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Evan Henerson

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.






MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

Review: A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at A Noise Within
Review: A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at A Noise Within
May 23, 2025

Featuring a cast who seamlessly transport us to a working-class Dublin community in 1964 – with music to match – ANW’s production spotlights not just its leading player, but pens a love letter to the lure of the stage

Review: JUST LIKE US at Los Angeles Theatre Center
Review: JUST LIKE US at Los Angeles Theatre Center
May 10, 2025

Tenderly staged by director Fidel Gomez, the docudrama boils our stomach juices more over the circumstances of our country than over what we witness being played out among the central characters.

Review: FURLOUGH'S PARADISE at Geffen Playhouse
Review: FURLOUGH'S PARADISE at Geffen Playhouse
May 1, 2025

The clock is ticking, in the moment and in a greater sense, and a.k. payne’s characters can’t fully enjoy the luxury of a deep restorative breath. So neither, in this haunting but quite tender play, should we.

Review: THE LOST CELLPHONE WEEKEND at Brickhouse Theater
Review: THE LOST CELLPHONE WEEKEND at Brickhouse Theater
April 24, 2025

LOST CELLPHONE WEEKEND takes a clever premise – the reimagining of Billy Wilder’s 1945 film THE LOST WEEKEND, replacing it with cellphone/internet addiction and setting it to music – and has a lot of fun with the endeavor

Review: CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND at East West Players
Review: CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND at East West Players
March 2, 2025

Chay Yew’s production for East West Players - improbably the play’s L.A. premiere seven years after its debut at South Coast Repertory – is as raw and raucous as it is timely. Yee urges us to remember the past, be watchful of the future and enjoy the holy hell out of the process.

Review: HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD at Hollywood Pantages
Review: HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD at Hollywood Pantages
February 28, 2025

This CURSED CHILD is a banquet of magical delights that also happens to be a crackling good story, which should delight series neophytes and Potter-lovers alike.

Review: TWELFTH NIGHT at Antaeus Theatre
Review: TWELFTH NIGHT at Antaeus Theatre
February 21, 2025

What did our critic think of TWELFTH NIGHT at Antaeus Theatre?

Review: OLD FRIENDS at Ahmanson Theatre
Review: OLD FRIENDS at Ahmanson Theatre
February 20, 2025

To watch these singers perform these numbers is to dream about entire revivals of Sondheim shows built around some of these actors, maybe even productions that have their genesis at the Ahmanson.

Review: FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT at Mark Taper Forum
Review: FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT at Mark Taper Forum
February 13, 2025

With its gung-ho company of actors, clever construction, wicked cool set and general overall braininess, FAKE IT sails blithely along for 90 minutes, liberally trafficking in chuckles and cringes...FAKE IT’s physical and intellectual humor aren’t always completely in synch with each other, but the play is smart enough and directed with enough crispness to keep things entertaining.

Review: THE SEAGULL at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
Review: THE SEAGULL at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
February 7, 2025

For his production of THE SEAGULL at the Odyssey Theatre, Katzman deploys a mostly solid cast (two of whom are also producers), a talented technical team and a vision. The results are plenty engaging.

Review: FARM HALL at Pico Playhouse
Review: FARM HALL at Pico Playhouse
January 25, 2025

The production’s thrifty staging directed by Judith Hendra for Topanga Actors Company feels stagnant instead of urgent, indifferent where it could have been thought-provoking.

Review: THE CIVIL TWILIGHT at Broadwater Studio Theatre
Review: THE CIVIL TWILIGHT at Broadwater Studio Theatre
January 2, 2025

This deceptively dark world premiere, co-produced by People with Plays Productions and the Road Theatre Company at the Broadwater Studio Theatre, is not one for those looking to 2025 with visions of sunny skies ahead.

Review: TROUBIES’ HOME ALONE-LY HEARTS CLUB BAND at Colony Theater
Review: TROUBIES’ HOME ALONE-LY HEARTS CLUB BAND at Colony Theater
December 15, 2024

The mixture this time around is entertaining if not the company’s A-game. HOME ALONE-LY HEARTS CLUB, while providing plenty of laughs, feels thin…thin on merriment, thin on satirical edge and certainly thin on script.

Review: WAITING FOR GODOT at Geffen Playhouse
Review: WAITING FOR GODOT at Geffen Playhouse
November 19, 2024

As embodied by Rainn Wilson and Aasif Mandvi in the revival of GODOT at the Geffen Playhouse, Vladimir and Estragon are a formidable pair. Beckett’s play about the unknowable darkness of the human condition has - go figure! - long been catnip for comedians, and you get why Wilson and Mandvi would want a whack at them.

Review: BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL at Hollywood Pantages
Review: BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL at Hollywood Pantages
November 12, 2024

Is there some sort of formula for roping in both fans of a hit movie and stage hounds, to catch lightning in a new medium? Judging by what the musical's book writer Bob Gale, director John Rando and the musical team must have been thinking, the answer is you slavishly remake the movie on stage.

Review: THE PIANO LESSON at A Noise Within
Review: THE PIANO LESSON at A Noise Within
October 27, 2024

Barely six months since braving Wilson's KING HEDLEY II, the company and director Gregg T. Daniel are back an impactful - if leisurely – PIANO LESSON. Where HEDLEY was grim, this one is ghostly, rueful and full of music.

Review: AMERICAN IDIOT at Mark Taper Forum
Review: AMERICAN IDIOT at Mark Taper Forum
October 16, 2024

With a packed Taper house, a stage full of hot young singer/dancers performing, signing and middle fingering their hopes and disillusionments into an iconic rock score; yeah life doesn’t suck too much. Neither does this production, although ironically, here’s wishing that that the experience could have been even more roof-raising,

Review: BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL at Morgan-Wixon Theater
Review: BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL at Morgan-Wixon Theater
October 10, 2024

From the second we enter the Morgan-Wixon, ushered in by black cowl-clad members of the Cult of Bat Boy; from the moment we see that pointy-eared effigy strung up to the rafters, we’re primed for two plus hours of four alarm horror camp.






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