Evan Henerson
Evan Henerson is a longtime arts and features writer who lives in Southern California. He is the former theater critic for the Los Angeles Daily News and has written for such publications as American Theatre, Playbill Online, Stage Directions and Backstage.
BWW Review: HADESTOWN at Ahmanson Theatre
BWW Review: HOODED OR BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES at Echo Theater Company At Atwater Village Theatre
BWW Review: A DEATH DEFYING ESCAPE at Hudson Guild Theater
BWW Review: POWER OF SAIL at Geffen Playhouse
BWW Review: PARADISE BLUE strike Gold at Geffen Playhouse
BWW Review: AN OCTOROON Plays (With) The Race Card
BWW Review: SOMETHING ROTTEN! at Kavli Theatre
BWW Review: HEAD OVER HEELS is a drag at the Pasadena Playhouse
BWW Review: STAND UP IF YOU'RE HERE TONIGHT Seeks a Human Connection
BWW Review: The Sweet Sounds of August Wilson: SEVEN GUITARS at A Noise WithinBWW Review: KING LEAR at Wallis Annenberg Center For The Arts
May 23, 2022
Despite some instances of inventive staging and plenty of technical blares and flashes, John Gould Rubin’s production is as wrongheaded as it is irritating to sit through.
BWW Review: VENUS IN FURS at Atwater Village Theater
May 15, 2022
The lady is four-alarm hot; the man, her plaything. The script is literate and cruelly funny, a simultaneous homage to its salacious source and to the craft and vagaries of live theater. Got your stole? Very good. So who out there is game for some kick-ass kink?
BWW Review: HADESTOWN at Ahmanson Theatre
May 5, 2022
HADESTOWN, the too-hot musical by Anais Mitchell directed by Rachel Chavkin, is a scorcher. Masterfully sung, elegantly staged and with a sensibility so romantic it could physically knock you over, the national tour of the 2019 Tony Award-winning musical parks at the Ahmanson through the end of May.
BWW Review: A DEATH DEFYING ESCAPE at Hudson Guild Theater
April 26, 2022
Prestidigitation factors heavily into ESCAPE, but it’s by no means the performance’s only draw. Directed by Lee Costello from a script by Carter, the 90-minute three-hander showcases Judy Carter as a talented performer and a deeply conflicted person who has navigated some bumpy terrain in her life.
BWW Review: HOODED OR BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES at Echo Theater Company At Atwater Village Theatre
April 11, 2022
Ahmed Best's production expertly blends fantasy, pop cultural references and the keen observation of a sharp script. HOODED is an instruction manual for lovers of good drama.
BWW Review: BARBS APLENTY IN SATIRE THE PLAY THAT YOU WANT at Road Theatre
March 25, 2022
The satirical juices flow through Michael John Garces’ production of THE PLAY YOU WANT. Set in the present day, the play offers a bunch of well-known, real-life figures who are sent up and ultimately knocked down to make Cubria’s point.
BWW Review: Stop the Music! Misguided Musicalized Movies light up THE REVUE, at Colony Theatre
March 23, 2022
Suppose you took a really good movie – or a crowd-pleaser - and you loaded it down with bad music. Or maybe not with atrocious music, but wrong-headed ditties. Or maybe you assigned the wrong composer for this particular cinematic genre.
BWW Review: ASSASSINS Shoots to Thrill
March 5, 2022
Los Angeles’s East West Players has a long and vibrant history with the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, making it hardly a news flash that the company would both take a – er – shot at the composer’s controversial 1990 work, ASSASSINS, and end up bringing it off so splendidly.
BWW Review: POWER OF SAIL at Geffen Playhouse
February 26, 2022
POWER OF SAIL is a smart firecracker of a play getting a blistering production at the Geffen Playhouse directed by Weyni Mengesha. Presenting itself initially as a debate masquerading as dramatic fiction, SAIL quickly pivots and deepens, morphing into a tale that is part character study, part thriller.
BWW Review: ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL at A Noise Within
February 21, 2022
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.
BWW Review: SLAVE PLAY Considers and Probes
February 21, 2022
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.
BWW Review: SOMETHING ROTTEN! at Kavli Theatre
February 6, 2022
If a playgoer knows anything about Shakespeare and/or musicals, then for sheer inventiveness, sweetness and curtain-to-curtain smiles, SOMETHING ROTTEN! has you covered.
BWW Review: Touring CHRISTMAS CAROL Lights up the Season
December 11, 2021
Directed by Thomas Caruso from the original production helmed by Matthew Warchus, the L.A. production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL is delightful if not magical, certainly enough to scratch anybody’s holiday itch and maybe a little bit more.
BWW Review: WINTERTIME is a romantic hot toddy up north
December 5, 2021
Charles L. Mee’s rumination on the foibles of love and the love of foibles is enjoying a gloriously self-indulgent revival at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre through December 19. The Les Waters-directed production is every inch an old home week occasion at Berkeley Rep, featuring longtime company members James Carpenter, Sharon Lockwood and Lori Holt.
BWW Review: THE BAND'S VISIT is an Occasion Not to be Missed
December 5, 2021
Based on a 2007 movie and a premise that you wish actually happened (even though it didn’t), the musical, directed by David Cromer, is a gentle ode to open minds, tolerance, wrong turns and – sure – faith.
BWW Review: PARADISE BLUE strike Gold at Geffen Playhouse
November 24, 2021
PARADISE BLUE, a play that contains music, begins with the sound of a sublime note issued by a trumpet and concludes, a couple of riveting hours later with an equally beautiful strain…followed by a far more discordant sound.
BWW Review: HEAD OVER HEELS is a drag at the Pasadena Playhouse
November 19, 2021
If you are a person who enjoys a good “out of sync,” then you belong in the turbulence-riddled realm of Arcadia by way of the Pasadena Playhouse where kings are queens, handmaids love above their station and amazons are…well, lots of things to a lot of people.
BWW Review: The Sweet Sounds of August Wilson: SEVEN GUITARS at A Noise Within
November 2, 2021
Music and musicality run through the works of August Wilson like a sweet and impenetrable blues lick. There figures to be notes aplenty in any opus titled SEVEN GUITARS, the fifth play of Wilson’s cycle which is enjoying a muscular revival directed by Gregg T. Daniel at Pasadena’s A Noise Within.
BWW Review: STAND UP IF YOU'RE HERE TONIGHT Seeks a Human Connection
September 2, 2021
Sixty minutes spent in the company of an individual this thirsty for a human connection can be a bit exhausting, but it's well worth the investment.
BWW Review: Al Fresco CHARLIE BROWN in Sierra Madre taps Nostalgia
August 23, 2021
While there are laughs to be had, nostalgia to be indulged and charm aplenty in Christian Lebano’s production of YaGM Charlie Brown for the Sierra Madre Playhouse, there is also a certain quotient of angst that no bright costumes or cutesy set pieces can disguise.
May 23, 2022
Despite some instances of inventive staging and plenty of technical blares and flashes, John Gould Rubin’s production is as wrongheaded as it is irritating to sit through.
BWW Review: VENUS IN FURS at Atwater Village Theater
May 15, 2022
The lady is four-alarm hot; the man, her plaything. The script is literate and cruelly funny, a simultaneous homage to its salacious source and to the craft and vagaries of live theater. Got your stole? Very good. So who out there is game for some kick-ass kink?
BWW Review: HADESTOWN at Ahmanson Theatre
May 5, 2022
HADESTOWN, the too-hot musical by Anais Mitchell directed by Rachel Chavkin, is a scorcher. Masterfully sung, elegantly staged and with a sensibility so romantic it could physically knock you over, the national tour of the 2019 Tony Award-winning musical parks at the Ahmanson through the end of May.
BWW Review: A DEATH DEFYING ESCAPE at Hudson Guild Theater
April 26, 2022
Prestidigitation factors heavily into ESCAPE, but it’s by no means the performance’s only draw. Directed by Lee Costello from a script by Carter, the 90-minute three-hander showcases Judy Carter as a talented performer and a deeply conflicted person who has navigated some bumpy terrain in her life.
BWW Review: HOODED OR BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES at Echo Theater Company At Atwater Village Theatre
April 11, 2022
Ahmed Best's production expertly blends fantasy, pop cultural references and the keen observation of a sharp script. HOODED is an instruction manual for lovers of good drama.
BWW Review: BARBS APLENTY IN SATIRE THE PLAY THAT YOU WANT at Road Theatre
March 25, 2022
The satirical juices flow through Michael John Garces’ production of THE PLAY YOU WANT. Set in the present day, the play offers a bunch of well-known, real-life figures who are sent up and ultimately knocked down to make Cubria’s point.
BWW Review: Stop the Music! Misguided Musicalized Movies light up THE REVUE, at Colony Theatre
March 23, 2022
Suppose you took a really good movie – or a crowd-pleaser - and you loaded it down with bad music. Or maybe not with atrocious music, but wrong-headed ditties. Or maybe you assigned the wrong composer for this particular cinematic genre.
BWW Review: ASSASSINS Shoots to Thrill
March 5, 2022
Los Angeles’s East West Players has a long and vibrant history with the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, making it hardly a news flash that the company would both take a – er – shot at the composer’s controversial 1990 work, ASSASSINS, and end up bringing it off so splendidly.
BWW Review: POWER OF SAIL at Geffen Playhouse
February 26, 2022
POWER OF SAIL is a smart firecracker of a play getting a blistering production at the Geffen Playhouse directed by Weyni Mengesha. Presenting itself initially as a debate masquerading as dramatic fiction, SAIL quickly pivots and deepens, morphing into a tale that is part character study, part thriller.
BWW Review: ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL at A Noise Within
February 21, 2022
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.
BWW Review: SLAVE PLAY Considers and Probes
February 21, 2022
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.
BWW Review: SOMETHING ROTTEN! at Kavli Theatre
February 6, 2022
If a playgoer knows anything about Shakespeare and/or musicals, then for sheer inventiveness, sweetness and curtain-to-curtain smiles, SOMETHING ROTTEN! has you covered.
BWW Review: Touring CHRISTMAS CAROL Lights up the Season
December 11, 2021
Directed by Thomas Caruso from the original production helmed by Matthew Warchus, the L.A. production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL is delightful if not magical, certainly enough to scratch anybody’s holiday itch and maybe a little bit more.
BWW Review: WINTERTIME is a romantic hot toddy up north
December 5, 2021
Charles L. Mee’s rumination on the foibles of love and the love of foibles is enjoying a gloriously self-indulgent revival at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre through December 19. The Les Waters-directed production is every inch an old home week occasion at Berkeley Rep, featuring longtime company members James Carpenter, Sharon Lockwood and Lori Holt.
BWW Review: THE BAND'S VISIT is an Occasion Not to be Missed
December 5, 2021
Based on a 2007 movie and a premise that you wish actually happened (even though it didn’t), the musical, directed by David Cromer, is a gentle ode to open minds, tolerance, wrong turns and – sure – faith.
BWW Review: PARADISE BLUE strike Gold at Geffen Playhouse
November 24, 2021
PARADISE BLUE, a play that contains music, begins with the sound of a sublime note issued by a trumpet and concludes, a couple of riveting hours later with an equally beautiful strain…followed by a far more discordant sound.
BWW Review: HEAD OVER HEELS is a drag at the Pasadena Playhouse
November 19, 2021
If you are a person who enjoys a good “out of sync,” then you belong in the turbulence-riddled realm of Arcadia by way of the Pasadena Playhouse where kings are queens, handmaids love above their station and amazons are…well, lots of things to a lot of people.
BWW Review: The Sweet Sounds of August Wilson: SEVEN GUITARS at A Noise Within
November 2, 2021
Music and musicality run through the works of August Wilson like a sweet and impenetrable blues lick. There figures to be notes aplenty in any opus titled SEVEN GUITARS, the fifth play of Wilson’s cycle which is enjoying a muscular revival directed by Gregg T. Daniel at Pasadena’s A Noise Within.
BWW Review: STAND UP IF YOU'RE HERE TONIGHT Seeks a Human Connection
September 2, 2021
Sixty minutes spent in the company of an individual this thirsty for a human connection can be a bit exhausting, but it's well worth the investment.
BWW Review: Al Fresco CHARLIE BROWN in Sierra Madre taps Nostalgia
August 23, 2021
While there are laughs to be had, nostalgia to be indulged and charm aplenty in Christian Lebano’s production of YaGM Charlie Brown for the Sierra Madre Playhouse, there is also a certain quotient of angst that no bright costumes or cutesy set pieces can disguise.
