The professors and university mandarins having lunch at an elegant UCLA campus restaurant the other day had no idea that seated inconspicuously among them was a cultural revolutionary. Weari…
"Mozart in the Jungle" star Saffron Burrows tries to channel Jacqueline Kennedy in this one-woman production at the Wallis, but a big wig can't make up for a thin script.
I felt sure two of this year's Oscar contenders would satisfy my seasonal yearning for intelligent screen storytelling, but in both cases, I found myself quarreling with the writing and the …
Like many Americans, I find it increasingly easy to talk myself out of going to the movies. There's plenty to watch at home and so little to lure me back onto the roads and into those unfath…
Boston Court in Pasadena presents a new production of Tennessee Williams' classic, set in contemporary times and propelled by Michael Michetti's pitch-perfect direction.
Michael Michetti's revitalizing production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Boston Court Performing Arts Center shakes out the cobwebs of an American classic that has…
The last play in Quiara Alegria Hudes' trilogy about an Iraq War veteran trying to forge a life back in the States proves more difficult to stage effectively in this Latino Theater Company p…
When we last checked in on Elliot at the end of "Water by the Spoonful," the middle work in Quiara AlegrÃa Hudes' three-play Elliot cycle, he was in Puerto Rico with his cousin Yaz scatte…
A new translation of Chekhov's play manages to modernize a classic without updating it. The result is a strong, smartly acted production under the direction of playwright Richard Nelson.
Sometimes you don't know how much you need Anton Chekhov until you re-encounter him. "Uncle Vanya," one of the Russian writer's four dramatic masterpieces, is on view here at the Old Globe's…
Tim Robbins' theater company looks to its own members' family stories to create a new work about America's immigrants. The result is a little monotonous but ultimately powerful " and deeply …
"The New Colossus," a performance work created by the Actors' Gang in collaboration with company artistic director Tim Robbins, is inspired by the stories of ensemble members' ancestors who …
Quiara Alegria Hudes' powerful, Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a family grappling with ghosts of the past opens at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles " but not without some problems.
At a time when the issue of immigration is used like a political football, it's easy for some to distance themselves emotionally from the debate. Martyna Majok's drama pulls us back into rea…
Darja, an immigrant from Poland who calls the industrial wastelands of New Jersey home, can regularly be found waiting for a bus near the factory where, until it was shut down, she was emplo…
Quiara Alegria Hudes' Pulitzer-nominated play centers on an Iraq-bound Marine whose story is interwoven with his father's Vietnam past and his grandfather's Korean War history. The result is…
Artist and choreographer Ann Carlson calls upon a cast of two women, two men, one boy, three herding dogs and a flock of sheep to explore "instinct, sentience, attachment and loss."
To bah or not to bah " that is not the question of "Doggie Hamlet," a site-specific performance work by choreographer and director Ann Carlson that involves a flock of sheep, three herding d…
Critic Charles McNulty takes in the scene as Bradley Whitford, Joshua Malina and a starry cast lead a one-night-only reading organized by the Fountain Theatre at L.A. City Hall. The message:…
At the electric reading of William Goldman's screenplay for "All the President's Men" at Los Angeles City Hall on Saturday night, Watergate once again had the freshness of current events. Co…
The irreverent Chicago theater company the Hypocrites brings its adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical to Pasadena.
"Shakespeare in Love" at South Coast Rep captures the rom-com spirit of Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard's Oscar-winning screenplay, while Philip Whitchurch's "Shakespeare his wife and the dog" …
Welcome to the Shakespeare Emporium, your one-stop shopping choice for all your Shakespeare accessories. Tote bags and sweatshirts will advertise your love of the Bard. A Stratford-upon-Avon…
One of the last performances I saw in 2017 was one of the sliest: Billy Crudup in David Cale's "Harry Clarke" at New York's Vineyard Theatre. I caught this off-Broadway solo work at the end …
Playwright Bess Wohl, who trained as an actor at the Yale School of Drama, has written a play that asks actors to do more than speak the speech trippingly on the tongue, as Hamlet advised th…