the Odyssey Theatre. There comes a moment in Dinner at Home Between Deaths when it seems like the characters will sail into the bleak waters charted by Swimming with Sharks, the singularly unpleasant film starring Kevin Spacey and Frank Whaley. We are mercifully spared the pointless nasty cynicism, but the … Read More
Pacific Resident Theatre of Venice is extending raconteur Orson Bean’s one-man show until March 13. “Safe at Home: An Evening with Orson Bean,” which opens on Friday, Jan, 22, at 703 Venice Blvd., Venice, will run on Fridays and Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 3. An undisputed triple threat, Mr. Bean has become a familiar name in entertainment to families … Read More
Merciless as it was, the 20th century did leave behind some pleasant ghosts amidst the carnage of technological development, such as the spirits of vaudeville and cabaret. Decades after its Golden Age and long after cinema ascended to the entertainment throne, vaudeville’s influence, if not its classical form, is unmistakable in today’s media. I remember two TV shows I used … Read More
Three years after his death, Ray Bradbury’s prose takes center stage in a Los Angeles theater reading opening on the anniversary of the author’s death. Ray Bradbury’s Pillar of Fire, a solo rendition of his novella of the same name by actor Bill Oberst Jr. presented as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival early next month. Previews at the Theatre of … Read More
What ever happened to teenaged Abigail Williams? Last we heard, she escaped Arthur Miller’s The Crucible – and the ruin she catalyzed in Salem – with money stolen from her Uncle Parris. Her fate was left to us to imagine for ourselves, based on our appraisal of her character. Was she a sociopath or merely a troubled opportunist? Malicious or … Read More
Review of I and You by Lauren Gunderson, on stage at the Fountain Theatre. I and You begins with a scenario that is beautiful in its simplicity and both poignant and funny in its staging: A sick, shut-in teenager named Caroline receives a visit from classmate Anthony to complete a class assignment on Walt Whitman. Throughout their time together, they … Read More
Review of Corktown ’57 on stage at the Odyssey Theatre. Science-fiction author Frank Herbert rightly observed that “Blood is thicker than water, but politics are thicker than blood.” Set in a Republican Irish neighbourhood in Philadelphia, Corktown ’57 deftly dramatizes the way in which familial bonds can be worn, frayed, and ultimately disintegrated by ideological conflict – in this case, … Read More
