Craig Schwartz News

A Noise Within presents THE BOOK OF WILL by Lauren Gunderson this weekend. See first look photos of the production!

As solidly staged and forcefully acted as this TWILIGHT is, the production is both problematic and comes across feeling like something is missing.

Where the classics are concerned, L.A. doesn’t have any institution stronger than A Noise Within and if director Guillermo Cienfuegos, his wonderful actors and designers are working hard, they sure make it looks easy. From the first glimpse of that rampaged stage to the final dance, this MUCH ADO is an end-to-end delight.

First look photos! Hilarious, profound and all-around irresistible, William Shakespeare’s quintessential rom-com, Much Ado About Nothing, gets the A Noise Within treatment as part of its “Daring to Love” season. 

Quite possibly, a perfect production.  Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage’s Tony Award-nominated CLYDE’S at the Mark Taper Forum is heartfelt, funny, and seriously delicious.

It doesn’t help that director Matthew Dunster plays much of Danny Robins’ script for laughs when it could have been amping up some suspense. It would have been more cohesive and had a bigger impact if it hadn’t played as a comedy for most of its 2-hour run time, though it wouldn’t have been enough to make the story land.

The U.S. premiere of “2:22 – A Ghost Story” opens tonight, November 4, 2022, playing at Center Theatre Group / Ahmanson Theatre. Get a first look at photos here!

What did our critic think of ON BECKETT at A.C.T. Geary Theatre? On Beckett is an obvious labor of love, combining the phenomenal clown skills of the great Bill Irwin with his affection for the works of Samuel Beckett. Great comics often make great dramatic actors (e.g., Gleason, Lewis, Williams) and Irwin can, in a split second and with the aid of some clown props, morph into Beckett's complex, Irish voiced characters. The result is a stunning one-man show that delights and challenges.

What did our critic think of ON BECKETT at A.C.T.? Master clown Bill Irwin is the perfect guide through the world of Samuel Beckett in this beguiling and exceedingly entertaining show that excavates the humor in the great master's work while still honoring its underlying existential angst.

Bridging the 1985 original with the contemporary leaves one with a sense of disconnection

Jane Wagner’s one-woman show “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” that features “Saturday Night Live” star Cecily Strong is opening at Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum. Directed by Leigh Silverman, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” runs through October 23, 2022. See photos here!

Koons' moody production at the Fleishman is trying to tap into a noirish whodunnit vibe in which the story’s professed detective is the one person in the building (or in this case, the amphitheatre) who doesn’t realize that he is himself is also the murderer.

How do lies become truths? A Noise Within presents George Orwell’s savage satire, Animal Farm, directed by ANW co-artistic director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott. See photos from the production.

The revival of Pearl Cleage’s rich and beautiful work “Blues for an Alabama Sky” opens Wednesday, April 13, 2022, at 8 p.m. at Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum and continues through May 8.

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill is a play with music written by Lanie Robertson and this production is directed by Wren T. Brown. The musical premiered in 1986 in Atlanta, Georgia and its story recounts some events of Billie Holiday’s life leading up to this performance at Emerson’s four months shy of her death in 1959. Emerson’s is a small bar in South Philadelphia and the time is a midnight performance by Lady Day. Set to the backdrop of a piano center stage and a few cocktail tables around the space, we relive some events of Ms. Holiday’s life as told through stories found deep in her memory but living on the surface as if they just happened yesterday.

National LatinX Playwriting Award winner Benjamin Benne’s stunning nee play, ALMA, launches the new theater season at the Kirk Doulas Theater and it is triumphantly resonant.

Three men stand on a stage for over three hours, trekking through 150 years of history in The Lehman Trilogy and it's the most invigorating evening imaginable. Directed by Sam Mendes and written by Stefano Massini—and adapted by National Theatre dramaturg Ben Power -- the play is a remarkable journey of three immigrant brothers from Bavaria, who travel to America to start a small business that evolves into the money-making machine known as Lehman Bros.

The world premiere of “Alma” opens Sunday, March 13, 2022, at 6:30 p.m. at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre and continues through April 3, 2022. Written by up-and-coming playwright Benjamin Benne and directed by Juliette Carrillo, this new work will reopen the Douglas after more than two years. Produced in cooperation with American Blues Theater, the cast of “Alma” features Sabrina Fest as daughter Angel and Cheryl Umaña as mother Alma.

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL undeniably has at its center, a butterfly-in-waiting and a marvelous performer waiting to take her on. From leading lady Erika Soto to company stalwart Deborah Strang, Nike Doukas’s solidly entertaining production of ALL’S WELL boasts a particularly strong core of women who anchor this effort with great skill.

Unquestionably, we all should listen...and talk...and occasionally laugh, and sometimes we should even be screaming until our lungs are on the brink of explosion. And we can be doing some of this to a Rihanna soundtrack.